Seeker Of Nothing Quotes

It was good, and nothing good is truly lost. It stays part of a person, becomes part of their character. So part of you goes everywhere with me. And part of me is yours, forever

I wanted to become the seeker, the aroused and passionate explorer, and it was better to go at it knowing nothing at all, always choosing the unmarked bottle, always choosing your own unproven method, armed with nothing but faith and a belief in astonishment.

No, a true seeker, one who truly wished to find, could accept no doctrine. But the man who has found what he sought, such a man could approve of every doctrine, each and every one, every path, every goal; nothing separated him any longer from all those thousands of others who lived in the eternal, who breathed the Divine.

It was good and nothing good is ever lost.

For to know nothing is nothing, not to want to know anything likewise, but to be beyond knowing anything, to know you are beyond knowing anything, that is when peace enters in, to the soul of the incurious seeker.

Dear FB Friends, Fuck Facebook!!!!! — It has proven to be worthless as a book-selling device, and is nothing but a repository for perverts, reparation-seekers, old buddies looking for handouts, syphillitic ex-girlfriends looking for extra-curricular schlong and hack writers begging for blurbs.

What an abyss of uncertainty, whenever the mind feels overtaken by itself; when it, the seeker, is at the same time the dark region through which it must go seeking and where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not yet exist, which it alone can make actual, which it alone can bring into the light of day.

Grief was like a terrible burden, but at least you could lay it down by the side of the road and walk away from it. Antonia had come only a few paces, but already she could turn and look back and not weep. It wasn't anything to do with forgetting. It was just accepting. Nothing was ever so bad once you had accepted it.

This is why I shall not tell you in this story about all the days when nothing happened. You will not catch me saying, 'thus the sad days passed slowly by'--or 'the years rolled on their weary course'--or 'time went on'--because it is silly; of course time goes on--whether you say so or not. So I shall just tell you the nice, interesting parts--and in between you will understand that we had our meals and got up and went to bed, and dull things like that.

Quinn hesitated, then said what his heart demanded."Lizzy, even if you don't believe, I will still be your friend. Nothing is going to change that. I'm loyal to my friends for a lifetime. There are no qualifications." She just looked at him for a long time, and then the smile that could make his heart roll over appeared. She got to her feet and lightly tapped his arm with the sombrero. "You're forgiven for asking me out fourth." She would have passed him but he snagged her hand. "Lizzy." She stopped. "I saved the best for last.

No, a true seeker could not accept any teachings, not if he sincerely wished to find something. But he who had found, could give his approval to every path, to every goal; nothing separated him from all the other thousands who lived in eternity, who breathed the Divine.

The temptation for farandola or for man or for star is to stay an immature pleasure-seeker. When we seek our own pleasure as the ultimate good we place ourselves as the center of the universe. A fara or a man or a star has his place in the universe, but nothing created is the center.

Some people just carry heavy hearts and more often than not it has nothing to do with you.

There is nothing more powerful than this moment your living, now, more powerful than your convictions and truths, spend time with what your heart desires and souls screams for. Life ends a day before we know it, it's so important to chase everything that matters to you.

His face set in grim determination, Richard slogged ahead, his fingers reaching up to touch the tooth under his shirt. Loneliness, deeper than he had never known, sagged his shoulders. All his friends were lost to him. He knew now that his life was not his own. It belonged to his duty, to his task. He was the Seeker. Nothing more. Nothing less. Not his own man, but a pawn to be used by others. A tool, same as his sword, to help others, that they might have the life he had only glimpsed for a twinkling. He was no different from the dark things in the boundary. A bringer of death.

This is exactly the sort of thing that makes traveling wonderful for me, the reason I defied everyone. The two of us together like we have always been, not saying anything, not doing anything special, just on vacation. I know nothing lasts, but even when you know that things are just about over, sometimes you can run back and take a little bit more and no one will notice.

All truth-seekers should study the genocide that was the Holocaust and ask themselves how on Earth this event was 'allowed' to occur, keeping in mind allowed is the correct term as there was no shortage of witnesses, including those all over Europe who stood by and did nothing to intervene. If those bystanders hadn’t just stood by, perhaps the history books would tell a different story.

Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that is neither innocent nor praiseworthy. Of that lamentable company am I. Conversation after a time bores me, games tire me, and my own thoughts, which we are told are the unfailing resource of a sensible man, have a tendency to run dry. Then I fly to my book as the opium-seeker to his pipe. I would sooner read the catalogue of the Army and Navy stores or Bradshaw's Guide than nothing at all, and indeed I have spent many delightful hours over both these works. At one time I never went out without a second-hand bookseller's list in my pocket. I know no reading more fruity. Of course to read in this way is as reprehensible as doping, and I never cease to wonder at the impertinence of great readers who, because they are such, look down on the illiterate. From the standpoint of what eternity is it better to have read a thousand books than to have ploughed a million furrows? Let us admit that reading with us is just a drug that we cannot do without — who of this band does not know the restlessness that attacks him when he has been severed from reading too long, the apprehension and irritability, and the sigh of relief which the sight of a printed page extracts from him? — and so let us be no more vainglorious than the poor slaves of the hypodermic needle or the pint-pot. And like the dope-fiend who cannot move from place to place without taking with him a plentiful supply of his deadly balm I never venture far without a sufficiency of reading matter. Books are so necessary to me that when in a railway train I have become aware that fellow-travellers have come away without a single one I have been seized with a veritable dismay. But when I am starting on a long journey the problem is formidable.

A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Mark the mastodon. The dinosaur, who left dry tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no hiding place down here. You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in The bruising darkness, Have lain too long Face down in ignorance. Your mouths spelling words Armed for slaughter. The rock cries out today, you may stand on me, But do not hide your face. Across the wall of the world, A river sings a beautiful song, Come rest here by my side. Each of you a bordered country, Delicate and strangely made proud, Yet thrusting perpetually under siege. Your armed struggles for profit Have left collars of waste upon My shore, currents of debris upon my breast. Yet, today I call you to my riverside, If you will study war no more. Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs The Creator gave to me when I And the tree and stone were one. Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow And when you yet knew you still knew nothing. The river sings and sings on. There is a true yearning to respond to The singing river and the wise rock. So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, The African and Native American, the Sioux, The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek, The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh, The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, The privileged, the homeless, the teacher. They hear. They all hear The speaking of the tree. Today, the first and last of every tree Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river. Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river. Each of you, descendant of some passed on Traveller, has been paid for. You, who gave me my first name, You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, Then forced on bloody feet, Left me to the employment of other seekers-- Desperate for gain, starving for gold. You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot... You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare Praying for a dream. Here, root yourselves beside me. I am the tree planted by the river, Which will not be moved. I, the rock, I the river, I the tree I am yours--your passages have been paid. Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need For this bright morning dawning for you. History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage, Need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon The day breaking for you. Give birth again To the dream. Women, children, men, Take it into the palms of your hands. Mold it into the shape of your most Private need. Sculpt it into The image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances For new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness. The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out upon me, The rock, the river, the tree, your country. No less to Midas than the mendicant. No less to you now than the mastodon then. Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, Into your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.

This isn't a game we're playing between ourselves," he continued. "Don't pretend that it is." "Isn't it?" A challenge flared in her eyes, like fire inside the purest emerald. "Don't lie to me, John. Don't pretend it's any more than it really is. It's a job. One we're both determined to complete, nothing more." "Like hell.

What, more realistically, is this “mutation,” the “new man”? He is the rootless man, discontinuous with a past that Nihilism has destroyed, the raw material of every demagogue’s dream; the “free-thinker” and skeptic, closed only to the truth but “open” to each new intellectual fashion because he himself has no intellectual foundation; the “seeker” after some “new revelation,” ready to believe anything new because true faith has been annihilated in him; the planner and experimenter, worshipping “fact” because he has abandoned truth, seeing the world as a vast laboratory in which he is free to determine what is “possible”; the autonomous man, pretending to the humility of only asking his “rights,” yet full of the pride that expects everything to be given him in a world where nothing is authoritatively forbidden; the man of the moment, without conscience or values and thus at the mercy of the strongest “stimulus”; the “rebel,” hating all restraint and authority because he himself is his own and only god; the “mass man,” this new barbarian, thoroughly “reduced” and “simplified” and capable of only the most elementary ideas, yet scornful of anyone who presumes to point out the higher things or the real complexity of life.

You are the way and you are the goal, and there is no distance between you and the goal. You are the seeker and you are the sought; there is no distance between the seeker and the sought. You are the worshipper and you are the worshipped. You are the disciple and you are the master. You are the means and you are the end: this is the great way.

Truth is for earnest seekers, not for those of idle curiosity. It is easy to believe when one sees; there is nothing then to deny. Supersensual truth is deserved and discovered by those who overcome their natural materialistic skepticism.

In fact, there is nothing we can conceive of that is not energy. It doesn’t just infuse everything; it is everything.

The spiritual life (adhyatma-jivana), the religious life (dharma-jivana) and the ordinary human life of which morality is a part are three quite different things and one must know which one desires and not confuse the three together. The ordinary life is that of the average human consciousness separated from its own true self and from the Divine and led by the common habits of the mind, life and body which are the laws of the Ignorance. The religious life is a movement of the same ignorant human consciousness, turning or trying to turn away from the earth towards the Divine, but as yet without knowledge and led by the dogmatic tenets and rules of some sect or creed which claims to have found the way out of the bonds of the earth-consciousness into some beatific Beyond. The religious life may be the first approach to the spiritual, but very often it is only a turning about in a round of rites, ceremonies and practices or set ideas and forms without any issue. The spiritual life, on the contrary, proceeds directly by a change of consciousness, a change from the ordinary consciousness, ignorant and separated from its true self and from God, to a greater consciousness in which one finds one's true being and comes first into direct and living contact and then into union with the Divine. For the spiritual seeker this change of consciousness is the one thing he seeks and nothing else matters.

I thought that I must always search for the remarkable combinations, add unknowns, mix things that were clearly marked with things beyond marking. I would leave the simulated test and enter into forbidden territory. I would look for that moment when I would begin to pour alone and in wonder. I would always try to seize that moment and to accept its challenge. I wanted to become the seeker, the aroused and passionate explorer, and it was better to go at it knowing nothing at all, always choosing the unmarked bottle, always choosing your own unproven method, armed with nothing faith and a belief in astonishment. And if by accident, I could make a volcano in a single test tube, then what could I do with all the strange magnificent elements of the world with its infinity of unknowns, with the swarm of man, with civilization, with language?

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.

Whom, then, to love? Whom to believe? Who is the only one that won't betray us? Who measures all deeds, all speeches obligingly by our own foot rule? Who does not sow slander about us? Who coddles us with care? To whom our vice is not so bad? Who never bores us? Unlike a futile phantom-seeker who wastes effort in vain- love your own self, my honorworthy reader. A worthy object! Nothing more amiable surely exists.

At present, the successful office-seeker is a good deal like the center of the earth; he weighs nothing himself, but draws everything else to him. There are so many societies, so many churches, so many isms, that it is almost impossible for an independent man to succeed in a political career. Candidates are forced to pretend that they are catholics with protestant proclivities, or christians with liberal tendencies, or temperance men who now and then take a glass of wine, or, that although not members of any church their wives are, and that they subscribe liberally to all. The result of all this is that we reward hypocrisy and elect men entirely destitute of real principle; and this will never change until the people become grand enough to allow each other to do their own thinking. Our government should be entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight. He should not be compelled to give his opinion as to the inspiration of the bible, the propriety of infant baptism, or the immaculate conception. All these things are private and personal. The people ought to be wise enough to select as their officers men who know something of political affairs, who comprehend the present greatness, and clearly perceive the future grandeur of our country. If we were in a storm at sea, with deck wave-washed and masts strained and bent with storm, and it was necessary to reef the top sail, we certainly would not ask the brave sailor who volunteered to go aloft, what his opinion was on the five points of Calvinism. Our government has nothing to do with religion. It is neither christian nor pagan; it is secular. But as long as the people persist in voting for or against men on account of their religious views, just so long will hypocrisy hold place and power. Just so long will the candidates crawl in the dust—hide their opinions, flatter those with whom they differ, pretend to agree with those whom they despise; and just so long will honest men be trampled under foot.

When our will is strong and aligned with Divine intent, there is nothing we cannot do or be. With power and guidance flowing through us, Life becomes an effortless dance as we relinquish control and limitation and allow our Spirit Within to express itself.

Nothing’s worth anything unless somebody wants it.

man’s soul cries for the infinite in a finite world. That’s why nothing ever satisfies us.

And naturally I was reading in the library a few days later from a book about the Indian saint Sri Ramakrishna, and I stumbled upon a story about a seeker who once came to see the great master and admitted to him that she feared she was not a good enough devotee, feared that she did not love God enough. And the saint said, "Is there nothing you love?" The woman admitted that she adored her young nephew more than anything else on earth. The saint said, "There, then. He is your Krishna, your beloved. In your service to your nephew, you are serving God.

Chastity and moral purity were qualities McCandless mulled over long and often. Indeed, one of the books found in the bus with his remains was a collection of stories that included Tol¬stoy’s “The Kreutzer Sonata,” in which the nobleman-turned-ascetic denounces “the demands of the flesh.” Several such passages are starred and highlighted in the dog-eared text, the margins filled with cryptic notes printed in McCandless’s distinc¬tive hand. And in the chapter on “Higher Laws” in Thoreau’s Walden, a copy of which was also discovered in the bus, McCand¬less circled “Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it.” We Americans are titillated by sex, obsessed by it, horrified by it. When an apparently healthy person, especially a healthy young man, elects to forgo the enticements of the flesh, it shocks us, and we leer. Suspicions are aroused. McCandless’s apparent sexual innocence, however, is a corol¬lary of a personality type that our culture purports to admire, at least in the case of its more famous adherents. His ambivalence toward sex echoes that of celebrated others who embraced wilderness with single-minded passion—Thoreau (who was a lifelong virgin) and the naturalist John Muir, most prominently— to say nothing of countless lesser-known pilgrims, seekers, mis¬fits, and adventurers. Like not a few of those seduced by the wild, McCandless seems to have been driven by a variety of lust that supplanted sexual desire. His yearning, in a sense, was too pow¬erful to be quenched by human contact. McCandless may have been tempted by the succor offered by women, but it paled beside the prospect of rough congress with nature, with the cosmos it¬self. And thus was he drawn north, to Alaska.

I thought that nothing enormously bad or good had happened to me during my life. All the normal things had occurred. I had lived a completely unremarkable life. I wanted only my home, and the love and safety of those around me, nothing else. I knew there was no particular reason why I was put on this earth, but here I was and I was glad to be here, awed by the beauty of it. It was a perfect moment. (p.99)

I put down my cup and examine my own mind. It is for it to discover the truth. But how? What an abyss of uncertainty whenever the mind feels that some part of it has strayed beyond its own borders; when it, the seeker, is at once the dark region through which it must go seeking, where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not so far exist, to which it alone can give reality and substance, which it alone can bring into the light of day.

Four types of people seek a connection with Me: One, the world-weary — people who worship God for the alleviation of physical or mental agony, or to be released from fears and adversity; two, the seekers of happiness through worldly things — people who pray to God to obtain wealth, family, power, prestige, and so forth; three, the seekers of spiritual advancement — people whose motive for connecting with Divinity is to gain knowledge and experience to aid their self-realization; four, the wise — people who truly know the Atma (Self), who know that God alone exists, and whose only impulse is for the Divine and nothing else.

The assertion that religion is a tool for preserving social order and for organising large-scale cooperation may vex many people for whom it represents first and foremost a spiritual path. However, just as the gap between religion and science is smaller than we commonly think, so the gap between religion and spirituality is much bigger. Religion is a deal, whereas spirituality is a journey. Religion gives a complete description of the world, and offers us a well-defined contract with predetermined goals. ‘God exists. He told us to behave in certain ways. If you obey God, you’ll be admitted to heaven. If you disobey Him, you’ll burn in hell.’ The very clarity of this deal allows society to define common norms and values that regulate human behaviour. Spiritual journeys are nothing like that. They usually take people in mysterious ways towards unknown destinations. The quest usually begins with some big question, such as who am I? What is the meaning of life? What is good? Whereas many people just accept the ready-made answers provided by the powers that be, spiritual seekers are not so easily satisfied. They are determined to follow the big question wherever it leads, and not just to places you know well or wish to visit. Thus for most people, academic studies are a deal rather than a spiritual journey, because they take us to a predetermined goal approved by our elders, governments and banks.

You've heard the teachings, oh son of a Brahman, and good for you that you've thought about it thus deeply. You've found a gap in it, an error. You should think about this further. But be warned, oh seeker of knowledge, of the thicket of opinions and of arguing about words. There is nothing to opinions, they may be beautiful or ugly, smart or foolish, everyone can support them or discard them. But the teachings, you've heard from me, are no opinion, and their goal is not to explain the world to those who seek knowledge. They have a different goal; their goal is salvation from suffering. This is what Gotama teaches, nothing else.

Ego is more interested in proclaiming its existence than in basking in the limitless energy of real spirituality. I entreat you to not cheat yourself on the spiritual path. There is no one to impress, nothing to "get", nowhere to rush to, nothing to miss on. The truth is always there, plain and simple, hiding somewhere near you.

Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the truth—against which all seekers sooner or later stumble—that our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing but results.

We ought not to be embarrassed of appreciating the truth and of obtaining it wherever it comes from, even if it comes from races distant and nations different from us. Nothing should be dearer to the seeker of truth than the truth itself, and there is no deterioration of the truth, nor belittling either of one who speaks it or conveys it.

And in this life, nothing good is truly lost. It stays part of a person, becomes part of their character.

Be present in the only place of importance: the present. Here is where your magic resides.

As always, when faced with a dilemma, he planned to by by his own set of rules. Act positively, plan negatively, expect nothing.

Choose wisely, for how you choose to respond to situations could very well be the difference between tremendous suffering and lasting joy.

Suffering, unlike pain, is not an event, but a state of mind. It is a constant state of being that eats you from within and is strong enough to fell the mightiest among us.

I've become an expert at letting go, these people have given me nothing to hang on to. They are just a bunch of empty vessels, disguised as humans.

nothing beats a fail but a try.

On what principle is it, that when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?”  —Thomas Babington Macaulay, Review of Southey’s Colloquies on Society

REDEMPTION Pain is an event which cannot be avoided. Suffering is a process which can. The light of awareness offers protection against the darkness of suffering. This understanding guides you to redemption.

No. Silence is something. This is nothing. Why couldn’t I hear it before? I think it has been there always. From the beginning of time.’ He put out his hand and stubbed it on my arm, stared at it. ‘At the end of the world, at the beginning of the world; under the sea and over the sky; at the root and crown of the universe: nothing. At all. That’s what I heard. What I hear.’ He leaned forward. ‘Do you understand?

Nothing is more irreligious than to persecute the seekers of truth in order to keep up absurdities and superstitions of bygone ages. Nothing is more inhuman than the commission of 'devout cruelty' under the mask of love of God and man.

You have to take responsibility and become the architect of your own success by learning what it takes to navigate the twists and turns of a long career, because if you don’t take responsibility for your own success, nothing will happen.

...Hell is the home of the unreal and of the seekers for happiness. It is the only refuge from heaven, which is, as I tell you, the home of the masters of reality, and from earth, which is the home of the slaves of reality. The earth is a nursery in which men and women play at being heroes and heroines, saints and sinners; but they are dragged down from their fool’s paradise by their bodies: hunger and cold and thirst, age and decay and disease, death above all, make them slaves of reality: thrice a day meals must be eaten and digested: thrice a century a new generation must be engendered: ages of faith, of romance, and of science are all driven at last to have but one prayer, “Make me a healthy animal.” But here you escape this tyranny of the flesh; for here you are not an animal at all: you are a ghost, an appearance, an illusion, a convention, deathless, ageless: in a word, bodiless. There are no social questions here, no political questions, no religious questions, best of all, perhaps, no sanitary questions. Here you call your appearance beauty, your emotions love, your sentiments heroism, your aspirations virtue, just as you did on earth; but here there are no hard facts to contradict you, no ironic contrast of your needs with your pretensions, no human comedy, nothing but a perpetual romance, a universal melodrama. As our German friend put it in his poem, “the poetically nonsensical here is good sense; and the Eternal Feminine draws us ever upward and on...

The seat of Realization is within and the seeker cannot find it as an object outside him. That seat is bliss and is the core of all beings; hence it is called the Heart. The only useful purpose of the present birth is to turn within and realize it. There is nothing else to do. (p. 146)

a Bahá’í needs to be a fearless seeker after truth, but he should not confine his search to the material plane. His spiritual perceptive powers should be awake as well as his physical. He should use all the faculties God has given him for the acquisition of truth, believing nothing without valid and sufficient reason.

So, the women he's loved. Who knew nothing of satisfaction. Who having gotten what they wanted always promptly wanted more. Not greedy. Never greedy... They were doers and thinkers and lovers and seekers and givers, but dreamers, most dangerously of all. They were dreamer-women. Very dangerous women. Who looked at the world through their wide dreamer-eyes and saw it not as it was, "brutal, senseless," etc., but worse, as it might be or might yet become. So, insatiable women. Un-pleasable women. Who wanted above all things that could not be had. Not what THEY could not have--no such thing for such women--but what wasn't there to be had in the first place.

I am aware that sometimes people make choices because they perceive that it was their best option at the given time. In all my years, I have not met a man who has made a choice he felt he was not compelled to, or could not justify, given his understanding, his evolution, his fears, his debilitating desires, his awareness or his place on his journey.

The ice-cold ritual baths of the Jews and Brahmins; the vigils of Buddha's disciples and of the Christian ascetics; the torments of Indian fakirs to keep from falling asleep—these are all nothing but external, crystallized rituals, which like broken columns bear witness to the seeker: "Here, very long ago, stood a mysterious temple dedicated to awakening.

If we are ever to see God’s hand in our places of ministry, we have no other option but to cooperate with God’s ways. Spiritual communities that are designed to advance the name of Christ over and above the notoriety of a well-coiffed brand will be always light the path of faith for Kingdom Seekers to find their home. There is nothing self-seeking in Jesus.

Nothing in my life had prepared me for this.Not one single thing.I feel like a lad rat stuck in some horrible experiment meant to measure how I adapt to brutal forms of social segregation and weirdness.And the sad news is,I'm producing way below average results. I stand to the side of the lunchroom or cafeteria,or whatever they call it.The vegetarian lunch Paloma packed with great love and care tightly clutched in my fist,though I've no clue as to where I'm supposed to go eat it. Having already committed the most heinous crime of all by sitting at the wrong table, I'm not sure I'm up for trying again.I'm still shaken by the way those girls acted-so self-righteous and territorial,so burdened by my presence at the end of their bench. It's the seniors' table, I was told. I have no right to sit there. Ever. And that includes holidays and weekends. "Duly noted," I replied, grabbing my lunch and standing before them. "I'll do my best to steer clear of it on Christmas.Easter as well.Though Valentine's Day is a wild card I just can't commit to." And though it felt good at the time,I've no doubt it was a reckless act that only made things worse.

Radical movements keep ratcheting up their demands, because nothing enervates a cause more than success. Crusaders resent having their purpose stolen out from under them by the fulfillment of their quest; reaching the promised land leaves seekers bereft. There's little to do in a utopian oasis but sip coconut water. So the journey must never be completed. The goal must remain out of reach. To preserve the perfect impossibility of getting there, the desired end point becomes ever more extreme.

If others were to look attentively into themselves as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of emptiness and tomfoolery. I cannot rid myself of them without getting rid of myself. We are all steeped in them, each as much as the other; but those who realize this get off, as I know, a little more cheaply. That commonly approved practice of looking elsewhere than at our own self has served our affairs well! Our self is an object full of dissatisfaction: we can see nothing there but wretchedness and vanity. So as not to dishearten us, Nature has very conveniently cast the action of our sight outwards. We are swept on downstream, but to struggle back towards our self against the current is a painful movement; thus does the sea, when driven against itself, swirl back in confusion. Everyone says: 'Look at the motions of the heavens, look at society, at this man's quarrel, that man's pulse, this other man's will and testament' - in other words always look upwards or downwards or sideways, or before or behind you. That commandment given us in ancient times by that god at Delphi was contrary to all expectation: 'Look back into your self; get to know your self; hold on to your self.' Bring back to your self your mind and your will which are being squandered elsewhere; you are draining and frittering your self away. Consolidate your self; rein your self back. They are cheating you, distracting you, robbing you of your self. Can you not see that this world of ours keeps its gave bent ever inwards and its eyes ever open to contemplate itself? It is always vanity in your case, within and without, but a vanity which is less, the less it extends. Except you alone, O Man, said that god, each creature first studies its own self, and, according to its needs, has limits to its labours and desires. Not one is as empty and needy as you, who embrace the universe: you are the seeker with no knowledge, the judge with no jurisdiction and, when all is done, the jester of the farce.

You know the feeling, when you decide to walk a certain way, and while actually taking the walk, you lose your way and tumble across an entirely new alleyway, you listen to your soul, that mad mad gypsy soul of yours and tread along that unknown path and get mesmerized by all the beauty that surrounds that path, and thank your soul for that walk, that strange crazy step that took you there. Meantime, that mind of yours, that overzealous protective disciplinarian, keeps reminding you how you've turned your path, how you are losing on Time and perhaps a little bit of your dream's favour, only to let your heart smile upon its foolishness, oh but nothing is a dead-end, just a detour and you can take as many detours as you want because your Soul isn't bound by Time and dreams are but Stardust born of every star dying to breathe in yet again, just another dance of a death and birth of a star, a dream, a path to find and to lose, a walk, a long long walk, a thousand detours and yet each one as full of life and beautiful as the majesticity of Life is meant to be.

Perhaps what they said was true: that only at the end of the quest did the seeker understand how deeply rooted in error his journey had been, only at the end of the narrow road to the deep north did the Japanese poet perceive that there was nothing to be learned in the deep north, only at the summit of Mount Qaf which they had climbed in search of their winged god did the thirty bird-pilgrims see that they themselves were the god they were looking for, and only when one saw the sign saying WELCOME did one comprehend the impossibility of the welcome

When someone is seeking," said Siddhartha, "it is very easy for his eye to see nothing but the thing sought, that he is unable to find, unable to receive into himself anything because he thinks only of that which he seeks, because he has an objective, because he is obsessed with that objective. Seeking means having an objective, but finding means being free, being receptive, having no objective. It could be, venerable sir, that you are indeed a seeker, for in your efforts to reach your objective you fail to see many things that are close before your eyes.

ANA. Thank you: I am going to heaven for happiness. I have had quite enough of reality on earth. DON JUAN. Then you must stay here; for hell is the home of the unreal and of the seekers for happiness. It is the only refuge from heaven, which is, as I tell you, the home of the masters of reality, and from earth, which is the home of the slaves of reality. The earth is a nursery in which men and women play at being heroes and heroines, saints and sinners; but they are dragged down from their fool’s paradise by their bodies: hunger and cold and thirst, age and decay and disease, death above all, make them slaves of reality: thrice a day meals must be eaten and digested: thrice a century anew generation must be engendered: ages of faith, of romance, and of science are all driven at last to have but one prayer “Make me a healthy animal.” But here you escape this tyranny of the flesh; for here you are not an animal at all: you are a ghost, an appearance, an illusion, a convention, deathless, ageless: in a word, bodiless. There are no social questions here, no political questions, no religious questions, best of all, perhaps, no sanitary questions. Here you call your appearance beauty, your emotions love, your sentiments heroism, your aspirations virtue, just as you did on earth; but here there are no hard facts to contradict you, no ironic contrast of your needs with your pretensions, no human comedy, nothing but a perpetual romance, a universal melodrama. As our German friend put it in his poem, “the poetically nonsensical here is good sense; and the Eternal Feminine draws us ever upward and on”—without getting us a step farther. And yet you want to leave this paradise!

When someone is searching,” said Siddhartha, “then it can easily happen that the only thing his eyes see is that for which he is searching. He is then unable to find anything or let any thought enter his mind because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search. He is obsessed by a goal; searching means having a goal. But finding means: being free, open, and having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, because, in striving for your goal, there are many things that you don’t see, even though they are right in front of your eyes.

good for you that you've thought about it thus deeply. You've found a gap in it, an error. You should think about this further. But be warned, oh seeker of knowledge, of the thicket of opinions and of arguing about words. There is nothing to opinions, they may be beautiful or ugly, smart or foolish, everyone can support them or discard them. But the teachings, you've heard from me, are no opinion, and their goal is not to explain the world to those who seek knowledge. They have a different goal; their goal is salvation from suffering. This is what Gotama teaches, nothing else.

[T]he very existence of such powers argues a counterforce. We call powers of the first kind dark, though they may use a species of deadly light... and we call those of the second kind bright, though I think that they may at times employ darkness, as a good man nevertheless draws the curtains of his bed to sleep. Yet there is truth to the talk of darkness and light, because it shows plainly that one implies the other. The tale I read to little Severian said that the universe was but a long word of the Increate's. We, then, are syllables of that word. But the speaking of any word is futile unless there are other words, words that are not spoken. If a beast has but one cry, the cry tells nothing; and even the wind has a multitude of voices, so that those who sit indoors may hear it and know if the weather is tumultuous or mild. The powers we call dark seem to me to be the words the Increate did not speak... and these words must be maintained in a quasi-existence, if the other word, the word spoken is to be distinguished. What is not said can be important - but what is said is more important... And if the seekers after dark things find them, may not the seekers after bright find them as well? And are they not more apt to hand their wisdom on?

CHORUS OF NIGHT VOICES Come out, come out, wherever you are, you dreamers and drowners, you loafers and losers, you shadow-seekers and orphans of the sun. Come out, come out, you flops and fizzler, you good-for-nothings and down-and-outers, a day's outcasts, dark's little darlin's. Come on, all you who are misbegotten and woebegone, all you with black thoughts and red-fever-visions, come on, you small-town Ishmaels with your sad blue eyes, you plain Janes and hard-luck guys, come, you gripers and groaners, you goners and loners, you sad sack and shlemiels, come on, come on, you pale romantics and pie-eye Palookas, you has-beens and never-will-bes, you sun-mocked and day-doomed denizens of the dar: come out into the night.

And, like Buddha, Spinoza is often dismissed as a mere seeker of tranquillity – but what he valued most was joy, which he defined as a sense of empowerment created by the understanding mind. But, again as in the teachings of Buddha, understanding is not a passive, final state, but a process requiring ceaseless effort. In another insight prefiguring neurobiology, which defines living organisms as systems for optimizing life conditions, Spinoza suggested that our very nature is to strive. His Latin word for human nature, conatus, means ‘striving’ or ‘endeavour’: ‘The striving by which each thing attempts to persevere in its being is nothing other than the actual essence of the thing.’ And the striving has to be difficult to be valuable: ‘If salvation were readily available and could be attained without great effort, how could it be neglected by almost everyone? All that is excellent is as difficult to attain as it is rare.

Religion is a deal, whereas spirituality is a journey. Religion gives a complete description of the world, and offers us a well-defined contract with predetermined goals. ‘God exists. He told us to behave in certain ways. If you obey God, you’ll be admitted to heaven. If you disobey Him, you’ll burn in hell.’ The very clarity of this deal allows society to define common norms and values that regulate human behaviour. Spiritual journeys are nothing like that. They usually take people in mysterious ways towards unknown destinations. The quest usually begins with some big question, such as who am I? What is the meaning of life? What is good? Whereas most people just accept the ready-made answers provided by the powers that be, spiritual seekers are not so easily satisfied. They are determined to follow the big question wherever it leads, and not just to places they know well or wish to visit. Thus for most people, academic studies are a deal rather than a spiritual journey, because they take us to a predetermined goal approved by our elders, governments and banks.

PEARLS LYRICS A picture is worth a thousand words, But my thousand words slice deeper. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, Fuck that. I’ve become a hide and seeker. Treat others how you want to be treated, But what if tonight I want to be burned? You told us it’s better to be safe than sorry, And little sister listened, but I was the one who learned. Reap, reap, reap, you don’t even know, All you did suffer is what you did sow! Alone, Empty, Fraud, Shame, Fear, Close your eyes. There’s nothing to see out here. Do better, be more, too many, too much, I’m about to fucking choke, I can’t force it down. So string up the little wisdoms and wrap them ’round my neck, I’ll strangle myself with your pearls of wisdom and die a wreck. You told us to prepare now and play later, But what’s in here is better than what’s out there. I took an umbrella to save me from the rain, But the lightning hit, and you didn’t care. Reap, reap, reap, you don’t even know, All you did suffer is what you did sow! Alone, Empty, Fraud, Shame, Fear, Close your eyes. There’s nothing to see out here.

At this moment I am sensible that I have not the temper of a seeker after knowledge; like the vulgar, I am only a partisan. For the partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers. And the difference between him and me at the present moment is only this—that while he seeks to convince his hearers that what he says is true, I am seeking to convince myself; to convince my hearers is a secondary matter with me. And do but see how much I have to gain by this. For if what I say is true, then I do well to believe it; and if there be nothing after death, still, I shall save my friends from grief during the short time that is left me, and my ignorance will do me no harm. This is the state of mind in which I approach the argument. And I would ask you to be thinking of the truth and not of Socrates. Agree with me if I seem to you to speak the truth; or, if not, withstand me might and main that I may not deceive you as well as myself in my desire, and like the bee leave my sting in you before I die. And now let us proceed.

each adult would, at a time chosen by the wind, go out and walk the ice alone. The aim of such journeying was to find the kyzat, the perfect place, a spot that on all the ice had been ordained by the Gods in the Sky and in the Sea for that individual alone as the place where all the elements of their life find meaning, giving a vision of such clarity that the air itself becomes ice and the wisdom of Sky and Sea finds a place in the seeker’s heart, allowing them to endure the hardships of the years ahead. Quell had admitted to Yaz in a private moment that his own journey to find his kyzat, a walk that had lasted four days, had brought him to an ice spike at the juncture of three pressure ridges. Here he was visited by the epiphany that, having run out of his allotted ration of angel-fish, if he did not turn back he would lose first his toes then his fingers to the wind. Yaz had wondered if that wasn’t the wisdom that the ritual was designed to impart. That there is nothing but ice and more ice, and that if you are too stubborn to admit it and turn back, you will die and your malcontent will no longer burden your clan.

There is another call, the one that arrives the day when what once worked no longer does. Sometimes people need a shock; sometimes a tocsin call. It is time for a wake-up call. A man is fired from a job; a child runs away from home; ulcers overtake the body. The ancients called this “soul loss.” Today, the equivalent is the loss of meaning or purpose in our lives. There is a void where there should be what Gerard Manley Hopkins calls “juice and joy.” The heart grows cold; life loses its vitality. Our accomplishments seem meaningless. As Tolstoy wrote in his Confessions, “Nothing ahead except ruins.” We seem to be in the thick of the forest without a road. “What, then, must we do?” The long line of myths, legends, poetry, and stories throughout the world tell us that it is at that moment of darkness that the call comes. It arrives in various forms—an itch, a fever, an offer, a ringing, an inspiration, an idea, a voice, words in a book that seem to have been written just for us—or a knock. THE KNOCK The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away. I'm looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling. —Robert Pirsig

To Harry James Potter,’” he read, and Harry’s insides contracted with a sudden excitement, “‘I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts, as a reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill.’” As Scrimgeour pulled out the tiny, walnut-sized golden ball, its silver wings fluttered rather feebly, and Harry could not help feeling a definite sense of anticlimax. “Why did Dumbledore leave you this Snitch?” asked Scrimgeour. “No idea,” said Harry. “For the reasons you just read out, I supposed . . . to remind me what you can get if you . . . persevere and whatever it was.” “You think this a mere symbolic keepsake, then?” “I suppose so,” said Harry. “What else could it be?” “I’m asking the questions,” said Scrimgeour, shifting his chair a little closer to the sofa. Dusk was really falling outside now; the marquee beyond the windows towered ghostly white over the hedge. “I notice that your birthday cake is in the shape of a Snitch,” Scrimgeour said to Harry. “Why is that?” Hermione laughed derisively. “Oh, it can’t be a reference to the fact Harry’s a great Seeker, that’s way too obvious,” she said. “There must be a secret message from Dumbledore hidden in the icing!” “I don’t think there’s anything hidden in the icing,” said Scrimgeour, “but a Snitch would be a very good hiding place for a small object. You know why, I’m sure?” Harry shrugged. Hermione, however, answered: Harry thought that answering questions correctly was such a deeply ingrained habit she could not suppress the urge. “Because Snitches have flesh memories,” she said. “What?” said Harry and Ron together; both considered Hermione’s Quidditch knowledge negligible. “Correct,” said Scrimgeour. “A Snitch is not touched by bare skin before it is released, not even by the maker, who wears gloves. It carries an enchantment by which it can identify the first human to lay hands upon it, in case of a disputed capture. This Snitch”—he held up the tiny golden ball—“will remember your touch, Potter. It occurs to me that Dumbledore, who had prodigious magical skill, whatever his other faults, might have enchanted this Snitch so that it will open only for you.” Harry’s heart was beating rather fast. He was sure that Scrimgeour was right. How could he avoid taking the Snitch with his bare hand in front of the Minister? “You don’t say anything,” said Scrimgeour. “Perhaps you already know what the Snitch contains?” “No,” said Harry, still wondering how he could appear to touch the Snitch without really doing so. If only he knew Legilimency, really knew it, and could read Hermione’s mind; he could practically hear her brain whirring beside him. “Take it,” said Scrimgeour quietly. Harry met the Minister’s yellow eyes and knew he had no option but to obey. He held out his hand, and Scrimgeour leaned forward again and placed the Snitch, slowly and deliberately, into Harry’s palm. Nothing happened. As Harry’s fingers closed around the Snitch, its tired wings fluttered and were still. Scrimgeour, Ron, and Hermione continued to gaze avidly at the now partially concealed ball, as if still hoping it might transform in some way. “That was dramatic,” said Harry coolly. Both Ron and Hermione laughed. “That’s all, then, is it?” asked Hermione, making to prise herself off the sofa. “Not quite,” said Scrimgeour, who looked bad-tempered now. “Dumbledore left you a second bequest, Potter.” “What is it?” asked Harry, excitement rekindling. Scrimgeour did not bother to read from the will this time. “The sword of Godric Gryffindor,” he said. Hermione and Ron both stiffened. Harry looked around for a sign of the ruby-encrusted hilt, but Scrimgeour did not pull the sword from the leather pouch, which in any case looked much too small to contain it.

The last slide is Main Street at night, with the castle lit silver blue in the background. In the sky, fireworks are going off, cresting, cracking open the darkness, shooting long tendrils of colored light down to the buildings, way longer than I’ve ever seen for fireworks… I linger on this slide. I study that blue castle and those fireworks and realize that this is the image I’ve had in my head of Disneyland for all these years. Just like the beginning of the Wonderful World of Disney TV show. Maybe that’s why I wanted to head here this time. I know it’s ridiculous, but part of me wants to think that the world after this one could look like that. Like I said before, I stopped having notions about religion and heaven long ago—angels and harps and clouds and all that malarkey. Yet some silly, childish side of me still wants to believe in something like this. A gleaming world of energy and light, where nothing is quite the same color as it is on earth—everything bluer, greener, redder. Or maybe we just become the colors, that light spilling from the sky over the castle. Perhaps it would be somewhere we’ve already been, the place we were before we were born, so dying is simply a return. I guess is that were true then somehow we’d remember it. Maybe that’s what I’m doing with this whole trip—looking for somewhere that I remember, deep in some crevice of my soul. Who knows? Maybe Disneyland is heaven. Isn’t that the damnedest, craziest thing you’ve ever heard? Must be the dope talking. (pp.253-254)

It's hard to form a lasting connection when your permanent address is an eight-inch mailbox in the UPS store. Still,as I inch my way closer, I can't help the way my breath hitches, the way my insides thrum and swirl. And when he turns,flashing me that slow, languorous smile that's about to make him world famous,his eyes meeting mine when he says, "Hey,Daire-Happy Sweet Sixteen," I can't help but think of the millions of girls who would do just about anything to stand in my pointy blue babouches. I return the smile, flick a little wave of my hand, then bury it in the side pocket of the olive-green army jacket I always wear. Pretending not to notice the way his gaze roams over me, straying from my waist-length brown hair peeking out from my scarf, to the tie-dyed tank top that clings under my jacket,to the skinny dark denim jeans,all the way down to the brand-new slippers I wear on my feet. "Nice." He places his foot beside mine, providing me with a view of the his-and-hers version of the very same shoe. Laughing when he adds, "Maybe we can start a trend when we head back to the States.What do you think?" We. There is no we. I know it.He knows it.And it bugs me that he tries to pretend otherwise. The cameras stopped rolling hours ago, and yet here he is,still playing a role. Acting as though our brief, on-location hookup means something more. Acting like we won't really end long before our passports are stamped RETURN. And that's all it takes for those annoyingly soft girly feelings to vanish as quickly as a flame in the rain. Allowing the Daire I know,the Daire I've honed myself to be, to stand in her palce. "Doubtful." I smirk,kicking his shoe with mine.A little harder then necessary, but then again,he deserves it for thinking I'm lame enough to fall for his act. "So,what do you say-food? I'm dying for one of those beef brochettes,maybe even a sausage one too.Oh-and some fries would be good!" I make for the food stalls,but Vane has another idea. His hand reaches for mine,fingers entwining until they're laced nice and tight. "In a minute," he says,pulling me so close my hip bumps against his. "I thought we might do something special-in honor of your birthday and all.What do you think about matching tattoos?" I gape.Surely he's joking. "Yeah,you know,mehndi. Nothing permanent.Still,I thought it could be kinda cool." He arcs his left brow in his trademark Vane Wick wau,and I have to fight not to frown in return. Nothing permanent. That's my theme song-my mission statement,if you will. Still,mehndi's not quite the same as a press-on. It has its own life span. One that will linger long after Vane's studio-financed, private jet lifts him high into the sky and right out of my life. Though I don't mention any of that, instead I just say, "You know the director will kill you if you show up on set tomorrow covered in henna." Vane shrugs. Shrugs in a way I've seen too many times, on too many young actors before him.He's in full-on star-power mode.Think he's indispensable. That he's the only seventeen-year-old guy with a hint of talent,golden skin, wavy blond hair, and piercing blue eyes that can light up a screen and make the girls (and most of their moms) swoon. It's a dangerous way to see yourself-especially when you make your living in Hollywood. It's the kind of thinking that leads straight to multiple rehab stints, trashy reality TV shows, desperate ghostwritten memoirs, and low-budget movies that go straight to DVD.

..reincarnation is a truth, because in existence nothing dies. Even the physicist will say, about the objective world, that nothing dies. You can destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki but you cannot destroy a single drop of water. You cannot destroy. Physicists have become aware of this impossibility. Whatever you do, only the form changes. But nothing can be destroyed in the objective world. The same is true about the world of consciousness, of life. There is no death. Death is only a change from one form into another form, and ultimately from form to formlessness. Only Gautam Buddha has given the right word for this experience. In English it is difficult to translate it, because languages develop only after experience. It is just arbitrarily that I am calling it "enlightenment." But it is very arbitrary; it does not really give you the sense that Buddha's word gives. He calls it nirvana. Nirvana means ceasing to be. Strange... ceasing to be. Not to be is nirvana. That does not mean that you are no more; it simply means you are no longer an entity, embodied. The dewdrop drops into the ocean. Now it is the whole ocean. Existence is alive at every stage. Nothing is dead. Even a stone - which you think seems to be completely dead - is not dead. So many living electrons are running so fast inside it that you cannot see them, but they are all living beings. Their bodies are so small that nobody has seen them; we don't even have any scientific instrument to see the electron, it is only guesswork. We can see the effect; hence we think there must be a cause. The cause has not been seen, only the effect has been seen. But the electron is as alive as you are. The whole existence is synonymous with life. Here nothing dies. Death is an impossibility. Yes, things change from one form to another form till they become mature enough that they need not go to school again. Then they move into a formless life, then they become one with the ocean itself.

8 THE JOURNEY TO Skoda took three days, for the company traveled warily. Acuas told Decado that following the slaying of the soldiers, the Delnoch fortress commander had sent patrols throughout Skultik and the surrounding countryside, while to the south legion riders scouted the lands for rebels. Tenaka took time to speak with the leaders of the Thirty, for despite the many legends, he knew little of their order. According to the stories, the Thirty were semigods with awesome powers who chose to die in wars against evil. The last time they had appeared had been at Dros Delnoch, when the albino Serbitar had stood beside the Earl of Bronze and defied the hordes of Ulric, the greatest Nadir warlord of all time. But though Tenaka questioned the leaders, he learned little. They were courteous and polite—even distantly friendly—but their answers floated above his head like clouds beyond the grasp of common men. Decado was no different; he would merely smile and change the subject. Tenaka was not a religious man, yet he felt ill at ease among these warrior-priests and his mind constantly returned to the words of the blind seeker. “Of gold and ice and shadow …” The man had predicted that the trio would come together. And they had. He had also foreseen the danger of the Templars. On the first night of their journey Tenaka approached the elderly Abaddon, and the two walked away from the fire together. “I saw you in Skultik,” said Tenaka. “You were being attacked by a Joining.” “Yes. I apologize for the deceit.” “What was the reason for it?” “It was a test, my son. But not merely of you—of ourselves.” “I do not understand,” said Tenaka. “It is not necessary that you should. Do not fear us, Tenaka. We are here to help you in whatever way we can.” “Why?” “Because it serves the Source.” “Can you not answer me without religious riddles? You are men. What do you gain from this war?” “Nothing in this world.” “You know why I came here?” “Yes, my son. To purge your mind of guilt and grief, to drown it in Ceska’s blood.” “And now?” “Now you are caught up in forces beyond your control. Your grief is assuaged by your love for Renya, but the guilt remains. You did not obey the call—you left your friends to be butchered by the Joinings of Ceska. You ask yourself if it would have been different had you come. Could you have defeated the Joinings? You torment yourself thus.” “Could I have defeated the Joinings?” “No,

the ten thousand things To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things. – Eihei Dogen If one is very fortunate indeed, one comes upon – or is found by – the teachings that match one’s disposition and the teachers or mentors whose expression strikes to the heart while teasing the knots from the mind. The Miriam Louisa character came with a tendency towards contrariness and scepticism, which is probably why she gravitated to teachers who displayed like qualities. It was always evident to me that the ‘blink’ required in order to meet life in its naked suchness was not something to be gained in time. Rather, it was clear that it was something to do with understanding what sabotages this direct engagement. So my teachers were those who deconstructed the spiritual search – and with it the seeker – inviting one to “see for oneself.” I realised early on that I wouldn’t find any help within traditional spiritual institutions since their version of awakening is usually a project in time. Anyway, I’m not a joiner by nature. I set out on my via negativa at an early age, trying on all kinds of philosophies and practices with enthusiasm and casting them aside –neti neti – equally enthusiastically. Chögyam Trungpa wised me up to “spiritual materialism” in the 70s; Alan Watts followed on, pointing out that whatever is being experienced is none other than ‘IT’ – the unarguable aliveness that one IS. By then I was perfectly primed for the questions put by Jiddu Krishnamurti – “Is there a thinker separate from thought?” “Is there an observer separate from the observed?” “Can consciousness be separated from its content?” It was while teaching at Brockwood Park that I also had the good fortune to engage with David Bohm in formal dialogues as well as private conversations. (About which I have written elsewhere.) Krishnamurti and Bohm were seminal teachers for me; I also loved the unique style of deconstruction offered by Nisargadatta Maharaj. As it happened though, it took just one tiny paragraph from Wei Wu Wei to land in my brain at exactly the right time for the irreversible ‘blink’ to occur. I mention this rather august lineage because it explains why the writing of Robert Saltzman strikes not just a chord but an entire symphonic movement for me. We are peers; we were probably reading the same books by Watts and Krishnamurti at the same time during the 70s and 80s. Reading his book, The Ten Thousand Things, is, for me, like feeling my way across a tapestry exquisitely woven from the threads of my own life. I’m not sure that I can adequately express my wonderment and appreciation… The candor, lucidity and lack of jargon in Robert’s writing are deeply refreshing. I also relish his way with words. He knows how to write. He also knows how to take astonishingly fine photographs, and these are featured throughout the book. It’s been said that this book will become a classic, which is a pretty good achievement for someone who isn’t claiming to be a teacher and has nothing to gain by its sale. (The book sells for the production price.) He is not peddling enlightenment. He is simply sharing how it feels to be free from all the spiritual fantasies that obscure our seamless engagement with this miraculous thing called life, right now.

If nothing exists outside of yourself, if you inhabit the entire universe, if you are all there is—in all of time and space—then what do you have to compare yourself to? If you’re the only being in existence, you’re the strongest being there is, but also the weakest. The biggest, and also the smallest. Without contrast, nothing has scale. You’re everything, but also nothing. Worse still, you’re destined to go through infinity and eternity with no external stimulation of any kind.

Come on,” Aston urged, poking her. “There’s nothing so bad in the world that a hefty dose of Mr. Darcy can’t make better.

Jake, this isn’t your fault, okay? The guy got away; there’s nothing you could have done.” “We could have tied him to the chair,” Jake said. “Well, there’s that. But we’re new at this, and we’re learning. We have to have a curve.” “You’re a really nice boss,” he said. “I’m not your boss,” she said. “Sure you’re not. You’re just the one who gives us orders, the one we all turn to when we have no idea what to do, the one who pulls everything together and organizes us. But you’re totally not our boss.” “As long as we’re clear on that,” Caprice said. Jake laughed. “I’m serious, Caprice, I think you have some kind of latent talent as either a cop or a terrorist. You’re scary good at this stuff. It’s like you automatically know what to ask these guys. I mean, McKenna has her talents when it comes to incapacitating and causing pain, but she had no idea what to do with the guy after we caught him. She got him to tell her his address, which we already knew, and then he got away.” “I know you’re trying to be nice, but I don’t want to hear this. This isn’t my thing; this isn’t me. This is temporary. I’m filling a need, and that’s all. When Alex is back on his feet…” “What?” Jake interrupted. “You’re going to hand over the reins of the club and go quietly into the night? You couldn’t stop yourself from arguing with him before you took over. How are you going to do that now that you’ve had a taste of power?” “You make me sound like some kind of control freak. The truth is that I’ll be relieved when Alex comes back.

I interrupt Jode. “Marcus, what?” “Nothing.” I look at Daryn. “Why is he pissed at me?” “You attacked him,” she says. “In a haunting.” Haunting? I instantly know—she and Marcus went through their own trial. “I attacked him. I did?” “Yes. A dozen of you. Perfect look-alikes.” “A dozen Gideons?” Jode’s eyebrows shoot up. “The sarcasm must have been intolerable.

You are the last. The last seeker who will come to Gaia, the oracle of Apollo, the sanctuary of the old wisdom. I have many things to tell you, and you must listen with your heart and promise to remember.” Hannah nodded and knelt upon the floor at the base of the dais. “I promise,” she said. “But─” “Good,” said the oracle firmly. “Do not despair over Delfi. Anything that dies is reborn a thousand times. In this way, there is nothing that does not live forever. “What blossoms must also wilt. What dies will be reborn. It is the way of life eternal, and the greatest secret the Earth possesses. All tides must flow in two directions; their source is what remains the same. But no matter how they ebb and flow, all seasons, all tides, all contraries are connected. Forever. It has always been this way: one extreme becoming the other in a never-ending spiral of birth, decay, rebirth.

Not for nothing, though, was Harry the youngest Seeker in a century. He had a knack for spotting things other people didn’t. After a minute’s weaving about through the whirl of rainbow feathers, he noticed a large silver key that had a bent wing, as if it

Sellers are the only people who know the true meaning of living a life intensely. All or nothing. These people acquire this ability in childhood. Those are the few boys and girls who want everything on the spot. And when they grow up they develop this technique that I call “knowing what you want for your life”. Over time this becomes habit and they use it. These people acquire another final technique that I call generating value. For meaning seekers really that is the skill that all marketers who claim to be one should follow.

This church is a joke! It’s nothing but a ‘seeker’ church,” he said twenty minutes into the service.

Sitting there, sweating profusely in the jungle heat, monks to the left and monks to the right, I thought of that beautiful line by Albert Camus, who wrote that a man's life is nothing more than the rediscovery, through the detours of art, of those one or two images that first opened his heart.

to this awareness. When a seeker sees the mind and thoughts arising from the mind separate from himself, he knows that he has nothing to do with the mind.

And in this life, nothing good is ever lost. It stays part of a person, becomes part of their character. So part of you goes everywhere with me. And part of me is yours forever

How to Quantify Achievement Stories When hiring managers, recruiters, and staffing firms see a resume or LinkedIn profile or attend an interview with verbiage but no numbers, they don’t know what those words mean. In fact, they know next to nothing until you add the numbers that explain the impact of your work. Here’s how you can resolve this issue. Work With Finance Sometimes the impact of our work is not always clear. At times like this, reaching out to one of your friends in the Finance Department can be very helpful. Finance has access to numbers that are not always readily available to other departments. If you’re no longer with the company, explain to the Finance associate that the numbers he provides could make the difference in determining whether you land another position. Using a Range Per Lily Zhang of the Muse, one reason job seekers avoid quantifying is not knowing the exact number. Lily suggests using a range. Using my work experience, here’s what that means: Before: Chaired weekly product manager meeting. After: Chaired weekly meeting with 7 to 12 product managers so plans could be discussed and coordinated. Confusion and rework were eliminated. Frequency Lily shared that one of the easiest ways to add numbers is to identify the frequency with which you perform a given task. This can help the hiring manager understand how much you can handle. For example: Before: Responded to pricing requests from the Sales Force. After: Responded to 15 to 20 pricing requests from the Sales Force on a daily basis. Scale Everyone on the hiring side of the business loves when candidates provide numbers, because numbers explain the impact of what you’ve done. The most meaningful numbers are those associated with making money, saving money, and driving productivity. Here are a couple examples from my work experience: Before: Reduced time to perform Operations Manager’s role; after analysis showed tasks could be batched and performed at the end of the month. After: Reduced time to perform Operations Manager role by 66%; after analysis showed tasks could be batched and performed at the end of the month. Asked Director if I could take on the responsibilities of employees who were laid off. Before: Analysis revealed misconfigured offers; worked with other departments to correct errors. Implemented process to prevent future errors. After: Analysis revealed misconfigured offers; worked with other departments to correct errors. Recognized $7.2M. Implemented process to prevent future errors.

Tell me, oh captain, do these eyes look like they need more dreams?

They reflect a dark emptiness. A blackness so deep, I know not where it ends. An abyss of misery. They used to be brown, a beautiful dark brown. Now, you can very clearly see in them—nothing. I am often plagued by the thought that if I inspected a dead man’s eyes, they would look exactly like his.

Withholding your capacity to do good because of past mistakes is nothing more an act of fear. Belief in what you do is just as important as the action itself.

When you realise that it is you, a soul, merely experiencing that which you need and learning the lessons you seek in order to continue your journey of evolution, your choices will change. It is difficult to look at your life in this way, but all of us will achieve this realisation at some point on our journey. We will realise that we are all the same, differing only by how well we know ourselves. When you become truly aware of who you are, you will be free, my child.