Prisoner Of Your Own Mind Quotes

Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose... ...Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.

Don't exist. Live. Get out, explore. Thrive. Challenge authority. Challenge yourself. Evolve. Change forever. Become who you say you always will. Keep moving. Don't stop. Start the revolution. Become a freedom fighter. Become a superhero. Just because everyone doesn't know your name doesn't mean you dont matter. Are you happy? Have you ever been happy? What have you done today to matter? Did you exist or did you live? How did you thrive? Become a chameleon-fit in anywhere. Be a rockstar-stand out everywhere. Do nothing, do everything. Forget everything, remember everyone. Care, don't just pretend to. Listen to everyone. Love everyone and nothing at the same time. Its impossible to be everything,but you can't stop trying to do it all. All I know is that I have no idea where I am right now. I feel like I am in training for something, making progress with every step I take. I fear standing still. It is my greatest weakness. I talk big, but often don't follow through. That's my biggest problem. I don't even know what to think right now. It's about time I start to take a jump. Fuck starting to take. Just jump-over everything. Leap. It's time to be aggressive. You've started to speak your mind, now keep going with it, but not with the intention of sparking controversy or picking a germane fight. Get your gloves on, it's time for rebirth. There IS no room for the nice guys in the history books. THIS IS THE START OF A REVOLUTION. THE REVOLUTION IS YOUR LIFE. THE GOAL IS IMMORTALITY. LET'S LIVE, BABY. LET'S FEEL ALIVE AT ALL TIMES. TAKE NO PRISONERS. HOLD NO SOUL UNACCOUNTABLE, ESPECIALLY NOT YOUR OWN. IF SOMETHING DOESN'T HAPPEN, IT'S YOUR FAULT. Make this moment your reckoning. Your head has been held under water for too long and now it is time to rise up and take your first true breath. Do everything with exact calculation, nothing without meaning. Do not make careful your words, but make no excuses for what you say. Fuck em' all. Set a goal for everyday and never be tired.

We live in a world with a lot of insecure, jealous people. Some of them are our best friends. They are blood relatives. Failure terrifies them. So does our success. Because when we transcend what we once thought possible, push our limits, and become more, our light reflects off all the walls they’ve built up around them. Your light enables them to see the contours of their own prison, their own self-limitations. But if they are truly the great people you always believed them to be, their jealousy will evolve, and soon their imagination might hop its fence, and it will be their turn to change for the better.

You fool – you are afraid of being alone with you own mind. You just better learn to know yourself, to make sure decisions before it is too late. Your room is not your prison. You are.

Allah gives us gifts, but then we come to love them as we should only love Him. We take those gifts and inject them into our hearts, until they take over. Soon we cannot live without them. Every waking moment is spent in contemplation of them, in submission and worship to them. The mind and the heart that was created by Allah, for Allah, becomes the property of someone or something else. And then the fear comes. The fear of loss begins to cripple us. The gift—that should have remained in our hands—takes over our heart, so the fear of losing it consumes us. Soon, what was once a gift becomes a weapon of torture and a prison of our own making. How can we be freed of this? At times, in His infinite mercy, Allah frees us…by taking it away. As a result of it being taken, we turn to Allah wholeheartedly. In that desperation and need, we ask, we beg, we pray. Through the loss, we reach a level of sincerity and humility and dependence on Him which we would otherwise not reach—had it not been taken from us. Through the loss, our hearts turn entirely to face Him.

It's funny to be a prisoner of yourself. Like you're being bullied by your own mind and you're afraid of it, but it's also you and it's extremely confusing.

If you're going to be a prisoner of your own mind, the least you can do is make sure it's well furnished.

Parents and adults in our society found a way to preserve their own self-concept, and that was through feeding themselves, as well as you, with the belief “It’s for your own good.” We are fed this lie from day one. Even those of us who grow up in the most loving households are fed this lie. We make our children sit through hours of lessons in the prison-like environment we call school and tell them it’s for their own good. We discipline them in ways that are painful to their minds and bodies and tell them that it’s for their own good.

...the biggest prison is in your own mind, and in your pocket you already hold the key: the willingness to risk; the willingness to release yourself from judgment and reclaim your innocence, accepting and loving yourself for who you really are--human, imperfect, and whole.

Prison is a frame of thought, we’re all our own prisons, were each our own wardens and we do our own time. See prison in your mind, can’t you see I’m free?

Incarceration is a sustained, lifetime lynching, meant to discard your soul and make a shell of you in plain life. Make you into your monster self, the beast that comes out when you are forced to survive in the absence of love and safety. Never mind that most of us come broken and traumatized, we still are no longer worth our own humanity. We are a criminal. We need punishment and to be rehabilitated. We need shame and exclusion. We are not worthy of control of our own lives; we are hopeless and evil. We are not individuals or of a womb or a family. We are not absent from anywhere else; because we are here, we simply non-exist. The world is better without us. In this society we are taught our crimes are the summations of our lives and define the limits of our possibility. Our only potential is to harm and destroy.

You might not see it now, but you are stronger than you can ever imagine. You cannot become comfortable in your pain. You have to let the pain that you feel turn you into a rose without thorns. There are sixteen pieces on the chess board. The king is the most important piece, but the difference is that the queen is the most powerful piece! You are a queen, you can maneuver around your opponents; they do not have the power over your life, your mind or soul. You might think you’ve been a prisoner, but that is your past’ Look in the now and work your way to how you want your future to be. Exercise your thoughts into a pattern of letting go, and think positively about more of what you want than what you do not want. Queen! You are a queen! As a matter of fact, you are the queen! Act as if you know it! You are powerful, determined, strong, and you can make the biggest and most extravagant move and put it into action. Lights, camera, strike a pose and own it! It is yours to own!

Prison is a frame of thought, we’re all our own prisons, were each our own wardens and we do our own time. See prison is in your mind, can’t you see I’m free?

you see it.” Gurdjieff, a great spiritual teacher who taught in Europe and America in the early decades of the twentieth century, noted that if you think you’re free and you don’t know you are in prison, you can’t escape. Gurdjieff saw us as being in a prison of our own habits of mind. Unless we understand how we are conditioned by our desires, we remain stuck in the reality they create, like a television program with an ad that keeps repeating over and over, implanting a subliminal message while we watch the show. BEYOND THOUGHT In the West we get rewarded for rational knowledge and learning. But only when you see that the assumptions you’ve been working under are not valid,

You’ve got to determine your own fate. Make your own choices. And I have to let you.” “Thank you,” he forces out. It’s not a polite thing to say among the Folk, but Jude ought to hear it. Those words absolve him of no debt. He’s let her down and possibly made her proud of him, too. His family cares about him in ways that are far too complex and layered for it to come from enchantment, and that is a profound relief. “For listening to you? Don’t worry. I won’t make it a habit.” Walking up to him, she puts her arms around him, bumping her chin against his chest. “You’re so annoyingly tall. I used to be able to carry you on my shoulders.” “I could carry you,” Oak offers. “You used to kick me with your hooves,” she tells him. “I wouldn’t mind a chance for revenge.” “I bet.” He laughs.

the biggest prison is in your own mind, and in your pocket you already hold the key: the willingness to take absolute responsibility for your life; the willingness to risk; the willingness to release yourself from judgment and reclaim your innocence, accepting and loving yourself for who you really are—human, imperfect, and whole.

As it is not a settled question, you must clear your mind of the fancy with which we all begin as children, that the institutions under which we live, including our legal ways of distributing income and allowing people to own things, are natural, like the weather. They are not. Because they exist everywhere in our little world, we take it for granted that they have always existed and must always exist, and that they are self-acting. That is a dangerous mistake. They are in fact transient makeshifts; and many of them would not be obeyed, even by well-meaning people, if there were not a policeman within call and a prison within reach. They are being changed continually by Parliament, because we are never satisfied with them.... At the elections some candidates get votes by promising to make new laws or to get rid of old ones, and others by promising to keep things just as they are. This is impossible. Things will not stay as they are. Changes that nobody ever believed possible take place in a few generations. Children nowadays think that spending nine years in school, oldage and widows’ pensions, votes for women, and short-skirted ladies in Parliament or pleading in barristers’ wigs in the courts are part of the order of Nature, and always were and ever shall be; but their great-grandmothers would have set down anyone who told them that such things were coming as mad, and anyone who wanted them to come as wicked.

the biggest prison is in your own mind, and in your pocket you already hold the key:

I reminded myself that I was there to share the most important truth I know, that the biggest prison is in your own mind, and in your pocket you already hold the key: the willingness to take absolute responsibility for your life; the willingness to risk; the willingness to release yourself from judgment and reclaim your innocence, accepting and loving yourself for who you really are—human, imperfect, and whole.

Perhaps we can help you, Prisoner. Meaning comes from purpose—” “—and purpose comes in many forms.” Veera steepled her fingers. Surprisingly, Jorrus did not. She said, “Have you ever considered the fact that everything we are originates from the remnants of stars that once exploded?” Jorrus said, “Vita ex pulvis.” “We are made from the dust of dead stars.” “I’m aware of the fact,” said Kira. “It’s a lovely thought, but I don’t see the relevance.” Jorrus said, “The relevance—” “—is in the logical extension of that idea.” Veera paused for a moment. “We are aware. We are conscious. And we are made from the same stuff as the heavens.” “Don’t you see, Prisoner?” said Jorrus. “We are the mind of the universe itself. We and the Jellies and all self-aware beings. We are the universe watching itself, watching and learning.” “And someday,” said Veera, “we, and by extension the universe, will learn to expand beyond this realm and save ourselves from otherwise inevitable extinction.” Kira said, “By escaping the heat death of this space.” Jorrus nodded. “Even so. But the point is not that. The point is that this act of observation and learning is a process we all share—” “—whether or not we realize it. As such, it gives purpose to everything we do, no matter—” “—how insignificant it may seem, and from that purpose, meaning. For the universe itself, given consciousness through your own mind—” “—is aware of your every hurt and care.” Veera smiled. “Take comfort, then, that whatever you choose in life has importance beyond yourself. Importance, even, on a cosmic scale.

I have rules,” she said to him. He stilled his pen, raised expressionless eyes to her face, and waited. “When you bring me an old servant who’s come willingly where the king’s men have bidden him, a man who’s never been convicted, or even accused, of a crime,” Fire said, “I will not take his mind. I’ll sit before him and ask questions, and if my presence makes him more talkative, very well. But I will not compel him to say things he would otherwise not have said. Nor,” she added, voice rising, “will I take the mind of a person who’s been fed too little, or denied medicines, or beaten in your jails. I won’t manipulate a prisoner you’ve mistreated.” Garan sat back and crossed his arms. “That’s rich, isn’t it? Your own manipulation is mistreatment; you’ve said it yourself.” “Yes, but mine is meant to be for good reason. Yours is not.” “It’s not my mistreatment. I don’t give the orders down there, I’ve no idea what goes on.” “If you want me to question them, you’d best find out.” To Garan’s credit, the treatment of Dellian prisoners did change after that. One particularly laconic man, after a session in which Fire learned positively nothing, thanked her for it specifically. “Best dungeons I ever been in,” he said, chewing on a toothpick. “Wonderful,” Garan grumbled when he’d gone. “We’ll grow a reputation for our kindness to lawbreakers.

You are living in a psychological prison of your own making, and you are bound by your beliefs, opinions, training, and environmental influences. Like most people, you are a creature of habit. You are conditioned to react the way you do.

So long as you believe yourself to be 'only human' you have accepted life in a prison cell whose door remains locked only by your own mind. By saying, 'well, I'm only human', you have blindly submitted to all the limitations, fears, pettiness, greed and hatreds which make the common person weak and fragile. Most never become aware that another way is possible. You are human, but much more, too. The much-moreness is the vast, brilliant freedom and power which has confined itself in your humanity. If you are willing (and not everyone is, which is also a perfectly valid choice), you can begin to explore your native powers and experience freedom within limitation. When you do this, you live fully while you are here and you are no longer afraid to die. When you are not afraid of death but seek to live in a state of always-discovering, this is when life is transformed and you accept your birthright to choose and create in extraordinary fashion.

Often people’s identities, that wild inner complexity of soul and color of spirit, become shrunken into their work identities. They become prisoners of their roles. They limit and reduce their lives. They become seduced by the practice of self-absence. They move further and further away from their own lives. They are forced backward into hidden areas on the ledges of their hearts. When you encounter them, you meet only the role. You look for the person, but you never meet him. To practice only the linear external side of your mind is very dangerous. Thus the corporate and work world now recognizes how desperately they need the turbulence, anarchy, and growth possibilities that come from the unpredictable world of the imagination. These are so vital for the passion and force of a person’s life. If you engage only the external side of yourself, and stay on this mechanical surface, you become secretly weary. Gradually, years of this practice make you desperate.

Healing is a deeply private process and, honestly, you’re not welcome to be a part of it. But you will have given me a short furlough from the dark, sorry prison of my mind, and that gift, precious in its own right, is really the best you can hope to offer.

Don't exist. Live. Get out, explore. Thrive. Challenge authority. Challenge yourself. Evolve. Change forever. Become who you say you always will. Keep moving. Don't stop. Start the revolution. Become a freedom fighter. Become a superhero. Just because everyone doesn't know your name doesn't mean you don't matter. Are you happy? Have you ever been happy? What have you done today to matter? Did you exist or did you live? How did you thrive? Become a chameleon—fit in anywhere. Be a rockstar—stand out everywhere. Do nothing, do everything. Forget everything, remember everyone. Care, don't just pretend to. Listen to everyone. Love everyone and nothing at the same time. Its impossible to be everything, but you can't stop trying to do it all. . . . Leap. It's time to be aggressive. You've started to speak your mind, now keep going with it. . . . Get your gloves on, it's time for rebirth. There IS no room for the nice guys in the history books. THIS IS THE START OF A REVOLUTION. THE REVOLUTION IS YOUR LIFE. THE GOAL IS IMMORTALITY. LET'S LIVE, BABY. LET'S FEEL ALIVE AT ALL TIMES. TAKE NO PRISONERS. HOLD NO SOUL UNACCOUNTABLE, ESPECIALLY NOT YOUR OWN. IF SOMETHING DOESN'T HAPPEN, IT'S YOUR FAULT. Make this moment your reckoning. Your head has been held under water for too long and now it is time to rise up and take your first true breath. Do everything with exact calculation, nothing without meaning. Do not make careful your words, but make no excuses for what you say. Fuck em' all. Set a goal for everyday and never be tired.

BOWLS OF FOOD Moon and evening star do their slow tambourine dance to praise this universe. The purpose of every gathering is discovered: to recognize beauty and love what’s beautiful. “Once it was like that, now it’s like this,” the saying goes around town, and serious consequences too. Men and women turn their faces to the wall in grief. They lose appetite. Then they start eating the fire of pleasure, as camels chew pungent grass for the sake of their souls. Winter blocks the road. Flowers are taken prisoner underground. Then green justice tenders a spear. Go outside to the orchard. These visitors came a long way, past all the houses of the zodiac, learning Something new at each stop. And they’re here for such a short time, sitting at these tables set on the prow of the wind. Bowls of food are brought out as answers, but still no one knows the answer. Food for the soul stays secret. Body food gets put out in the open like us. Those who work at a bakery don’t know the taste of bread like the hungry beggars do. Because the beloved wants to know, unseen things become manifest. Hiding is the hidden purpose of creation: bury your seed and wait. After you die, All the thoughts you had will throng around like children. The heart is the secret inside the secret. Call the secret language, and never be sure what you conceal. It’s unsure people who get the blessing. Climbing cypress, opening rose, Nightingale song, fruit, these are inside the chill November wind. They are its secret. We climb and fall so often. Plants have an inner Being, and separate ways of talking and feeling. An ear of corn bends in thought. Tulip, so embarrassed. Pink rose deciding to open a competing store. A bunch of grapes sits with its feet stuck out. Narcissus gossiping about iris. Willow, what do you learn from running water? Humility. Red apple, what has the Friend taught you? To be sour. Peach tree, why so low? To let you reach. Look at the poplar, tall but without fruit or flower. Yes, if I had those, I’d be self-absorbed like you. I gave up self to watch the enlightened ones. Pomegranate questions quince, Why so pale? For the pearl you hid inside me. How did you discover my secret? Your laugh. The core of the seen and unseen universes smiles, but remember, smiles come best from those who weep. Lightning, then the rain-laughter. Dark earth receives that clear and grows a trunk. Melon and cucumber come dragging along on pilgrimage. You have to be to be blessed! Pumpkin begins climbing a rope! Where did he learn that? Grass, thorns, a hundred thousand ants and snakes, everything is looking for food. Don’t you hear the noise? Every herb cures some illness. Camels delight to eat thorns. We prefer the inside of a walnut, not the shell. The inside of an egg, the outside of a date. What about your inside and outside? The same way a branch draws water up many feet, God is pulling your soul along. Wind carries pollen from blossom to ground. Wings and Arabian stallions gallop toward the warmth of spring. They visit; they sing and tell what they think they know: so-and-so will travel to such-and-such. The hoopoe carries a letter to Solomon. The wise stork says lek-lek. Please translate. It’s time to go to the high plain, to leave the winter house. Be your own watchman as birds are. Let the remembering beads encircle you. I make promises to myself and break them. Words are coins: the vein of ore and the mine shaft, what they speak of. Now consider the sun. It’s neither oriental nor occidental. Only the soul knows what love is. This moment in time and space is an eggshell with an embryo crumpled inside, soaked in belief-yolk, under the wing of grace, until it breaks free of mind to become the song of an actual bird, and God.

If your mind is in chains, nothing can free you. If your mind is free, nothing can enslave you. You can't become anyone's prisoner before becoming your own prisoner first, -Emit Eht Emit Eht, Ratna Srivastava, Philosophy, Life, wisdom, intelligence, inspirational, motivational,

And when people stop focusing on their dreams they become lost in the maze of their minds, wandering around in endlessly repeating circles. Then the colours of life start to dull, and excitement starts to die. Until you’re trapped in a prison of your own making, looking out at life instead of living it.

..the most important truth I know, that the biggest prison is in your own mind, and in your pocket you already hold the key: the willingness to risk; the willingness to release yourself from judgement and reclaim your innocence, accepting and loving yourself for who you really are-human, imperfect, and whole.

In order to answer the question “Who am I?”, in order to go back to before the beginning within your own experience, you have to put your attention on the deepest sense of what it feels like to be yourself right now, and simultaneously let everything else go. Letting go means falling so deeply into yourself that all that is left is empty space. To discover that infinite depth in your own self, you must find a way to enter into a deep state of meditation—so deep that your awareness of thought moves into the background and eventually disappears. As your awareness detaches itself from the thought-stream, your identification with emotion and memory begins to fall away. When awareness of thought disappears, awareness of the passing of time disappears along with it. If you keep penetrating into the infinite depths of your own self, even your awareness of your own physical form will disappear. If you go deep enough, letting your attention expand and release from all objects in consciousness, you will find that all the structures of the created universe begin to crumble before your eyes. Awareness itself—limitless, empty, pristine—becomes the only object of your attention. As your attention is released from the conditioned mind-process, freed from the confines of the body and the boundaries of the personal self-sense, the inner dimension of your own experience begins to open up to an immeasurable degree. Imagine that you have been fast asleep in a small, dark chamber, then suddenly awaken to find yourself floating in the infinite expanse of a vast, peaceful ocean. That’s what this journey to the depths of your own self feels like. You become aware of a limitless dimension that you did not even know was there. Moments before, you may have experienced yourself as being trapped, a prisoner of your body, mind, and emotions. But when you awaken to this new dimension, all sense of confinement disappears. You find yourself resting in, and as, boundless empty space. In that empty space, the mind is completely still; there is no time, no memory, not even a trace of personal history. And the deeper you fall into that space, the more everything will continue to fall away, until finally all that will be left is you. When you let absolutely everything go—body, mind, memory, and time—you will find, miraculously, that you still exist. In fact, in the end, you discover that all that exists is you!

the most important truth I know, that the biggest prison is in your own mind, and in your pocket you already hold the key: the willingness to take absolute responsibility for your life; the willingness to risk; the willingness to release yourself from judgment and reclaim your innocence, accepting and loving yourself for who you really are—human, imperfect, and whole.

At first, I was going to come down and pretend I’d had a change of heart. That I still love you, no matter what you’ve done. But even I’m not a spry enough actress for that. The truth is, you pulled Excalibur from its stone. That makes you the king. Meanwhile, my friends are either in prison or on the run. So, I have two choices. Resist, knowing my friends will be hurt for it. Or . . . be as good a queen as I can and keep an open mind. Because I heard you say you want to be a good king. And to be a good king, you’ll need a good queen. So here are the terms. You treat me and my friends well, and I’ll be the queen you and Camelot need. Do we have a deal?” Rhian picked at his teeth. “You’re fond of the sound of your own voice. I can see why Tedros and every other boy dumped you.

When you neglect your Soul, you are not living at all. You are a biological robot, a machine. You walk, talk, smile, visit parties, have lovers. Soul knows & sees everything you do. When one day your body is no more, you have to answer to your Soul. While in the body, Soul was a prisoner of your mind, ego, greed, envy, anything else, now there is no escape from the judgement of your own Soul.

Be honest with yourself. You were at your lowest and broken down. You were unsure and lost hope. You were hiding your fears until you showed them on your sleeve. You felt like everything and everyone was the hammer and you were the nail as they were beating down on you, and it was never-ending. Their empty threats had you scared and you were always running because your weakness was exposed. You were their prey. You didn’t know who to believe because of their mixed signals. You might not see it now, but you are stronger than you can ever imagine. You cannot become comfortable in your pain. You have to let the pain that you feel turn you into a rose without thorns. There are sixteen pieces on the chessboard. The king is the most important piece, but the difference is that the queen is the most powerful piece! You are a queen, you can maneuver around your opponents; they do not have the power over your life, your mind or soul. You might think you’ve been a prisoner, but that is your past’. Look in the now and work your way to how you want your future to be. Exercise your thoughts into a pattern of letting go, and think positively about more of what you want than what you do not want. Queen! You are a queen! As a matter of fact, you are the queen! Act as if you know it! You are powerful, determined, strong, and you can make the biggest and most extravagant move and put it into action. Lights, camera, strike a pose and own it! It is yours to own! Yes, you loved and loved so much. You also lost as well, but you lost hurt, pain, agony, and confusion. You’ve lost interest in wanting to know answers to unanswered questions. You’ve lost the willingness to give a shit about what others think. You’ve surrendered to being fine, that you cannot change the things you have no control over. You’ve lost a lot, but you’ve gained closure. You are now balanced, centered, focused, and filled with peace surrounding you in your heart, mind, body, and soul. Your pride was hurt, but you would rather walk alone and be more willing to give and learn more about the queen you are. You lost yourself in the process, but the more you learn about the new you, the more you will be so much in love with yourself. The more you learn about the new you, the more you will know your worth. The more you learn about the new you, the happier you are going to be, and this time around you will be smiling inside and out! The dots are now connecting. You feel alive! You know now that all is not lost. Now that you’ve cut the cord it is time to give your heart a second chance at loving yourself. Silence your mind. Take a deep breath and close your eyes. As you open your eyes, look at your reflection in the mirror. Aren’t you beautiful, Queen? Embrace who you are. Smile, laugh, welcome the new you and say, “My world is just now beginning.

If there was one thing Thom had learned a long time ago, it was that prisons could look like anything. Some looked like cells with nothing but white walls to stare at; some looked like camps or cliff-side buildings with pens and arenas; some looked like fighting rings or rich manor houses or small shacks in the middle of the forest; some were of your own making, others forced you there against your will, some were inside your own mind. And still others looked like a palace.

But you see, most of us are concerned with revolt within the prison; we want better food, a little more light, a larger window so that we can see a little more of the sky. We are concerned with whether the outcaste should enter the temple or not; we want to break down this particular caste, and in the very breaking down of one caste we create another, a “superior” caste; so we remain prisoners, and there is no freedom in prison. Freedom lies outside the walls, outside the pattern of society; but to be free of that pattern you have to understand the whole content of it, which is to understand your own mind. It is the mind that has created the present civilization, this tradition-bound culture or society and, without understanding your own mind, merely to revolt as a communist, a socialist, this or that, has very little meaning. That is why it is very important to have self-knowledge, to be aware of all your activities, your thoughts and feelings; and this is education, is it not? Because when you are fully aware of yourself your mind becomes very sensitive, very alert.

And now there’s another thing you got to learn,” said the Ape. “I hear some of you are saying I’m an Ape. Well, I’m not. I’m a Man. If I look like an Ape, that’s because I’m so very old: hundreds and hundreds of years old. And it’s because I’m so old that I’m so wise. And it’s because I’m so wise that I’m the only one Aslan is ever going to speak to. He can’t be bothered talking to a lot of stupid animals. He’ll tell me what you’ve got to do, and I’ll tell the rest of you. And take my advice, and see you do it in double quick time, for he doesn’t mean to stand any nonsense.” There was dead silence except for the noise of a very young badger crying and its mother trying to make it keep quiet. “And now here’s another thing,” the Ape went on, fitting a fresh nut into its cheek, “I hear some of the horses are saying, Let’s hurry up and get this job of carting timber over as quickly as we can, and then we’ll be free again. Well, you can get that idea out of your heads at once. And not only the Horses either. Everybody who can work is going to be made to work in future. Aslan has it all settled with the King of Calormen—The Tisroc, as our dark faced friends the Calormenes call him. All you Horses and Bulls and Donkeys are to be sent down into Calormen to work for your living—pulling and carrying the way horses and such-like do in other countries. And all you digging animals like Moles and Rabbits and Dwarfs are going down to work in The Tisroc’s mines. And—” “No, no, no,” howled the Beasts. “It can’t be true. Aslan would never sell us into slavery to the King of Calormen.” “None of that! Hold your noise!” said the Ape with a snarl. “Who said anything about slavery? You won’t be slaves. You’ll be paid—very good wages too. That is to say, your pay will be paid into Aslan’s treasury and he will use it all for everybody’s good.” Then he glanced, and almost winked, at the chief Calormene. The Calormene bowed and replied, in the pompous Calormene way: “Most sapient Mouthpiece of Aslan, The Tisroc (may-he-live-forever) is wholly of one mind with your lordship in this judicious plan.” “There! You see!” said the Ape. “It’s all arranged. And all for your own good. We’ll be able, with the money you earn, to make Narnia a country worth living in. There’ll be oranges and bananas pouring in—and roads and big cities and schools and offices and whips and muzzles and saddles and cages and kennels and prisons—Oh, everything.” “But we don’t want all those things,” said an old Bear. “We want to be free. And we want to hear Aslan speak himself.” “Now don’t you start arguing,” said the Ape, “for it’s a thing I won’t stand. I’m a Man: you’re only a fat, stupid old Bear. What do you know about freedom? You think freedom means doing what you like. Well, you’re wrong. That isn’t true freedom. True freedom means doing what I tell you.” “H-n-n-h,” grunted the Bear and scratched its head; it found this sort of thing hard to understand.

Don't you see, Prisoner?" said Jorrus. "We are the mind of the universe itself. We and the Jellies and all self-aware beings. We are the universe watching itself, watching and learning." "And someday," said Veera, "we, and by extension the universe, will learn to expand beyond this realm and save ourselves from otherwise inevitable extinction." Kira said, "By escaping the heat death of this space." Jorus nodded. "Even so. But the point is not that. The point is that this act of observation and learning is a process we all share - whether or not we realize it. As such, it gives purpose to everything we do, no matter - how insignificant it may seem, and from that purpose, meaning. For the universe itself, given consciousness through your own mind - is aware of your every hurt and care." Veera smiled. "Take comfort, then, that whatever you choose in life has importance beyond yourself. Importance, even, on a cosmic scale." "That seems a little self-aggrandizing," Kira said.

Look, Tommy,” Kurt said, “let Kasey learn how to deal with what she’s going through. Let her make her own mistakes. You can hate boys from afar, and when she brings one home, you just explain that if he hurts her, you’ll make him vanish. That’s how I did it for our daughter.” “And now she lives in Canada,” Petra said. “Okay, maybe don’t tell him that you’ll make him vanish,” Kurt conceded. “Turns out daughters don’t like their dates being threatened.” I laughed again. “This is the oddest conversation I’ve ever woken up to. Tommy, just let Kasey figure it out. You’re there for when she can’t. And if anyone ever does hurt her . . . well, you’re a werewolf—you’ll figure something out.” Tommy smiled. “I love my devious-minded friends.” “ ‘Never has there been a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,’ ” Kurt said. Petra practically launched herself on her husband, kissing him on the cheek. “You quoted Star Wars. I love you.” Kurt looked down at his wife and, without smiling, said, “I know.” Petra’s smile lit up her face like a firework.

(Whisper)There is no effort needed to become aware, just the attention directed inward towards the feelings and the life force. You only have to pray, beg, obey and follow the commandments of those ideas and thoughts that are worshiped in the mind and imagination. There you can be a prisoner and play the game according to their rules. It is far better to feel the life within you and observe your reactions to it, than to analyze and compare your life to others and their experiences. One requires the dignity and self-trust within of your own life experience and the other requires that you surrender your dignity and intelligence to others who say they are more qualified then you concerning your life experiences. The mind makes everything difficult in its search for truth and meaning, while the heart reveals to us the simplicity of the truth within us. Pay attention to your feelings, they reveal how you think and how far out of touch you can be with yourself. They can also reveal a healing wholeness when you let go and allow the god within you to reveal the mystery within the silence of you.

*Wife's Letter* Pt2 ... Nevertheless, these notes were a terrible confession. I felt as if I had been forced onto an operating table, although I was not sick, and hacked up indiscriminately with a hundred different knives and scissors, even the uses of which were incomprehensible. With this in mind, please read through what you have written once again. Surely even you will be able to hear my cries of pain. If I had the time, I should like to explain the significance of those cries one by one. But it would be dreadful if I were so careless as to let you return while I was still here. It really would be dreadful. While you spoke of the face as being some kind of roadway between fellow human beings, you were like a snail that thinks only of its own doorway. You were showing off. Even though you had forced me into a compound where I had already been, you set up a fuss as if I had scaled a prison wall, as if I had absconded with money. And so, when you began to focus on my face you were flustered and confused, and without a word you at once nailed up the door of the mask. Indeed, as you said, perhaps death filled the world. I wonder if scattering the seeds of death is not the deed of men who think only of themselves, as you do. You don’t need me. What you really need is a mirror. Because any stranger is for you simply a mirror in which to reflect yourself. I don’t ever again want to return to such a desert of mirrors. My insides have almost burst with your ridicule. I shall never be able to get over it, never.

Is Joanna Gaines here? We have a warrant here for her arrest,” the officer said. It was the tickets. I knew it. And I panicked. I picked up my son and I hid in the closet. I literally didn’t know what to do. I’d never even had a speeding ticket, and all of a sudden I’m thinking, I’m about to go to prison, and my child won’t be able to eat. What is this kid gonna do? I heard Chip say, “She’s not here.” Thankfully, Drake didn’t make a peep, and the officer believed him. He said, “Well, just let her know we’re looking for her,” and they left. Jo’s the most conservative girl in the world. She had never even been late for school. I mean, this girl was straitlaced. So now we realize there’s a citywide warrant out for her arrest, and we’re like, “Oh, crap.” In her defense, Jo had wanted to pay those tickets off all along, and I was the one saying, “No way. I’m not paying these tickets.” So we decided to try to make it right. We called the judge, and the court clerk told us, “Okay, you have an appointment at three in the afternoon to discuss the tickets. See you then.” We wanted to ask the judge if he could remove a few of them for us. “The fines for our dogs “running at large” on our front porch just seemed a bit excessive. We arrived at the courthouse, and Chip was carrying Drake in his car seat. I couldn’t carry it because I was still recovering from Drake’s delivery. We got inside and spoke to a clerk. They looked at the circumstances and decided to switch all the tickets into Chip’s name. Those dogs were basically mine, and it didn’t make sense to have the tickets in her name. But as soon as they did that, this police officer walked over and said, “Hey, do you mind emptying out all of your pockets?” I got up and cooperated. “Absolutely. Yep,” I said. I figured it was just procedure before we went in to see the judge. Then he said, “Yeah, you mind taking off your belt?” I thought, That’s a little weird. Then he said, “Do you mind turning around and putting your hands behind your back?” They weren’t going to let us talk to the judge at all. The whole thing was just a sting to get us to come down there and be arrested. They arrested Chip on the spot. And I’m sitting there saying, “I can’t carry this baby in his car seat. What am I supposed to do?” I started bawling. “You can’t take him!” I cried. But they did. They took him right outside and put him in the back of a police car. Now I feel like the biggest loser in the world. I’m in the back of a police car as my crying wife comes out holding our week-old baby. I’m walking out, limping, and waving to him as they drive away. And I can’t even wave because my hands are cuffed behind my back. So here I am awkwardly trying to make a waving motion with my shoulder and squinching my face just to try to make Jo feel better. It was just the most comical thing, honestly. A total joke. To take a man to jail because his dogs liked to walk around a neighborhood, half of which he owns? But it sure wasn’t funny at the time. I was flooded with hormones and just could not stop crying. They told me they were taking my husband to the county jail. Luckily we had a buddy who was an attorney, so I called him. I was clueless. “I’ve never dated a guy that’s been in trouble, and now I’ve got a husband that’s in jail.

Adeline is Battered & Threatened Not knowing the title of this bureaucrat, I addressed him incorrectly as Meine Herrschaften. With this silly fabricated title, I simply tried to explain to him that the corporal was a brave Frontsoldat. My efforts were in vain since he was intent on finding out the corporal’s name, and my stalling only made matters worse. “What’s his name?” he shouted again and again, this time hitting my breasts and punching me in the stomach, which caused me to vomit all over the floor. It didn’t matter to him that my husband was a German soldier fighting for das Vaterland. He continued to beat me and threatened to put me into the terrible prison camp at Schirmeck. Having passed by there recently, the crying and moaning sounds from inside the gates of this prison were still very vivid in my mind. He reached for his telephone and said, “With one call you’ll be there if you don’t answer me!” “Please, I won’t be able to live with myself if I’m the cause of an innocent person’s death,” I sobbed. I remember him saying, “I remember you! You’re the woman from Bischoffsheim who helped with the kindergarten class and did the art work there. You have two little girls, don’t you?” How could this man know so much about me? He continued his threats by saying that he would beat my little girls at 3 o’clock every afternoon in the Village center, until I gave him the names he wanted. I formed a mental image of this cruel act, however in spite of this, I firmly told him that I would never talk and that the only Etappenhase was the man standing in front of me. The last thing I can remember was him using the telephone to hit me. His last blow struck me above my right eye…. With this I fell down into my own vomit and lost consciousness!

In the night I awoke. Was this my own voice reciting what was written? “ ‘And every secret thing shall be opened, and every dark place illuminated.’ ” Dear God, no, do not let them know this, do not let them know the great accumulation of all of this, this agony and joy, this misery, this solace, this reaching, this gouging pain, this . . . But they will know, each and every one of them will know. They will know because what you are remembering is what has happened to each and every one of them. Did you think this was more or less for you? Did you think—? And when they are called to account, when they stand naked before God and every incident and utterance is laid bare—you, you will know all of it with each and every one of them! I knelt in the sand. Is this possible, Lord, to be with each of them when he or she comes to know? To be there for every single cry of anguish? For the grief-stricken remembrance of every incomplete joy? Oh, Lord, God, what is judgment and how can it be, if I cannot bear to be with all of them for every ugly word, every harsh and desperate cry, for every gesture examined, for every deed explored to its roots? And I saw the deeds, the deeds of my own life, the smallest, most trivial things, I saw them suddenly in their seed and sprout and with their groping branches; I saw them growing, intertwining with other deeds, and those deeds come to form a thicket and a woodland and a great roving wilderness that dwarfed the world as we hold it on a map, the world as we hold it in our minds. Dear God, next to this, this endless spawning of deed from deed and word from word and thought from thought—the world is nothing. Every single soul is a world! I started to cry. But I would not close off this vision—no, let me see, and all those who lifted the stones, and I, I blundering, and James' face when I said it, I am weary of you, my brother, and from that instant outwards a million echoes of those words in all present who heard or thought they heard, who would remember, repeat, confess, defend . . . and so on it goes for the lifting of a finger, the launching of the ship, the fall of an army in a northern forest, the burning of a city as flames rage through house after house! Dear God, I cannot . . . but I will. I will. I sobbed aloud. I will. O Father in Heaven, I am reaching to You with hands of flesh and blood. I am longing for You in Your perfection with this heart that is imperfection! And I reach up for You with what is decaying before my very eyes, and I stare at Your stars from within the prison of this body, but this is not my prison, this is my Will. This is Your Will. I collapsed weeping. And I will go down, down with every single one of them into the depths of Sheol, into the private darkness, into the anguish exposed for all eyes and for Your eyes, into the fear, into the fire which is the heat of every mind. I will be with them, every solitary one of them. I am one of them! And I am Your Son! I am Your only begotten Son! And driven here by Your Spirit, I cry because I cannot do anything but grasp it, grasp it as I cannot contain it in this flesh-and-blood mind, and by Your leave I cry. I cried. I cried and I cried. “Lord, give me this little while that I may cry, for I've heard that tears accomplish much. . . .” Alone? You said you wanted to be alone? You wanted this, to be alone? You wanted the silence? You wanted to be alone and in the silence. Don't you understand the temptation now of being alone? You are alone. Well, you are absolutely alone because you are the only One who can do this! What judgment can there ever be for man, woman, or child—if I am not there for every heartbeat at every depth of their torment?

Now, son, I don’t pay much mind to idle talk, never have done. But there’s a regular riptide of gossip saying you’ve got something going with that girl in the marsh.” Tate threw up his hands. “Now hold on, hold on,” Scupper continued. “I don’t believe all the stories about her; she’s probably nice. But take a care, son. You don’t want to go starting a family too early. You get my meaning, don’t you?” Keeping his voice low, Tate hissed, “First you say you don’t believe those stories about her, then you say I shouldn’t start a family, showing you do believe she’s that kind of girl. Well, let me tell you something, she’s not. She’s more pure and innocent than any of those girls you’d have me go to the dance with. Oh man, some of the girls in this town, well, let’s just say they hunt in packs, take no prisoners. And yes, I’ve been going out to see Kya some. You know why? I’m teaching her how to read because people in this town are so mean to her she couldn’t even go to school.” “That’s fine, Tate. That’s good of you. But please understand it’s my job to say things like this. It may not be pleasant and all for us to talk about, but parents have to warn their kids about things. That’s my job, so don’t get huffy about it.” “I know,” Tate mumbled while buttering a biscuit. Feeling very huffy. “Come on now. Let’s get another helping, then some of that pecan pie.” After the pie came, Scupper said, “Well, since we’ve talked about things we never mention, I might as well say something else on my mind.” Tate rolled his eyes at his pie. Scupper continued. “I want you to know, son, how proud I am of you. All on your own, you’ve studied the marsh life, done real well at school, applied for college to get a degree in science. And got accepted. I’m just not the kind to speak on such things much. But I’m mighty proud of you, son. All right?” “Yeah. All right.” Later in his room, Tate recited from his favorite poem: “Oh when shall I see the dusky Lake, And the white canoe of my dear?” •

Come here,” he growled, his body so heavy with need that he was afraid he would explode into fragments if he took one step. She shook her head slowly, her tongue deliberately moistening her full lower lip. “I only want my true lifemate. I hunger tonight. My body is hungry.” Her hand drifted slowly, enticingly, over her satin skin, and his eyes followed the graceful movement while his body raged at him. Gregori covered the distance between them in a sudden surge, catching her up, the momentum taking them to the wall. He held her prisoner there, his mouth fastened on hers, commanding her response, feeding, devouring, his hands claiming her body for his own. “No one else will ever touch you and live,” he snarled, his mouth burning a trail of fire down her throat to her breast. He fed hungrily, his teeth grazing the creamy fullness. “No other, Savannah.” “Why, Gregori? Why can no other touch my body like this?” she whispered, her mouth on his skin, her tongue lapping at his pulse. “Tell me why my body is only yours and your body is only mine.” His hands cupped her bottom, brought her hard against him. “You know why, Savannah.” “Say it, Gregori. Say it if you believe it. I won’t have lies between us. You have to feel it in your heart as I do. You have to feel it in your mind. Your body has to burn for mine. But most of all, in your deepest soul, you have to know I’m your other half.” He lifted her, set her up high on the rim of the sleeping chamber, his hands parting her thighs. “I know I burn for you. Even in my sleep, the sleep of our people where there can be no thought, I burn for you.” He bent his head to taste her, his wet hair bathing her inner thighs as he dragged her body closer to him. Savannah cried out at the first touch of his mouth, the rush of hot desire turning her into a liquid, living flame. She bunched his hair into her fists and held him to her. “Say it, Gregori,” she bit out between clenched teeth. “I need to hear you say it.” I am saying it, lifemate. Can you not hear me?

While he’d previously had the look of a pirate about him that she’d found rather appealing, she now found him to be devastatingly handsome—not simply because he’d been born far too attractive, but because she believed she saw genuine niceness residing in his very soul. When he suddenly lifted a finger to push a damp strand of hair off her cheek, his touch caused any reasonable thoughts she still retained to flee from her mind, and everything surrounding her disappeared except Bram. “You’re very beautiful.” Just like that, the world returned in a flash. “Thank you,” she said before she stepped back from him and felt a sliver of temper—not at him, but at herself—begin flowing through her veins. She’d known he was infatuated with her, as most of her admirers were. And yet, instead of nipping that immediately in the bud, she’d allowed herself to believe he was different, different because his touch sent her pulse racing and his smile turned her knees a little weak, which, in actuality, did make him a touch different, although . . . “Forgive me, Lucetta, but have I done something to upset you?” Lucetta caught Bram’s eye. “To be perfectly honest, I’m more upset with myself.” Bram’s brow furrowed. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” “I should have addressed the misconceptions I’m certain you’re holding about me straightaway, and yet . . . I’ve let matters fester too long.” “You do recall that we only met a few hours ago, don’t you?” “Indeed, but I’m quite certain you’ve been harboring misconceptions about me from the moment you saw me step foot on stage, which I’m going to assume was a year or two ago.” The furrow deepened. “I’m still not sure what you’re trying to say.” “I’m not a lady who enjoys being told I’m beautiful, nor am I a lady who enjoys being pampered, catered to, or treated as if I’m fragile. I’m also nothing like any of the characters I’ve ever played on stage.” “You’re exactly like the character in The Lady in the Tower,” he argued. “Charming, demure, and delightful.” Resisting a sigh, she moved to a fallen tree lying off the path and took a seat. “I would never be content to remain a prisoner in a tower, waiting for my very own prince charming to rescue me, which is exactly what Serena Seamore, my character, does. I’ve been on my own, Bram, for a very long time, and I’m quite capable, thank you very much, of taking care of myself.” She held up her hand when it looked as if he wanted to argue. “What you need to remember is that I’m an actress. Playing a part is what I do, and I’m successful because I can play parts very, very well. I’ve also been given an unusual face, expressive if you will, and that expressiveness allows me to convince people I’m someone I’m not.” “Your face is lovely, not unusual.” Lucetta waved away his compliment. “I’m not getting through to you, am I.” “Of course you are.” Lucetta drew in a deep breath and slowly released it. “I’m afraid I’m not the lady you think you hold in high esteem.” “I don’t think I hold you in high esteem, I know I do.” “Oh . . . dear,” she muttered before she squared her shoulders. “I’m peculiar.” “I highly doubt that.” “Oh,

College students were instructed to sit by themselves for up to fifteen minutes in a sparsely furnished, unadorned room and “entertain themselves with their thoughts.” They were allowed to think about whatever they liked, the only rules being that they should remain in their seat and stay awake. Before they entered the room they were obliged to surrender any means of distraction they had about their person, such as cell phones, books, or writing materials. Afterward, they were asked to rate the experience on various scales. Unsurprisingly, a majority reported that they found it difficult to concentrate and their minds had wandered, with around half saying they didn’t enjoy the experience. A subsequent experiment, however, revealed that many found being left alone in an empty room with nothing to occupy their minds so unpleasant (this is, after all, what makes solitary confinement such a harsh punishment in prisons) that they would rather give themselves electric shocks. In the first part of this experiment, the volunteers were asked to rate the unpleasantness of a shock delivered via electrodes attached to their ankle and say whether they would pay a small amount of money to avoid having to experience it again. In the second part, during which they were left alone with their thoughts for fifteen minutes, they were presented with the opportunity to zap themselves once again. Amazingly, among those who had said they would pay to avoid a repeat experience, 67 percent of the men (12 out of 18) and 25 percent of the women (6 out of 24) opted to shock themselves at least once. One of the women gave herself nine electric shocks. One of the men subjected himself to no fewer than 190 shocks, though he was considered exceptional—a statistical “outlier”—and his results were excluded from the final analysis. In their report for the journal Science, the researchers write, “What is striking is that simply being alone with their own thoughts for 15 minutes was apparently so aversive that it drove many participants to self-administer an electric shock that they had earlier said they would pay to avoid.” This goes a long way toward explaining why many people initially find it so hard to meditate, because to sit quietly with your eyes closed is to invite the mind to wander here, there, and everywhere. In a sense, that is the whole point: we are simply learning to notice when this has happened. So the frustrating realization that your thoughts have been straying—yet again—is a sign of progress rather than failure. Only by noticing the way thoughts ricochet about inside our heads like ball bearings in a pinball machine can we learn to observe them dispassionately and simply let them come to rest, resisting the urge to pull back the mental plunger and fire off more of them. One of the benefits of meditation is that one develops the ability to quiet the mind at will. “Without such training,” the psychologists conclude drily in their paper, “people prefer doing to thinking, even if what they are doing is so unpleasant they would normally pay to avoid it. The untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself.

Wife's Letter (excerpt) It was not the mask that died among the boots, but you. The girl with the yoyo was not the only one to know about your masked play. From the very first instant, when, elated with pride, you talked about the distortion of the magnetic field, I too saw through you completely. Please don’t insult me any more by asking how I did it. Of course, I was flustered, confused, and frightened to death. Under any circumstances, it was an unimaginably drastic way of acting, so different from your ordinary self. It was hallucinatory, seeing you so full of self-confidence. Even you knew very well that I had seen through you. You knew and yet demanded that we go on with the play in silence. ... But you went from one misunderstanding to the next, didn’t you? You write that I rejected you, but that’s not true. Didn’t you reject yourself all by yourself?.. In a happy frame of mind, I reflected that love strips the mask from each of us, and we must endeavor for those we love to put the mask on so that it can be taken off again. For if there is no mask to start with, there is no pleasure in removing it, is there? ... Is what you think to be the mask in reality your real face, or is what you think to be your real face really a mask? Yes, you do understand. Anyone who is seduced is seduced realizing this. ... At first you were apparently trying to get your own self back by means of the mask, but before you knew it you had come to think of it only as your magician’s cloak for escaping from yourself. So it was not a mask, but somewhat the same as another real face, wasn’t it? You finally revealed your true colors. It was not the mask, but you yourself. It is meaningful to put a mask on, precisely because one makes others realize it is a mask. Even with cosmetics, which you abominate so, we never try to conceal the fact that it is make-up. After all, it was not that the mask was bad, but that you were too unaware of how to treat it. Even though you put the mask on, you could not do a thing while you were wearing it. Good or bad, you could not do a thing. All you could manage was to wander through the streets and write long, never-ending confessions, like a snake with its tail in its mouth. It was all the same to you whether you burned your face or didn’t, whether you put on a mask or didn’t. You were incapable of calling the mask back. Since the mask will not come back, there is no reason for me to return either. ... While you spoke of the face as being some kind of roadway between fellow human beings, you were like a snail that thinks only of its own doorway. You were showing off. Even though you had forced me into a compound where I had already been, you set up a fuss as if I had scaled a prison wall, as if I had absconded with money. And so, when you began to focus on my face you were flustered and confused, and without a word you at once nailed up the door of the mask. Indeed, as you said, perhaps death filled the world. I wonder if scattering the seeds of death is not the deed of men who think only of themselves, as you do. You don’t need me. What you really need is a mirror. Because any stranger is for you simply a mirror in which to reflect yourself.

On Mr. Phipps' discovering the place of my concealment, he cocked his gun and aimed at me. I requested him not to shoot and I would give up, upon which he demanded my sword. I delivered it to him, and he brought me to prison. During the time I was pursued, I had many hair breadth escapes, which your time will not permit you to relate. I am here loaded with chains, and willing to suffer the fate that awaits me. I here proceeded to make some inquiries of him after assuring him of the certain death that awaited him, and that concealment would only bring destruction on the innocent as well as guilty, of his own color, if he knew of any extensive or concerted plan. His answer was, I do not. When I questioned him as to the insurrection in North Carolina happening about the same time, he denied any knowledge of it; and when I looked him in the face as though I would search his inmost thoughts, he replied, 'I see sir, you doubt my word; but can you not think the same ideas, and strange appearances about this time in the heaven's might prompt others, as well as myself, to this undertaking.' I now had much conversation with and asked him many questions, having forborne to do so previously, except in the cases noted in parenthesis; but during his statement, I had, unnoticed by him, taken notes as to some particular circumstances, and having the advantage of his statement before me in writing, on the evening of the third day that I had been with him, I began a cross examination, and found his statement corroborated by every circumstance coming within my own knowledge or the confessions of others whom had been either killed or executed, and whom he had not seen nor had any knowledge since 22d of August last, he expressed himself fully satisfied as to the impracticability of his attempt. It has been said he was ignorant and cowardly, and that his object was to murder and rob for the purpose of obtaining money to make his escape. It is notorious, that he was never known to have a dollar in his life; to swear an oath, or drink a drop of spirits. As to his ignorance, he certainly never had the advantages of education, but he can read and write, (it was taught him by his parents,) and for natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension, is surpassed by few men I have ever seen. As to his being a coward, his reason as given for not resisting Mr. Phipps, shews the decision of his character. When he saw Mr. Phipps present his gun, he said he knew it was impossible for him to escape as the woods were full of men; he therefore thought it was better to surrender, and trust to fortune for his escape. He is a complete fanatic, or plays his part most admirably. On other subjects he possesses an uncommon share of intelligence, with a mind capable of attaining any thing; but warped and perverted by the influence of early impressions. He is below the ordinary stature, though strong and active, having the true negro face, every feature of which is strongly marked. I shall not attempt to describe the effect of his narrative, as told and commented on by himself, in the condemned hole of the prison. The calm, deliberate composure with which he spoke of his late deeds and intentions, the expression of his fiend-like face when excited by enthusiasm, still bearing the stains of the blood of helpless innocence about him; clothed with rags and covered with chains; yet daring to raise his manacled hands to heaven, with a spirit soaring above the attributes of man; I looked on him and my blood curdled in my veins.

Tamlin's claws punched out. 'Even if I risked it, you're untrained abilities render your presence more of a liability than anything.' It was like being hit with stones- so hard I could feel myself cracking. But I lifted my chin and said, 'I'm coming along whether you want me to or not.' 'No, you aren't.' He strode right through the door, his claws slashing the air at his sides, and was halfway down the steps before I reached the threshold. Where I slammed into an invisible wall. I staggered back, trying to reorder my mind around the impossibility of it. It was identical to the one I'd built that day in the study, and I searched inside the shards of my soul, my heart, for a tether to that shield, wondering if I'd blocked myself, but- there was no power emanating from me. I reached a hand to the open air of the doorway. And met solid resistance. 'Tamlin,' I rasped. But he was already down the front drive, walking towards the looming iron gates. Lucien remained at the foot of the stairs, his face so, so pale. 'Tamlin,' I said again, pushing against the wall. He didn't turn. I slammed my hand into the invisible barrier. No movement- nothing but hardened air. And I had not learned about my own powers enough to try to push through, to shatter it... I had let him convince me not to learn those things for his sake- 'Don't bother trying,' Lucien said softly, as Tamlin cleared the gates and vanished- winnowed. 'He shielded the entire house around you. Others can go in and out, but you can't. Not until he lifts the shield.' He'd locked me in here. I hit the shield again. Again. Nothing. 'Just- be patient, Feyre,' Lucien tried, wincing as he followed after Tamlin. 'Please. I'll see what I can do. I'll try again.' I barely heard him over the roar in my ears. Didn't wait to see him pass the gates and winnow, too. He'd locked me in. He'd sealed me inside the house. I hurtled for the nearest window in the foyer and shoved it open. A cool spring breeze rushed in- and I shoved my hand through it- only for my fingers to bounce off an invisible wall. Smooth, hard air pushed against my skin. Breathing became difficult. I was trapped. I was trapped inside this house. I might as well have been Under the Mountain. I might as well have been inside that cell again- I backed away, my steps too light, too fast, and slammed into the oak table in the centre of the foyer. None of the nearby sentries came to investigate. He'd trapped me in here; he'd locked me up. I stopped seeing the marble floor, or the paintings on the walls, or the sweeping staircase looming behind me. I stopped hearing the chirping of the spring birds, or the sighing of the breeze through the curtains. And then crushing black pounded down and rose up beneath, devouring and roaring and shredding. It was all I could do to keep from screaming, to keep from shattering into ten thousand pieces as I sank onto the marble floor, bowing over my knees, and wrapped my arms around myself. He'd trapped me; he'd trapped me; he'd trapped me- I had to get out, because I'd barely escaped from another prison once before, and this time, this time- Winnowing. I could vanish into nothing but air and appear somewhere else, somewhere open and free. I fumbled for my power, for anything, something that might show me the way to do it, the way out. Nothing. There was nothing and I had become nothing, and I couldn't even get out- Someone was shouting my name from far away. Alis- Alis. But I was ensconced in a cocoon of darkness and fire and ice and wind, a cocoon that melted the ring off my finger until the folden ore dripped away into the void, the emerald tumbling after it. I wrapped that raging force around myself as if it could keep the walls from crushing me entirely, and maybe, maybe buy me the tiniest sip of air- I couldn't get out; I couldn't get out; I couldn't get out-

Have no anxiety about anything,' Paul writes to the Philippians. In one sense it is like telling a woman with a bad head cold not to sniffle and sneeze so much or a lame man to stop dragging his feet. Or maybe it is more like telling a wino to lay off the booze or a compulsive gambler to stay away from the track. Is anxiety a disease or an addiction? Perhaps it is something of both. Partly, perhaps, because you can't help it, and partly because for some dark reason you choose not to help it, you torment yourself with detailed visions of the worst that can possibly happen. The nagging headache turns out to be a malignant brain tumor. When your teenage son fails to get off the plane you've gone to meet, you see his picture being tacked up in the post office among the missing and his disappearance never accounted for. As the latest mid-East crisis boils, you wait for the TV game show to be interrupted by a special bulletin to the effect that major cities all over the country are being evacuated in anticipation of a nuclear attack. If Woody Allen were to play your part on the screen, you would roll in the aisles with the rest of them, but you're not so much as cracking a smile at the screen inside your own head. Does the terrible fear of disaster conceal an even more terrible hankering for it? Do the accelerated pulse and the knot in the stomach mean that, beneath whatever their immediate cause, you are acting out some ancient and unresolved drama of childhood? Since the worst things that happen are apt to be the things you don't see coming, do you think there is a kind of magic whereby, if you only can see them coming, you will be able somehow to prevent them from happening? Who knows the answer? In addition to Novocain and indoor plumbing, one of the few advantages of living in the twentieth century is the existence of psychotherapists, and if you can locate a good one, maybe one day you will manage to dig up an answer that helps. But answer or no answer, the worst things will happen at last even so. 'All life is suffering' says the first and truest of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths, by which he means that sorrow, loss, death await us all and everybody we love. Yet "the Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything," Paul writes, who was evidently in prison at the time and with good reason to be anxious about everything, 'but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.' He does not deny that the worst things will happen finally to all of us, as indeed he must have had a strong suspicion they were soon to happen to him. He does not try to minimize them. He does not try to explain them away as God's will or God's judgment or God's method of testing our spiritual fiber. He simply tells the Philippians that in spite of them—even in the thick of them—they are to keep in constant touch with the One who unimaginably transcends the worst things as he also unimaginably transcends the best. 'In everything,' Paul says, they are to keep on praying. Come Hell or high water, they are to keep on asking, keep on thanking, above all keep on making themselves known. He does not promise them that as a result they will be delivered from the worst things any more than Jesus himself was delivered from them. What he promises them instead is that 'the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.' The worst things will surely happen no matter what—that is to be understood—but beyond all our power to understand, he writes, we will have peace both in heart and in mind. We are as sure to be in trouble as the sparks fly upward, but we will also be "in Christ," as he puts it. Ultimately not even sorrow, loss, death can get at us there. That is the sense in which he dares say without risk of occasioning ironic laughter, "Have no anxiety about anything." Or, as he puts it a few lines earlier, 'Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say, Rejoice!

The human form, it’s a symphony. Tiny interlocking movements that join together in song.” He slid his hands down over her knuckles until he was gripping the very tips of her fingers. “You play a more delicate tune than I do. Have you never noticed?” Cass stared at her own hand. She tried to visualize the structures beneath her skin--the bones and muscles, the strange ropelike things connecting the two. It was hard to focus. Falco’s touch was so warm. “I’m not in the habit of staring at myself,” she said, pulling away. “It’s vain.” Falco shook his head. “How terrible it must be to be a member of the noble class. So many rules. Such restraint. You must feel like a caged bird, battering its wings against the sides of its golden prison.” Cass didn’t say anything for a second. That was exactly how she felt, and he had put it into words better than she had ever been able to do. She repeated the sentence in her mind, intending to write it in her journal when she returned home. But even though it was true, she didn’t want to admit to Falco that he was right. “I’m no one’s pet,” she insisted. “You’re not?” Falco raised an eyebrow. The way he was looking at her made Cass feel out of breath. He tucked the bit of parchment into the pocket of her cloak. “Keep it,” he said. “You can hang it in your cage.” Then he turned as if to go. “I mean it!” Cass cried out. “I’m not like all the others.” She realized she was squeezing her hands into fists. “Is that so?” Falco turned back toward her, and all of the air went out of Cass’s chest. They were separated by half an inch of space. She was hot all over, as though someone had lit a fire under her skin. Falco stared at her so intensely, she felt she could fall into his eyes, into the swirling mists she saw reflected there. “Yes,” she whispered. His lips quirked into a small smile. “Prove it,” he said.

What are you doing here, anyway?” Cass asked. Luca’s smile vanished. “I thought you’d be happy to see me,” he said. “And your aunt wanted to plan a betrothal ceremony. Didn’t she tell you?” Instantly, Cass’s good mood dissipated. A betrothal ceremony? Once she had undergone the official ritual, there would be no going back on her marriage. She would belong to Luca da Peraga. Like his fur-lined cloak or the feather in his hat, Cass would be just one more pretty thing for Luca to call his own. No more studying. No more adventures. She would become, as Falco said, a caged bird, beating its wings against the bars of its prison. “No, she didn’t tell me,” Cass said hoarsely, trying to push Falco from her mind. His sparkling eyes. The crooked smile. The tiny jagged scar under his right eye. “We can talk about it more tomorrow,” Luca said kindly, perhaps mistaking her dread for nervousness. “I’ll be out running some errands in the morning, but I’ll see you at dinner?” Cass nodded. A pair of servants came for Luca with armfuls of bed linens and towels. Cass fled the library in front of them. She didn’t want to watch Luca settle in to the bedroom next to her. She didn’t want to think about what it meant for the two of them, and for her future.

Where do you seek sanctuary when your prison is in your own mind?

The words that had shown up in his own mind had fallen into an irritating bit of doggerel: You cannot master me / but shall I your master be? This unsettled him, as there was nothing in his relationship—or feelings—regarding von Namtzen to which this could apply, and he realized quite well that it had to do with the presence of Jamie Fraser at Argus House.

This verse just came to my mind yesterday while sitting in the train... ‘Pursue … overtake … and … recover all.’ 1 Samuel 30:8 When King David and his men returned home from battle, they discovered that the Amalekites had burned their homes to the ground and taken their families prisoner. They were devastated. They wept until they’d no tears left. Then God spoke to them and said, ‘Pursue … overtake … and … recover all.’ And with His help they did! So no matter how bad your situation looks right now, don’t give up. Cry if you have to, then dry your tears and go out in God’s strength and take back what the Enemy has stolen from you. If necessary, take it an inch at a time, drawing on His strength and not your own. Paul writes: ‘Let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and doing right, for in due time and at the appointed season we shall reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint’ (Galatians 6:9 AMP Classic Edition). God won’t quit on you, so don’t quit on Him! He has promised in His Word: ‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD your God’ (Isaiah 43:2-3 NIV 2011 Edition). Don’t give up - go through! It’s easy to quit, but it takes faith to go through. When your faith honours God, He honours your faith! And with Him on your side you’ll come out stronger than you were when you went in. So the word for you today is: ‘Pursue … overtake … and … recover all.

You’re terrified that my father will hear that you’ve taken me prisoner. No Spartan woman marries a coward!” “Watch your tongue,” Theseus growled, his hands clenched. If he hit me, I’d hit him back, no matter how bad a beating I got for it. I would not surrender. “Or what? Will you kill me? Go ahead and try. If you succeed, you lose what you really want to gain from this marriage. If I die, I take the Spartan crown with me into Hades’ kingdom. Better that than let you get your filthy hands on it!” He took a step forward. I held my ground, shifting my weight just a bit and grabbing hold of my skirt. I’d changed my mind. If he gave the slightest sign that he intended to strike me, I wouldn’t wait for the blow to land. I’d jerk up the hem of my gown and kick him so hard that--! Suddenly the hall rang with Theseus’s laughter. He held his sides, threw back his head, and brayed. “Ah, Lady Helen, the gods have been more than good to you. The three Graces gave you a face to outshine the sun, then filled your lovely mouth with these bursts of comical nonsense. We should be grateful to them. It’s all that keeps us poor mortal men from mistaking you for a goddess.” He turned his back on me and returned to his throne. From there he proclaimed, “As a reward for amusing me so well, I’m going to give the lady Helen her own lodging in the palace and her very own attendant to be responsible for her every wish, her every whim, and above all, her every movement. Now who deserves such a prize?” His eyes closed and a mean smile twisted his lips. “Telys.

You are in your own prison.

I was a prisoner in my own mind and this opportunity was my only chance to break free.

Advantages of the ASP I have already explained how the ASP is advantageous with regard to its compactness and ease of carry, but there are other advantages. Carrying an impact weapon gives you the ability to counter a threat with less than lethal force, which may save you a long stint in prison. The compact ASP has advantages over the 28-inch stick of the traditional Filipino martial arts. When you are chest-to-chest against an opponent, it's difficult to hit him decisively with a 26-28 inch long stick. Filipino martial artists practice raising the arm and twisting the wrist to snap the tip into an opponent's head, but these flicking strikes can't be counted on to drop an attacker. Also, because of the stick's light weight, space and distance are needed to wind up and generate power. At very close range the short, heavy stick –such as a blackjack, sap, or an 8-inch steel bar-- is a better weapon. The striking tip of the ASP is made of steel, and the middle section is high-grade aluminum. This solid construction means that the ASP hits hard. The unexpanded ASP can be used like a metal yawara (palm stick), which is devastating in close. The Knife The second weapon in Steel Baton EDC is a knife carried at the neck. The knife should be compact and relatively light so that it is comfortable enough for neck carry. Get a light beaded chain that will break away, so that you aren't strangled with your own neck lanyard. The knife should have a straight handle without loops or fingerholes, because you want to be able to access the knife with either hand in an instant, without having to thread your fingers into holes or work to secure a grip. Avoid folding knives. You want a knife that you can draw in an instant. No matter how much you practice drawing and opening your knife, or even if you get an automatic (switchblade) or assisted opener, you will always be slower getting the folding knife open and into action, particularly under stress. Keep in mind that “under stress” may mean somebody socking you in the face repeatedly. Once again, you want open carry. Open carry is almost always legal and is more easily accessible if you are under attack. You can get a neodymium magnet and put it in the gap between the seam of your shirt, in between the buttons. The magnet will attract the steel blade of your knife so that the knife will stay centered and not flop around if you're moving. My recommended knives for neck carry are the Cold Steel Super Edge and the Cold Steel Hide Out. The Super Edge is small, light, and inconspicuous. It also comes in useful as a day-to-day utility tool, opening packages, trimming threads, removing tags, and so on. Get the Rambo knife image out of your mind. You only need a small knife to deter an attacker, because nobody wants to get cut. And if your life is on the line, you can still do serious damage with a small blade.

Pitiful. To obtain such gifts and not appreciate them. Mortarion’s tragedy was that he had become what he had spent his life opposing. He hated himself. He could not reconcile his own drastic transmutation in his mind. The pestilential stench seeping from his plate was, as much as anything, shame. For our part, thought Ahriman, you are the enemy, Pale King. How ironic you are content to be known by that title now, the name of the very monsters you used to hunt with such glee. Mortarion, witch-burner, purger of wisdom. Louder than any other voice, yours was raised against our being from the very start. There were other accusers too: Dorn, Russ, Corax, Manus, but none as loud or as self-righteous as you. Because of you, Prospero burned and Tizca fell. Russ was the implement, and dread Horus the architect, but you were the instigator who fomented the prejudice to begin with. We have longed to see you punished for that, and this is sweet indeed. Look what has become of you: Manus is long dead; Corax and Russ are broken, and lost from the field of war; Dorn is cornered and sweating out his last hours in a prison of his own making as oblivion descends. But you. You couldn’t even cling on to your principles, unlike them. You, the loudest critic of all, have become one with us. Your strength counted for nothing. You have submitted to the warp, and you loathe yourself for doing so. And we can now watch with relish as you rot and hate yourself for ever. Behind his gold-and-azure mask, Ahzek Ahriman smiled.

Be there truly. Be there with 100% of yourself, in every moment of your daily life. That is the essence of true Buddhist meditation. Mindfulness is the energy that helps us to be there 100%. It is the energy of your true presence. Mindfulness brings concentration. Concentration brings insight. Insight liberates you from your ignorance, your anger, your craving. When you are free from your afflictions, happiness becomes possible. Mindfulness and concentration and such sources of happiness. That's why a good practitioner knows how to create a moment of joy, a feeling of happiness, at any time. Handling the present moment with all your attention, all your intelligence, is already building a future. Silence is something that comes from your heart, not your outside. In Buddhism we cultivate aimlessness and in fact in Buddhist tradition the ideal person, an arhat or a bodhisattva, is a businessless person - someone with nowhere to go and nothing to do. People should learn how to just be there, doing nothing. Often it is our own knowledge that is the biggest obstacle to us touching suchness. That is why it's very important to learn how to release our own views. Knowledge is the obstacle to knowledge. If you are dogmatic in your way of thinking, it is very difficult to receive new insights, to conceive of new theories and understanding about the world. Real happiness cannot exist when we ar enot free. Burdened by so many ambitions, we are not able to be free. A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn sorrow on, we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We can't let just one channel dominate us. We have the seeds of everything in us. If we aren't doing something with joy, that moment is wasted. There's a natural tendency in us to seek pleasure and to avoid suffering. We have to instruct our mind that suffering can sometimes be very helpful. Thanks to suffering, we begin to understand. And because we understand, we can accept, we can love. According to the Buddha, the birth of a human being is not a beginning but a continuation and when we are born, all the different kinds of seeds - seeds of goodness, of cruelty, of awakening - are already inside us. Whether the goodness of cruelty in us is revealed depends on what seeds we cultivate, our actions and our way of life. Life is both dreadful and wonderful. To practice meditation is to be in touch with both aspects. Please do not think we must be solemn in order to meditate. In fact, to meditate well, we have to smile a lot. Do not be a prisoner of any doctrine or ideology, even Buddhist ones.

I was there long before you were born, he wanted to say. I've known this kanamaluka [River Tamar] longer than I've known your mother. And as he cast around for what that meant, how important his connection to the river was, his mind snagged on the little boat he'd once owned. How he'd freed it from a prison of thick lead paint. He wanted to tell is daughters about the glory he'd restored it to. How intoxicating the sight of it had been. How the scent of its timber had put him under a spell he had never truly recovered from. What discovering Huon pine does to a person. How it had rode the river so cleanly, so joyously, like a wish come true. How short his time with it was, how hard the summer had been, how he'd sold the boat to a rich little man, a stranger whose name he soon forgot. How it never carried him to the river mouth. I didn't get to go back, he wanted to tell his daughters. I didn't get to return to the place my father took us, your uncles and me, where the mad whale - do you remember the mad whale, do you remember the stories, did anyone ever tell you? - raised its twelve-foot tail above our borrowed boat, hiding the moon's light, poised to smash us into red flotsam. Only it didn't, he wanted to say. It could've, but it didn't. With colossal gentleness it lowered its flukes into the water beside us. Loosed a spray of vapour from its blowhole. Rolled onto its back and exposed to us the creamy striations of its belly. Twisted through the water so that the hugeness of its eye was close to us, a couple of yards from the boat. An eye shockingly familiar in its mammalian warmth. An eye filled with starlight: an eye lit by a half-dark heaven. (p.199)

Even in prison, deprived of nearly everything, some freedoms remain. Your mind remains your own (if you’re lucky, you have books) and you have time—lots of time. Carter did not have much power, but he understood that that was not the same thing as being powerless. Many great figures, from Nelson Mandela to Malcolm X, have come to understand this fundamental distinction. It’s how they turned prison into the workshop where they transformed themselves and the schoolhouse where they began to transform others.

From the prison of your own mind, it’s difficult to admit who it is that’s guarding the gate.

After seeing Dylan with the redhead, I sunk deeper into a depression. Even working at Lark’s house did nothing to distract me. I simply went through the motions. Fortunately, Lark was especially tired and slept most of the day, so she never noticed my bad mood. Harlow wasn’t as oblivious as we washed dishes after dinner. “What’s up, stinky pup?” I rolled my eyes at her nickname for me. “Nothing.” “She doesn’t want to deal with the leaves,” Jace said from behind us. Our ten year old brother crossed his arms like Dad often did when suspicious. “See, she got spooked last night and bailed on raking the leaves. They ended up blowing around the yard and now she’s trying to get out of raking them again.” “That’s not it.” “Sure, it is,” he said, his dark hair covering his narrowed eyes. “What else could it be?” Grumpy, I decided to punish him. “It’s about a sexy guy.” Jace’s face twisted into horror. “Eww!” he cried, running out of the room. Harlow and I laughed at the sound of him telling on me to Mom. “In a few years, girls will be all he thinks about,” I said, returning to the dishes. Harlow leaned her head against my shoulder. “Sexy guy, huh?” “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your fight?” Harlow glanced at the clock. “Yeah. When I get back, I want to hear about the sexy guy making you sigh so much.” As my sister dressed to go, I finished the dishes and struggled to stop sighing. I was still grumpy when Dad got home. In this living room, he told Harlow to be careful. She said something and laughed. When Harlow started fighting at the Thunderdome, she called herself Joy and hid it from our parents. She didn’t think they’d approve and she was right. Harlow and I were naïve to assume they wouldn’t find out long before she told them the truth though. Dad might be a pastor, but he learned about the Lord in prison. As a member of the Reapers, Dad had eyes and ears all over Ellsberg. He likely knew Harlow was fighting before she threw her first punch. Entering the kitchen, Dad smiled at me. “Stop talking about cute boys around your brother. He has a sensitive gag reflex.” I laughed as he got himself a beer and joined me at the sink. “Mom said we have leftovers. Mind warming them up for me?” Shaking my head, I filled a plate and set it in the microwave. “Are you okay?” Dad asked, frowning at me. “You look worn down.” “I had a long day.” “You sure that’s it?” We watched each other and I remembered the first time he asked if I was okay. Five years earlier when I was brought to this house and met my new family. I didn’t remember a lot from that day besides thinking these people were too good to be true. I figured they’d wait until Kirk was gone then hurt me. I couldn’t remember when I knew Dad was a good man who loved me. Not like my real dad loved me. Tad felt the kind of love a person died to protect. I saw the love in his eyes as he waited for his food to finish warming. “I wish I was stronger.” “So do I,” he said softly. “Everyone does. They just don’t admit it. That’s what makes you so brave. You can admit your fears.” Even thinking he was full of shit, I smiled. “Thanks, Dad.” Taking his plate out of the microwave, he inhaled. “Mom makes the best meatloaf.” “I made it.” Grinning, Dad nudged me with his hip. “If you make this meatloaf for the boy you’re hung up on, you’ll own him.” “I’ll remember that.

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When you are a prisoner in your own mind, imprudence soon becomes your cellmate.

That was how for years, all through that quarter of the continent, they had fought, fled, beckoned, resumed. . . . If you took a map and tried to follow them over it, zigzagging town to town, back and forth, it might not have been that easy to account for, even if you recalled how wild, how much better than "wild" it'd been not all that many years ago, out here, even with the workdays that had you longing for the comforts of territorial prison, yes hard as that, when whatever was going to become yours—your land, your stock, your family, your name, no matter, however much or little you had, you earned it, with never no second thoughts as to just killing somebody, if it even looked like they might want to take it. Maybe a dog catching their scent coming down the wind, or the way some trailhand might be wearing his waterproof, that could be enough—didn't matter, with everything brand new and the soldiering so hard, waking up each day never knowing how you'd end it, cashing 'em in being usually never too distant from your thoughts, when any ailment, or animal wild or broke, or a bullet from any direction might be enough to propel you into the beyond . . . why clearly every lick of work you could get in would have that same mortal fear invested into it—Karl Marx and them, well and good, but that's what folk had for Capital, back in early times out here—not tools on credit, nor seed money courtesy of some banker, just their own common fund of fear that came with no more than a look across the day arising. It put a shade onto things that parlor life would just never touch, so whenever she or Reef pulled up and got out, when it wasn't, mind, simple getting away in a hurry, it was that one of them had heard about a place, some place, one more next-to-last place, that hadn't been taken in yet, where you could go live for a time on the edge of that old day-to-day question, at least till the Saturday nights got quiet enough to hear the bell of the town clock ring you the hours before some Sunday it'd be too dreary to want to sober up for. . . . So in time you had this population of kind of roving ambassadors from places like that that were still free, who wherever they came to rest would be a little sovereign piece of that faraway territory, and they'd have sanctuary about the size of their shadow.

You can do almost anything if you put your mind to it. Be it the perfect murder, robbing a bank or owning your own company. I don’t go along with Prince Charles’ maxim that everyone should know their place and limitations.

Slavery is impossible without the consent of the slave. Fear imprisons the mind, Faith. You either accept this prison by following the rules made by others. Or you break free, by making your own.

When Linda looked into King Kyril’s face, Philip saw her amazement and a brief, sudden joy. But at once she mastered it, or it died. “My lord, I come before you as a prisoner.” “What is this, Linda?” he demanded gently. “She said to me ‘Witches and witch-children--he spares none.” “Then she lied, as she lied about so many things. Come, rise, and sit beside me. You are weary.” But Linda remained on her knees before him. “I will not accept your mercy! I belong to no world now. Kill me, I beg you, for I have no wish to live.” Her voice was ragged with strain; she had forced her last strength to this demand. Kyril took her hands in a firm, gentle grip and drew her to her feet. “Your anguish speaks, and the self-hatred you have learned in these long weeks of doubt. Now, Linda, let me set your mind at rest. You are more human than you know.” Her fierceness had given way to a pitiful bewilderment. “But the spring--the demon--!” Kyril nodded. “Powers you have, for your mother was indeed Morgan the Enchantress. But if you return to the world that has become your own, these powers will ebb, leaving you little more than ordinary mortals’. You can choose to let them go.” He took her face between his hands, and as once before, Philip saw her tension ease gradually into peace. “I confess that I doubted too. That was why, in your journey through the wilderness, I made certain you would find me. I needed to see Morgan’s child, to discover how much of her mother’s power she had inherited. You came, but you were closed against me. Yet one night something happened, and I found the answer I was seeking.” Down her cheek his finger traced the path of the single tear she had shed when he questioned her about her home. “I saw you cry. And, Linda, there was one thing Ygerna never told you. Try as she may, a true witch cannot weep.

(1) Karl Barth was not an evangelical. He was a European Protestant wrestling with how to salvage Protestant Christianity in the wake of World War I, which exposed the debacle of liberal theology. Barth was not an inerrantist or a revivalist, and he was wrestling with a different array of issues than the “battle for the Bible.” (2) Karl Barth is on the side of the good guys when it comes to the major ecumenical doctrines about the Trinity and the atonement. Barth is decidedly orthodox and Reformed in his basic stance, though he sees the councils and confessions mainly as guidelines rather than holy writ. (3) Karl Barth arguably gives evangelicals some good tips about how to do theology over and against liberalism. Keep in mind that Karl Barth’s main sparring partner was not Billy Graham or the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, but the European liberal tradition from Friedrich Schleiermacher to Albert Ritschl. For a case in point, whereas Schleiermacher made the Trinity an appendix to his book on Christian Faith because it was irrelevant to religious experience, Barth made the Trinity first and foremost in his Church Dogmatics, which was Barth’s way of saying, “Suck on that one, Schleiermacher!” (4) Evangelicals and the neoorthodox tend to be rather hostile toward each other. Many evangelicals regard the neoorthodox as nothing more than liberalism reloaded, while many neoorthodox theologians regard evangelicals as a more culturally savvy version of fundamentalism. Not true on either score. Evangelicalism and neoorthodoxy are both theological renewal movements trying to find a biblical and orthodox center in the post-Enlightenment era. The evangelicals left fundamentalism and edged left toward a workable orthodox center. The neoorthodox left liberalism and edged right toward a workable orthodox center. Thus, evangelicalism and neoorthodoxy are more like sibling rivals striving to be the heirs of the Reformers in the post-Enlightenment age. There is much in Karl Barth that evangelicals can benefit from. His theology is arguably the most christocentric ever devised. He has a strong emphasis on God’s transcendence, freedom, love, and “otherness.” Barth stresses the singular power and authority of the Word of God in its threefold form of “Incarnation, Preaching, and Scripture.” Barth strove with others like Karl Rahner to restore the Trinity to its place of importance in modern Christian thought. He was a leader in the Confessing Church until he was expelled from Germany by the Nazi regime. He preached weekly in the Basel prison. His collection of prayers contain moving accounts of his own piety and devotion to God. There is, of course, much to be critical of as well. Barth’s doctrine of election implied a universalism that he could never exegetically reconcile. Barth never could regard Scripture as God’s Word per se as much as it was an instrument for becoming God’s Word. He never took evangelicalism all that seriously, as evidenced by his famous retort to Carl Henry that Christianity Today was Christianity Yesterday. Barth’s theology, pro and con, is something that we must engage if we are to understand the state of modern theology. The best place to start to get your head around Barth is his Evangelical Theology, but note that for Barth, “evangelical” (evangelische) means basically “not Catholic” rather than something like American evangelicalism. Going beyond that, his Göttingen Dogmatics or Dogmatics in Outline is a step up where Barth begins to assemble a system of theology based on his understanding of the Word of God. Then one might like to launch into his multivolume Church Dogmatics with the kind assistance of Geoffrey Bromiley’s Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth, which conveniently summarizes each section of Church Dogmatics.

The repetition of the days did something to you. You knew the monotony, but you couldn't fight it. You had to invent your own repetitions to meet it. A ritual. This early, barely awake kneeling was hers. She looked deep into the black of her closed eyes. Stared into the dark. When your sense of vision has very little stimulation, it invents images. Sarah doesn't know the name for this is the Prisoner's Cinema. It is a trick of the mind, blindness turned into glorious sight. Isolation turned into hallucination. After enough time, she saw a series of lights. The false images are called phosphenes, which means "show of lights." But all Sarah knew was that it gave her vibrant colors of great depth, and patterns like a mosaic, like a tiled church floor or sometimes like the spiral of a shell. These visions would not absolve her of her time, her duty, and her deeds. Instead these visions took her through the limits of who she was and what she had done, and for this she felt gratitude, and with this, at last, consolation.

In a sudden and desperate move, she grabbed at the handle on the door and furiously tried to open it. She looked around for a lock, pushing on the door at the same time, but it wouldn’t give. She popped the little button on the door next to the window—up and down, up and down, moving the handle, pushing. Nothing. Her upper arm was gripped hard and she turned her watering, terrified eyes toward Wes. He scowled blackly, then his frown dissolved into mean grin. “Jammed, Paige. How stupid do you think I am?” She swallowed hard and asked, “Do you plan to leave our son without a mother?” “Absolutely,” he said with terrifying calm. “But not until I’m sure I’m leaving him without a potential stepfather.” “God,” she whispered weakly. “Why, Wes? John hasn’t done anything to you!” “No?” he asked. “Only took my family away from me. Got my family to turn against me.” “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, that’s not what happened, Wes. I ran from you.” “Sure you did, Paige. And if it wasn’t for that guy, you’d still be running. Running and running, and I would find you and find you. But what you did—ending it forever and sending me to fucking prison, that was his doing. We both know you don’t have the guts for that.” He turned his head toward her and grinned meanly. “He’ll come after you, you know he will.” I’m bait, she thought. Nothing but bait. “I wouldn’t mind a piece of that other one, either,” he said. “Sheridan.” Something came over Paige. It seemed to rise within her from her core. You don’t have the guts for that.... The thought that this dangerous lunatic would ruthlessly, without conscience, hurt John and his own son sizzled inside her like boiling oil. Her fear slowly gave way to rage. “You’re going to burn in hell,” she whispered. But he couldn’t hear her above the noise of the old pickup. *

I’ve been dying to meet you ever since my brother, Sam, told me about your ordeal last night.” Completely confused, Maddie darted a questioning glance over at Mitch. Casual as could be, he hooked one ankle over the other, drawing her attention to his bare feet. “Sam’s my bartender. He was sitting in the corner booth last night.” Maddie nodded, remembering the good-looking blond surfer type who had been watching them. Gracie grinned from ear to ear, her full mouth a pale, glossy pink. “Well, my brother said Mitch pounced on you like a prisoner granted his first conjugal visit. So I had to see what all the fuss was about.” Maddie had no idea what to say, but she was pretty sure the heat infusing her face made her look guilty, which was ridiculous. She willed her cheeks to cool. She had nothing to be ashamed of. Last night had been perfectly innocent. Sure, she’d had a few impure thoughts, but geez, everyone had those. “Would you shut the hell up?” Mitch’s words held no heat, just good-natured exasperation. He shook his head at Maddie. “Don’t mind her, Princess. She has no control over her mouth.” “Look at him, all protective.” Gracie gave Mitch a slow once-over. “That’s new.” That earned her a menacing look from Mitch. “You can go home now.” Gracie laughed, a full-bodied, throaty sound. “Not on your life.” “I’ve thrown you out before,” Mitch said, putting his own coffee mug down on the counter as if preparing to do just that. “I’ll do it again.” Maddie

You are in a prison of your own devising. Only when you allow yourself freedom of thought can you obtain freedom of mind. The path is before you, you just have to push through your fears to traverse it.

Her dreamlike trance was shattered by a Lenape war cry as Cain swooped down on her, seized her wrists in an iron grip, and pinned her to the ground. “Oh!” she gasped. He crouched over her and stared into her eyes. Cain’s cheekbones bore stripes of blue and red paint, and his features gave no hint of a smile. Excitement tinged with fear bubbled up in Elizabeth’s throat, and she attempted a giggle. “Where did you find the paint?” “Silence woman,” he ordered. “You are my prisoner. I tell you when you can speak.” Elizabeth swallowed and moistened her lips. He’s teasing me, she thought, to get back at me for laughing at him. But an inner voice cautioned, Are you certain? She wiggled in his grasp, and he tightened the pressure on her wrists. “Lie still.” “I would have thought you were too sore to move so fast,” she ventured. His nearness was both frightening and intoxicating. Her mouth felt dry, and her heart was hammering as though she’d been running. She could feel the heat of his body through her clothing. “Let me up before you wrinkle my riding habit.” “If Wishemenetoo had wanted his children to ride on the backs of beasts, he would have made horses that did not come away from the rider,” Cain answered huskily. His eyes narrowed. “And I am certain he did not mean for keequa to make joke at husband’s pain.” “Cain,” she persisted, fighting her own rising desire, “let me go. Someone may see us.” “Robert and your woman go into the forest. This one does not think they will return soon.” A shiver passed through her. Wasn’t this what I had in mind when they wandered off? Didn’t I intend for us to . . . “It’s not safe,” she said. “Edward might—” “He will do nothing. He will lie in his room and drink the fire liquid until his body dies. Can a man who cannot walk alone ride a horse?” “He has spies to watch me. He could—” Cain silenced her with his lips. “I like the taste of you, English equiwa,” he murmured. “I think I keep you.

But Agon did not force this prison upon you. He is the jailer of many, but you are the one who possesses the keys to your own cell. He may hunt you, but he did not lock you away here, nor force upon you the choices you have made these last few years. Your prison is in your mind, where you limit yourself, where you take on the voice of the Beast and speak to yourself the way he would if he could only get to you. But he does not need to if you will do the work for him. Fear is what locked you away, Ifferon, and fear is a tool of Agon. When you fear you open the gate that lets him into your mind. His greatest weapon is fear, for it drives strong men to madness. So why then be afraid?

When you look at Him, your level of faith arrives at stratospheric heights, everything becomes possible, feasible. The real prison in which we find ourselves is in our own mind, full of unbelief and veils that hinder us from seeing. But, glory to God, who provided for us the Spirit, so that, wherever He is, our spirit is set free, and we can enter into dimensions and extraordinary levels. This is what it means to be able to see the Kingdom of God.

Mrs. Brown, I hurried over as soon as I heard..." Ollie Clark ducked through the low front door and removed his hat as he noticed Lily sitting in the old rocker she had brought with her from Mississippi. His gaze stopped at the child at her feet. "Come in, Mr. Clark, have a seat. You've had word of Jim?" Lily’s breath caught in her lungs as she waited for the words she didn't want to hear. Ollie took the overlarge wing chair that had once decorated a bedroom parlor and wrung his hat between his hands. "No, ma'am, I didn't mean to get your hopes up none. I was talkin' 'bout Cade. The boys were just funnin' about him the other day. He's a drunken half-breed, Mrs. Brown. You don't want the likes of him about the place. Let me explain things to him and send him on his way. It ain't right for a respectable lady like yourself to have to deal with a man like that." "I can't dismiss a man without giving him a chance, Mr. Clark. Even drunk, he's showed more sense than some sober men I could name. If Colonel Martin could use him, I don't see why I can't." He took a deep breath. "He ain't even white, Lily. You'll give me permission to call you Lily?" When she didn't reply, Ollie hurried on. "He's half-Indian, half-Mexican. You'd be better off hiring one of your father's slaves. At least they listen when you whip them. Cade's more likely to turn and kill you. He's done it before. You've got to get him out of here." Ollie was speaking sense from his own point of view. Beneath his placid exterior. Cade undoubtedly had a violent temper. Lily had seen evidence of that already. And Ralph had told her he'd been in prison for killing another man. So Ollie was speaking the truth, but only one side of the truth. Lily knew all about that kind of lie. "I'll give Cade his chance, Mr. Clark. Jim would want it that way." Lily watched gleefully as she used this two-edged sword to make Clark squirm. How many times had she resentfully heard those words when the men wouldn't listen to her? Clark scowled and rose. "Jim wouldn't have taken on a drunken Indian. I'll set about finding you a decent man to help out. You'll be needing him soon enough." He gave the child on the floor another glance, one of puzzlement, but he didn't ask the question that obviously was on his mind. And Lily didn't answer it. Sweetly, she held out her hand and offered her best Southern-belle smile. "I'm so grateful for your concern, Mr. Clark. Please do come and visit sometime. Perhaps you could bring Miss Bridgewater. I'd be happy for the company." The name of the young girl whom the town gossip had Clark courting only brought a milder frown to his handsome face. "That's mighty kind of you, Mrs. Brown. I hope you hear from Jim soon." Lily watched him go with a sigh of relief and a small sense of triumph. She didn't know why Ollie Clark was suddenly so all-fired concerned with her welfare, but surely she had set him properly in his place. Now,

I have another problem.” Caleb’s grin was at once endearing and obnoxious. “You’re naked in my bed, and you don’t own a stitch of clothing in the world,” he agreed. “You needn’t look so pleased about it!” Lily snapped, drawing up her knees and wrapping her arms around them. She was very careful not to let the covers slip away from her breasts. “Not only that,” Caleb went on, as though she hadn’t spoken, “but the whole fort is talking about us. Speculating on what’s going on right here in this room.” Lily flushed. Now that she could see things in better perspective she was furious with herself for giving in to Caleb the night of the fire. If she’d gone to Mrs. Tibbet and asked for a place to stay, she could have avoided this problem. She let her forehead rest on her upraised knees. “I’m just like my mother,” she despaired. Caleb made her lift her head. “No,” he said softly. “She gave up, and you don’t have the first idea how to do that. I don’t mind telling you that sometimes I wish you did.” He paused. “You’re still going to move onto your land, aren’t you?” Lily swallowed. “Yes,” she said, because Caleb was right. She didn’t know how to give up on her dream. She’d had to struggle for everything all her life, and she’d never learned to walk away from something she wanted. The major rose from the bed, gazing distractedly toward the window. Lily knew he wasn’t seeing the fluttering lace curtains, which needed washing, or the blue of the sky. Presently he spoke, his voice hoarse and so low that she had to strain to hear it. “I guess there’s no point in talking about it anymore, then. I’ll see what I can do about getting you some clothes.” Caleb’s loving had affected Lily like a dose of opium, but now she was fully awake, and having to stay in bed was like being held prisoner. “Mrs. Tibbet may still have some of Sandra’s things around,” she suggested. Caleb didn’t so much as glance in her direction. “Right,” he answered, crossing the room and pulling open the door. “Caleb, wait!” Lily cried. “You can’t just walk out and leave me here like this—I need to know how soon I can expect you back!” He let his head rest against the doorjamb for a moment, and his shoulders, always so straight and strong, looked slightly stooped to Lily. “Half an hour,” he said, and then he was gone, closing the door quietly behind him. Lily

Know the bondage and attachments from inside and from root to be free. Don't waste time on leaves of life, Awake and cut the root of all web of illusions. Awake and the karma breaks. Awake and the illusion breaks. Awake and the fate breaks. Knowledge is fake and worthless if it can not erase and wipe away false knowledge and free you from illusion of knowledge. Awake and librate from Web of illusions don't catch one after another. Don't control things in you. Know them and let be, witness each of them. The only sin in this world is, Not sowing Seed of Awakening. Rest are just your actions and perceptions in sleep and illusion. Only your own attainment of knowledge and truth can give you liberation not of somebody elses. Knowledge of somebody else will only give illusion of knowledge. If you are believing in mine or anyone's beliefs and thoughts then you are imprisoned by illusions of freedom, thought and Bondages. You are only free when you believe by your own experiences. Know ego, Let your body fall. Let your mind fall, know soul. Know spirit, let your soul fall. Let illusion fall, know consciousness. Know consciousness & let your spirit fall. Egoless, greedless & desireless state of consciousness can liberate soul. Love and Meditation are two Main gates of Awakening and Liberation. Witness everything and awake from the sleep of illusions of world and liberate. Wars in the world will never come to an end until the war inside the mind is perished. Transformation of soul and consciousness will start with the Awakening fire inside, and burn the negativity and remove the darkness. illusion of knowledge, play of words, blind faith, and superstitious beliefs, kill your journey of self discovery of self transformation of Awakening. The whole world has been slaved into union on basis of thoughts, beliefs, Faith, religions, caste, creed, regions and other worthless words. One will achieve freedom only when, one gave up the illusion of words created by mind, people, and World, else one will be always bound to words and it's prison. Let go words and knowledge, Know the silence, be the silence, and you will free from illusion of words and knowledge. Enslavement of words and illusion of words will be one day responsible for the destruction of the world. All prisons are in mind and due to mind. If mind is enslaved one cannot be free. Freedom is a inner state of mind and consciousness into silence and bliss. Where Perception of Death is Lost and Life is Known As It is, Salvation is Achieved. Faith is backbone of all religions. Let the faith fall and start the process transformation of the Awakening. Truth can be only Know by rejecting the Blind faith and beliefs. Only then can be the path of Truth can be achieved. Truth is pathless, because it is right here. Path is a outward thing, inner process of knowing oneself is a different thing. Religion can only take place in an Awakened consciousness. Service to needy must be done intentionlessly else it is worthless. Every act done unconsciously is act of sleep. Awake and be Aware. Transforming broken situations of life in act of facing, withstanding and winning is guide by master. If you let love kill you inside you have not known love as it is.

You can lock people up, Inspector Janssen, but the toughest of prisons are in your own mind.” She tapped her the side of her head for emphasis. “Believe me, that’s where the battle for morality is won or lost.

We exist in order that we may become something more than we are, not through favorable circumstance or auspicious occurrence, but through an inner search for increased awareness. To be, to become — these are the commandments of evolving life, which is going somewhere, aspires to some unsealed heights, and the awakened soul answers the call, seeks, grows, expands. To do less is to sink into the reactive prison of the ego, with all its pain, suffering, limitation, decay, and death. People who live through reaction to the world about them are the victims of every change in their environments, now happy, now sad, now victorious, now defeated, affected but never affecting. They may live many years in this manner, rapt with sensory perception and the ups and downs of their surface selves, but one day pain so outweighs pleasure that they suddenly perceive their ego as illusory, a product of outside circumstances only. Then they either sink into complete animal lethargy or, turning away from the senses, seek inner awareness and self-mastery. Then they are on the road to really living, truly becoming; then they begin to uncover their real potential; then they discover the miracle of their own consciousness, the magic in their mind. Mastery over life is not attained by dominion over material things, but by mental perception of their true cause and nature.

I can’t believe I actually stayed this long. I can’t believe I let him treat me this way. The physical and sexual aspect isn’t even the worst part; it’s the fucking mind games he played. It’s not just mental abuse, it’s mental warfare and can be more dangerous than a raised hand. The gaslighting and manipulation are what convinces victims to stay and endure. They train you to protect yourself, ultimately changing every part of you until you no longer recognize yourself. You’re a prisoner in your own home. There are limitations on where you can go, how long you stay out, who you’re allowed to see, and god forbid you hang out with anyone without their supervision. Too scared to look nice in fear of accusations of cheating. But you’re going to leave the house looking like that? God, you’re embarrassing, put some make-up on at least. But only wear it when I’m around, otherwise you’re trying to impress other men.

Learn to admire others; it is the first step to overcome your ego.” “The ego destroys its egoist silently and suddenly, as a termite does.” “The ego is such a bullet that fires all your relations.” “The ego and vanity both hold such invisible fire that flames upon oneself.” “Your ego may hurt and damage you more than others.” Learn how to live and participate in people and society, how to help each other, and how to build harmony and peace among those who have lost their way. It can only be with respect, justice, and equality, without any distinctions. Be aware that your ego can destroy your ability if you focus on your caliber and status; it is a poison, not a remedy. Understand the outcomes and consequences of ego, egoists, and egotism. Read thoroughly to grasp the insight to enlighten your life and ways. “Everyone stands firm with their ego status; thus, I accept that I am zero and that everyone else is a hero, but remember that on every count, zero matters.” “The ego, vanity, jealousy, and other flaws define the imperceptive attitude and fly silently toward self-victimizing.” “Nothing else than the worst and abysmal self-defeat, which elucidates that one fetches and embraces itself to become the victim of ego, vanity, and jealousy.” “An egoist focuses on self-promotion and does not admire others or value anyone else. Unfortunately, such one remains the prisoner of egotism.” “A heart that contains love cannot keep the hate there A heart that performs forgiveness does not recognize revenge In a heart where there is altruism, there is no place for egoism Such a heart demonstrates a pure and real human.” “It proves not a difficult task if one discovers the universe; however, discovering one’s self-ego is the toughest matter, whereas overcoming that leads to a visionary victory.” “To show others, the quotes and sayings of the visionary figures, as a mirror instead of reform own conduct and character, indicates one’s worst egoism unless that reflects and demonstrates not their golden words.” “One can neither understand nor accept and respect others’ logic, view, and insight before overcoming their ego.” “After the jumping out of your ego, you liberate your own, and you see the way towards the values of others.” “The nurturing of morals is the language, and control of the ego is the eye of the soul.” “Surrender your ego to enjoy peace of mind and the beauty of equality and harmony.” “Everyone stands firm with their ego status; thus, I accept that I am zero and that everyone else is a hero, but remember that on every count, zero matters.” “Hatred, racism, discrimination, distinction, and vainglory germinate in the soil of ego.” “When one becomes capable of overcoming desires, hopes, and ego, one learns and understands the faculty of patience.” I Yield Not *** I suffer not from ego I let that not enter my life I yield not my will to avaricious As I am a truth of truths I dream not, impossibilities I become a dream of my dreams Since I exist as a reality Thus, it builds A sweet and lovely pleasure, Peace and calm I dance; I dance Without security Even no one can imagine My link to the spiritual world I am here and there No one is aware I wear and bear Every atmosphere. Deliberately *** I deliberately Become fool I enjoy that To punish My ego It is not strange Nor it is a surprise It is just an idea Of yourself What are you Who are you If my ego rules me I feel myself in the doom If I overcome my ego My ways become bright I see the destiny For that, I am here I deliberately Become fool To let people Enjoy and happy Let them heal Their wounds Caused by themselves Of their wrong deeds I deliberately Become fool To make the people active Put to use their time The great lessons That nowhere One can learn.

The whole of meditation practice can be essentialized into these three crucial points: bring your mind home, and release, and relax. Each phrase contains meanings that resonate on many levels. To bring your mind home means to bring the mind into the state of Calm Abiding through the practice of mindfulness. In its deepest sense, to bring your mind home is to turn your mind inward and to rest in the nature of mind. This itself is the highest meditation. To release means to release mind from its prison of grasping, since you recognize that all pain and fear and distress arise from the craving of the grasping mind. On a deeper level, the realization and confidence that arise from your growing understanding of the nature of mind inspire the profound and natural generosity that enables you to release all grasping from your heart, letting it free itself, to melt away in the inspiration of meditation. Finally, to relax means to be spacious and to relax the mind of its tensions. More deeply, you relax into the true nature of your mind, the state of Rigpa. The Tibetan words that evoke this process suggest the sense of “relaxing upon the Rigpa.” It is like pouring a handful of sand onto a flat surface; each grain settles of its own accord. This is how you relax into your true nature, letting all thoughts and emotions naturally subside and dissolve into the state of the nature of mind.

They're doing this because they haven't broken me. If I had lost my mind and sat weeping in my own shit, maybe then they'd be happy to send me to a madhouse like they did with Khaireh. But I stand and claim my innocence so they have to finish me to protect themselves. Their lies and evil end with me.' He had saved a cigarette to celebrate the reprieve, expecting. despite everything, that it would come through, but now he pulls it out from the foil and clasps it between his lips. He strikes a match against the wall. 'If only I could set fire to all your walls,' he says, inhaling deeply from the smouldering tobacco, 'I would burn this prison down and let everyone go free, whatever their crime, no one should steal their freedom. Somalis have got the right idea, you wrong someone and you're forced to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life unless you make amends. You deal with each other face to face. Only cowards live by prisons and cold hangings.

frame Tom for the two murders. What did he have against Tom?’ ‘Ah,’ Richard said, ‘you’re right. He didn’t have anything against Tom. Not really. But I remembered something that your solicitor said when she showed me Grandfather William’s will. She said that when Freddie died, the trust would automatically be dissolved and would then be inherited in its entirety by Freddie’s firstborn, assuming that that person was over the age of eighteen, of sound mind and body, and – crucially – had no unspent prison time. ‘That’s why Matthew worked so hard to pin the murders on his brother. Because the moment we arrested Tom, he’d be stopped from inheriting anything. And when Tom was then convicted of double murder – as I’m sure he would have been, considering the evidence against him, both direct and indirect – then he’d have ended up in prison. Tom would have been ineligible to inherit. The whole estate would automatically have passed on to the next oldest child, Matthew. And seeing as Matthew has always been on record as wanting to sell the plantation, it wouldn’t have even begun to look suspicious when he then sold the plantation for five million dollars. ‘So Matthew wasn’t just killing the only two people in the world he thought knew his secret shame. He was also making sure he inherited five million dollars. And five million dollars is always an incentive to commit murder. Don’t you think, Sylvie?’ A few minutes later, Richard emerged from the shower room to see Dwayne and Fidel already guarding the locked boot of the Police jeep where a handcuffed Matthew was sitting inside. From the way his shoulders were heaving up and down, Richard could see that he was crying. As for Camille, she’d taken Andy Lucas off to the shade of a palm tree and was talking to him. ‘Detective Inspector?’ a voice said from behind Richard. Richard turned and saw Hugh standing by the entrance to the shower room with Rosie and Tom. As for Sylvie, she was already heading back to the main house on her own. ‘I’m sorry,’ Hugh said. ‘That you saw our family…like this. That you saw what we’re really like.’ Richard knew that there was nothing he could say that would make Hugh feel any better.

The third couple stepped forward for ministry, and again the word of knowledge was present. The prophet spoke to the husband, revealing his past, present, and insight into his future. Then the man of God turned to this third minister’s wife. As he began to speak of her past, suddenly he stopped. “There was a very serious sin in your past.” The woman, with her worst fear upon her, turned pale and closed her eyes. The congregation hushed and moved to the edge of their seats. The prophet continued, “And I asked the Lord, ‘What was this sin that she committed?’ And the Lord answered, ‘I do not remember!’” The Lord had been faithful to His promise: “I will not remember your sins” (Isa. 43:25). Although many times this minister’s wife had asked for cleansing, still she could not believe the depth of God’s forgiveness. Christ had placed her sin in the sea of His forgetfulness. He removed it “as far as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103:12). From everywhere but the prison of her own mind, her sin had been paid for and removed. And now, in His great mercy, He removed it from there as well!

The third couple stepped forward for ministry, and again the word of knowledge was present. The prophet spoke to the husband, revealing his past, present, and insight into his future. Then the man of God turned to this third minister’s wife. As he began to speak of her past, suddenly he stopped. “There was a very serious sin in your past.” The woman, with her worst fear upon her, turned pale and closed her eyes. The congregation hushed and moved to the edge of their seats. The prophet continued, “And I asked the Lord, ‘What was this sin that she committed?’ And the Lord answered, ‘I do not remember!’” The Lord had been faithful to His promise: “I will not remember your sins” (Isa. 43:25). Although many times this minister’s wife had asked for cleansing, still she could not believe the depth of God’s forgiveness. Christ had placed her sin in the sea of His forgetfulness. He removed it “as far as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103:12). From everywhere but the prison of her own mind, her sin had been paid for and removed. And now, in His great mercy, He removed it from there as well! Oh, what burdens we carry; what guilt and limitations surround us because we do not accept God’s total and perfect forgiveness. In Isaiah we read, “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isa. 43:25).

In Your Thoughts Irma! I was lost in your thoughts Irma, your hopes and in your imagination, When the breeze whispered “follow me and feel the new celebration!” And I replied, “no matter where I may tarry I am never away from her sensation, That has dissolved in my every emotion!” I seek you in every corner of light, In the morning hope, in the flowers., in the stars and in the moonlight, Then I look into the mirror and investigate my own sight, To find you in my own eyes and what a delight! I often remember our moments of togetherness from the past, The kiss that is still fresh and warm, but was the last, Always together even in the shadows that we cast, Everything feels like yesterday, but in every today, yesterday is always the past! My heart loves being a prisoner of your thoughts and your imaginings, And my mind seems to have got used to my heart’s longings, Leaving me marooned in love’s beautiful trappings, Where your smiling face is a part of all my mental surroundings! You are like the moon of my night, Where you shine on the shore of my life with love’s light, And I let you be my fate, my destiny and my joy’s every scalable height, So it is you and only you I dream of every night. Sometimes you are a palpable dream passing through my closed eyes, Often you are a beautiful embrace the warmth of which never dies, Until I wake up and seek you with my open eyes, It shall be the same every day and night until we meet again under these open skies! For now let me seek you within me and outside my own existence, I miss you deeply because I love you without any pretence, And I wish sometimes if I could bear wings like Gabriel to overcome every distance, But I am sure, I will either find you or bear wings to be kissed by your magnificence. Someday we both shall be reduced to nothing, just an impalpable feeling, But even then my soul shall find your thoughts healing, And when all shall before the God be kneeling, I shall be the only one still seeking myself in your omnipresent feeling!

The third couple stepped forward for ministry, and again the word of knowledge was present. The prophet spoke to the husband, revealing his past, present, and insight into his future. Then the man of God turned to this third minister’s wife. As he began to speak of her past, suddenly he stopped. “There was a very serious sin in your past.” The woman, with her worst fear upon her, turned pale and closed her eyes. The congregation hushed and moved to the edge of their seats. The prophet continued, “And I asked the Lord, ‘What was this sin that she committed?’ And the Lord answered, ‘I do not remember!’” The Lord had been faithful to His promise: “I will not remember your sins” (Isa. 43:25). Although many times this minister’s wife had asked for cleansing, still she could not believe the depth of God’s forgiveness. Christ had placed her sin in the sea of His forgetfulness. He removed it “as far as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103:12). From everywhere but the prison of her own mind, her sin had been paid for and removed. And now, in His great mercy, He removed it from there as well! Oh, what burdens we carry; what guilt and limitations surround us because we do not accept God’s total and perfect forgiveness. In Isaiah we read, “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isa. 43:25). How great is the God we serve. How wonderful is His love toward us. He is our Redeemer, our Savior! If you are willing to forgive others and will but ask Him to forgive you, He will pardon your debts as often as you contritely turn to Him. He promises He will remember your sins no more.

That's his perception of reality," Nenad responded. "He has adopted it as his interpretation and cannot break free from it, and probably doesn't even consider doing so. In fact, we too are unable to escape his worldview as it partly is our own. However, when faced with the choice between the cat and the belt, I choose the cat. It's not doomed, it's not poisoned, and it can be easily removed by hand from the engine, even if it comes at a financial cost. I have enough space in my cage for its rescue. I can imagine that within its mind, this engine has become a prison for his hopes of salvation. Overcoming our phobias of losing money in the pursuit of something else, even in small amounts, is healthy. A ground strap costs nothing, and though it may require a bit of time in a repair shop, in this day and age, we are used to wasting our time for far less. The reality of our daily lives is filled with every online distraction, like a sheet riddled with holes from moths that we wrap ourselves in out of habit without even noticing. It’s so comforting. At first, you embrace what everyone else does, what you are told to think. But eventually, you come to the realization that you have the power to dictate your thought patterns and become the architect of your ideology. You can construct a personal propaganda machine that aligns with your values and desires, creating a unique model of the world that is entirely your own. Your mind is still going to be a box in one of the billions of drawers, but it’s going to be YOUR box. Your true home. Manipulate yourself. We should manipulate ourselves towards common sense, compassion, and hope that we’ll get a good batch of people at some point so we can live among more like-minded peers. Now it’s up to our online feed. Now the education in our phone holds the reins, encapsulated in the three-second video of someone's take on history, the five-second clip of fitness models or investment strategies. And if we're fortunate, some famous person would quote Epictetus' Discourses, perhaps echoing the wisdom of Dostoevsky, Camus, Kafka, Marcus Aurelius, Sartre, etc. This is our chance for us to avoid descending into mere survival instincts without the tempering influence of morality and an understanding of the absurdity that we have created around us. To get addicted to the freedom in our minds. OR to choose the ground strap, choose to sacrifice someone else’s life so we can preserve our resources, because that’s what greed is, on a deep ancient level it’s you hoarding resources the same way a squirrel does with its winter supplies. Choose to be a squirrel rather than a human and live off your acorns. Choose to kill the cat. Choose not to ruin your precious machine. Choose the current model of society and disappear in it like a pelican getting caught in an airplane engine. Perhaps responsibility is the first and maybe even the only synonym for human purpose. Of course, there is value in the small moments we experience, but they lack foundation if they don’t fit into the break from working on something meaningful.

We are all jailors in a prison of our own creation.

What if is an exquisite fuck-you to anyone who has ever doubted your greatness or stood in your way. It silences negativity. It’s a reminder that you don’t really know what you’re capable of until you put everything you’ve got on the line. It makes the impossible feel at least a little more possible. What if is the power and permission to face down your darkest demons, your very worst memories, and accept them as part of your history. If and when you do that, you will be able to use them as fuel to envision the most audacious, outrageous achievement and go get it. We live in a world with a lot of insecure, jealous people. Some of them are our best friends. They are blood relatives. Failure terrifies them. So does our success. Because when we transcend what we once thought possible, push our limits, and become more, our light reflects off all the walls they’ve built up around them. Your light enables them to see the contours of their own prison, their own self-limitations. But if they are truly the great people you always believed them to be, their jealousy will evolve, and soon their imagination might hop its fence, and it will be their turn to change for the better.

Imagine that you’re standing in the middle of the floor of a prison cell. Around you are solid concrete walls and a solid steel door. The only window is a small slit on the back wall of your cell, but it’s so high up above your head that you can’t see out of it unless you grip the ledge and haul yourself up with sheer brute strength. Imagine that you pull yourself up there by your fingertips, actually feeling what it would be like—the muscles in your hands, forearms, and biceps all activated and getting more exhausted by the second; the rough texture of the wall scraping your belly and thighs as you struggle to ascend; the cold steel of the window bars around your hands. When you finally pull yourself up above the ledge, you’re nearly blinded by a brilliant light from the outside. It’s the light of creation, and it bursts into the window and makes everything disappear. There’s only the light—no prison cell, no window, and no you. Nothing exists anymore but infinite light. That’s the meditation. Just like the pull-up or chin-up you’re imagining yourself doing, one repetition is probably not enough to do much. There aren’t any rules as to how many times you should visualize the above, but I think ten reps is a good start. And when that becomes easy, try working your way up to a hundred times. When you get truly proficient at it, you’ll notice a peculiar sensation. As you imagine the light obliterating everything (including you), you’ll start to feel as if you’ve been cast back into your own body—gently, yet forcefully. You’ll also experience a temporary state of being grounded in the present moment, in your physical form, with no stray thoughts whatsoever. Mindfulness has been increasing in popularity for the last decade or so, and people apply it in the context of just about anything these days—golf, cooking, running, tennis, parenting, and so on. Originating thousands of years ago