Veil Of Ignorance Quotes

The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.

I had no illusions about you,' he said. 'I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you. I knew that your aims and ideals were vulgar and commonplace. But I loved you. I knew that you were second-rate. But I loved you. It's comic when I think how hard I tried to be amused by the things that amused you and how anxious I was to hide from you that I wasn't ignorant and vulgar and scandal-mongering and stupid. I knew how frightened you were of intelligence and I did everything I could to make you think me as big a fool as the rest of the men you knew. I knew that you'd only married me for convenience. I loved you so much, I didn't care. Most people, as far as I can see, when they're in love with someone and the love isn't returned feel that they have a grievance. They grow angry and bitter. I wasn't like that. I never expected you to love me, I didn't see any reason that you should. I never thought myself very lovable. I was thankful to be allowed to love you and I was enraptured when now and then I thought you were pleased with me or when I noticed in your eyes a gleam of good-humored affection. I tried not to bore you with my love; I knew I couldn't afford to do that and I was always on the lookout for the first sign that you were impatient with my affection. What most husbands expect as a right I was prepared to receive as a favor.

Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted upon them from birth through social conditioning. They begin sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers. Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them a side of reality others are oblivious to, and so begins their journey of awakening. Each step of the journey is made by following the heart instead of following the crowd and by choosing knowledge over the veils of ignorance.

The union of nature and soul removes the veil of ignorance that covers our intelligence.

We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world....No doubt pain as God's megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. it removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of the rebel soul.

Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes, Or any searcher know by mortal mind, Veil after veil will lift--but there must be Veil upon veil behind.

The veil of ignorance has been set over your face since birth. Shall I pull it free?

They might ignore me immediately. In my moon suit and funeral veil. I am no source of honey So why should they turn on me? Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free.

Among the essential features of this situation is that no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does any one know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.

What do you see when you think of me, A figure cloaked in mystery With eyes downcast and hair covered, An oppressed woman yet to be discovered? Do you see backward nations and swirling sand, Humpbacked camels and the domineering man? Whirling veils and terrorists Or maybe fanatic fundamentalists? Do you see scorn and hatred locked Within my eyes and soul, Or perhaps a profound ignorance of all the world as a whole? Yet . . . You fail to see The dignified persona Of a woman wrapped in maturity. The scarf on my head Does not cover my brain. I think, I speak, but still you refrain From accepting my ideals, my type of dress, You refuse to believe That I am not oppressed. So the question remains: What do I see when I think of you? I see another human being Who doesn’t have a clue.

Evening prayer I spend my life sitting, like an angel in a barber's chair, Holding a beer mug with deep-cut designs, My neck and gut both bent, while in the air A weightless veil of pipe smoke hangs. Like steaming dung within an old dovecote A thousand Dreams within me softly burn: From time to time my heart is like some oak Whose blood runs golden where a branch is torn. And then, when I have swallowed down my Dreams In thirty, forty mugs of beer, I turn To satisfy a need I can't ignore, And like the Lord of Hyssop and of Myrrh I piss into the skies, a soaring stream That consecrates a patch of flowering fern.

The Ladies of the Sacred Heart hung a thousand veils between their little charges and reality. Thérèse despised them for confounding virtue with ignorance.

I have only to contemplate myself; man comes from nothing, passes through time, and disappears forever in the bosom of God. He is seen but for a moment wandering on the verge of two abysses, and then is lost. If man were wholly ignorant of himself he would have no poetry in him, for one cannot describe what one does not conceive. If he saw himself clearly, his imagination would remain idle and would have nothing to add to the picture. But the nature of man is sufficiently revealed for him to know something of himself and sufficiently veiled to leave much impenetrable darkness, a darkness in which he ever gropes, forever in vain, trying to understand himself.

The spirits of the dead are not among us to entertain us... Assuming the revenants you encounter have simply signed up to play haunted house for the amusement of the living is just plain ignorant.

A fourth group of people climbs from ignorance and pretends to possess the rational faculty. They suppose that the highest felicity is the expansion of honor and fame, the spread of reputation, a multiplicity of followers, and the influence of the command that is obeyed. Hence, you see that their only concern is eye service and cultivation of the things upon which observers cast their glance. One of them may go hungry in his house and suffer harm so that he can spend his wealth on clothes with which to adorn himself so that no one will look at him with the eye of contempt when he goes out. The types of these people are beyond count. All of them are veiled from Allah by the sheer darkness that is their own dark souls.

The being called God...bears every mark of a veil woven by philosophical conceit, to hide the ignorance of philosophers even from themselves. They borrow the threads of its texture from the anthropomorphism of the vulgar.

I had always detested the meddlesome alarmist, who veils ignorance under noisiness, and for ever wails his chant of lugubrious pessimism.

[she used to say that] each of us has a veil between ourselves and the rest of the world – like a bride wears on her wedding day—except this kind of veil is invisible. we walk around happily with these invisible veils hanging down over our faces. the world is kind of blurry. we like it that way. but sometimes our veils are pushed away for a few moments – like there’s a wind blowing it from our faces – and when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again. we see all the beauty and cruelty and sadness and love, but mostly we are happy not to. some people learn to lift the veils themselves. then they don’t have to depend on the wind anymore. ...it’s just her way of saying that most of the time people get distracted by little stuff, and ignore the big stuff.

Dreams reveal facts about ourselves that we ignored. Dreams help us see hidden truths. Dreams, sometimes, are just soothing songs.

(about sailors) Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them - the ship; and so is their country - the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut.

Cecilia could have told him that Mr. Fawnhope's intrepidity sprang more from a sublime unconsciousness of the risk of infection than from any deliberate heroism; but since she was not in the habit of discussing her lover with her brother he continued in a happy state of ignorance, himself too practical a man to comprehend the density of the veil in which a poet could wrap himself.

...most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order.... In the immutability of their surroundings, the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; ... a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing.

I have to see that the thought “I” is the greatest obstacle to consciousness of myself. Everything I know through my senses has a name. I am encumbered by names, which become more important than the things themselves. I name myself “I,” and in doing it as if I knew myself, I am accepting a thought that keeps me in ignorance. If I learn to separate myself from names, from thoughts, little by little I will come to know the nature of the mind and lift the veil it casts over me.

Here is something I have learned the hard way, but which a lot of well-meaning people in the West have a hard time accepting: All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. A culture that celebrates femininity and considers women to be the masters of their own lives is better than a culture that mutilates girls’ genitals and confines them behind walls and veils or flogs or stones them for falling in love. A culture that protects women’s rights by law is better than a culture in which a man can lawfully have four wives at once and women are denied alimony and half their inheritance. A culture that appoints women to its supreme court is better than a culture that declares that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man. It is part of Muslim culture to oppress women and part of all tribal cultures to institutionalize patronage, nepotism, and corruption. The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better. In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn’t translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse. Many people genuinely feel pain at the thought of the death of whole cultures. I see this all the time. They ask, “Is there nothing beautiful in these cultures? Is there nothing beautiful in Islam?” There is beautiful architecture, yes, and encouragement of charity, yes, but Islam is built on sexual inequality and on the surrender of individual responsibility and choice. This is not just ugly; it is monstrous.

We say easily, for instance, ‘The ignorant ought not to vote.’ We would say, ‘No civilized state should have citizens too ignorant to participate in government,’ and this statement is but a step to the fact: that no state is civilized which has citizens too ignorant to help rule it.

God has chosen to veil Himself in just the right measure so that our wills and intellects could be shaped by our allegiance to Him. He is there for anyone humble enough to recognize his or her personal need. He is also subtle enough to be ignored by those who are filled with themselves.

Guna means strand, and in the Gita the gunas are described as the very fabric of existence, the veil that hides unity in a covering of diversity. Tamas is maya’s power of concealment, the darkness or ignorance that hides unitive reality; rajas distracts and scatters awareness, turning it away from reality toward the diversity of the outside world. Thus the gunas are essentially born of the mind. When the mind’s activity is stilled, we see life as it is.

A better-constituted boy would certainly have profited under my intelligent tutors, with their scientific apparatus; and would, doubtless, have found the phenomena of electricity and magnetism as fascinating as I was, every Thursday, assured they were. As it was, I could have paired off, for ignorance of whatever was taught me, with the worst Latin scholar that was ever turned out of a classical academy. I read Plutarch, and Shakespeare, and Don Quixote by the sly, and supplied myself in that way with wandering thoughts, while my tutor was assuring me that "an improved man, as distinguished from an ignorant one, was a man who knew the reason why water ran downhill." I had no desire to be this improved man; I was glad of the running water; I could watch it and listen to it gurgling among the pebbles and bathing the bright green water-plants, by the hour together. I did not want to know why it ran; I had perfect confidence that there were good reasons for what was so very beautiful. ("The Lifted Veil")

The kingdom is nearby, adjacent to our own reality, present, yet veiled in the boundaries we avoid, and in the margins we protect ourselves from. So there is no riddle. The eschatological reality is here, yet we feel the urge to evade it, and the lure to ignore it.

He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them - the ship; and so is their country - the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing.

Some people learn to lift the veil themselves. Then they don’t have to depend on the wind anymore. She doesn’t mean that it’s a real veil. And it isn’t about magic, or some idea that maybe God is looking right at you, or an angel is sitting next to you, or anything like that. Mom doesn’t think in those ways. It’s just her way of saying that most of the time, people get distracted by little stuff and ignore the big stuff.

I may say this is a deluded generation, veiled with ignorance, that tho[ugh] popery and slavery be riding in upon them, do not perceive it; tho[ugh] I am sure there was no man born marked of God above another, for none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him.

In the moral philosophy of John Rawls, the veil of ignorance asks us to judge the justice of a society by whether we’d join it without knowing our place in it. I think the scientist’s veil of ignorance is to ask whether we’d accept the results of a study based on the methods involved, without knowing what the conclusion will be.

Insults, Mocking and ridicule and not constructive criticism have no place in a peaceful resolution. These things are far from putting down the bow, uniting humanity, and lifting the veil of ignorance. If we are to be faithful to the truth we must tear down the curtain to the Holy of Holies in our own ideological temples and admit our errors in logic.

the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance;

There is a secret earth gyrm, a place where the unbelievable, the unthinkable, the terrible, takes place every day. A place hidden by the veils of ignorance and cowardice and fear. On occasions we glimpse it, when its hidden terrors fall through that veil into plain sight, but mostly we just dismiss it as something else, somewhere else, to be dealt with by someone else. Long ago I found the veil and lifted it. And knowing as I do what is behind, what those behind it get away with, with impunity ... I cannot grow old basking on the bank of some safe-haven, no.

My wish is that this book has inspired you to listen to your inner voice, to listen to the spirits around you, and to know that you are surrounded by guides and angels who are just waiting for you to ask for their guidance. Don’t ignore those little “signs.” Yes, you do feel them and you do sense your loved ones. We are all mediums and the veil is becoming thinner and thinner.

The Sufi lovers of the Beloved tell us badly that we must, for our own sakes, always keep on our knees before the majesty of God and always dare to keep up in our hearts a constant stream of longing for the Beloved, however painful that might sometimes be. Without humility, revelation itself can be a source of ignorance because it makes its receiver vain. Longing is both the anguish that burns away the veils of separation between the soul and God and the thread that guides us deeper and deeper within ourselves to where love is waiting, always, to take us further into its mystery.

Hence I infer that where there is no sight of sin, there can be no repentance. Many who can spy faults in others see none in themselves. They cry that they have good hearts. Is it not strange that two should live together, and eat and drink together, yet not know each other? Such is the case of a sinner. His body and soul live together, work together, yet he is unacquainted with himself. He knows not his own heart, nor what a hell he carries about him. Under a veil, a deformed face is hid. Persons are veiled over with ignorance and self-love; therefore they see not what deformed souls they have.

[The goal is] "liberation from the bondage of rebirth. According to the Vedantists the self, which they call the atman and we call the soul, is distinct from the body and its senses, distinct from the mind and its intelligence; it is not part of the Absolute, for the Absolute, being infinite, can have no parts but the Absolute itself. It is uncreated; it has existed form eternity and when at least it has cast off the seven veils of ignorance will return to the infinitude from which it came. It is like a drop of water that has arisen from the sea, and in a shower has fallen into a puddle, then drifts into a brook, finds its way into a stream, after that into a river, passing through mountain gorges and wide plains, winding this way and that, obstructed by rocks and fallen trees, till at least it reaches the boundless seas from which it rose." "But that poor little drop of water, when it has once more become one with the sea, has surely lost its individuality." Larry grinned. "You want to taste sugar, you don't want to become sugar. What is individuality but the expression of our egoism? Until the soul has shed the last trace of that it cannot become one with the Absolute." "You talk very familiarly of the Absolute, Larry, and it's an imposing word. What does it actually signify to you?" "Reality. You can't say what it is ; you can only say what it isn't. It's inexpressible. The Indians call it Brahman. It's not a person, it's not a thing, it's not a cause. It has no qualities. It transcends permanence and change; whole and part, finite and infinite. It is eternal because its completeness and perfection are unrelated to time. It is truth and freedom." "Golly," I said to myself, but to Larry: "But how can a purely intellectual conception be a solace to the suffering human race? Men have always wanted a personal God to whom they can turn in their distress for comfort and encouragement." "It may be that at some far distant day greater insight will show them that they must look for comfort and encouragement in their own souls. I myself think that the need to worship is no more than the survival of an old remembrance of cruel gods that had to be propitiated. I believe that God is within me or nowhere. If that's so, whom or what am I to worship—myself? Men are on different levels of spiritual development, and so the imagination of India has evolved the manifestations of the Absolute that are known as Brahma, Vishnu, Siva and by a hundred other names. The Absolute is in Isvara, the creator and ruler of the world, and it is in the humble fetish before which the peasant in his sun-baked field places the offering of a flower. The multitudinous gods of India are but expedients to lead to the realization that the self is one with the supreme self.

The Fairness Principle: When contemplating a moral action imagine that you do not know if you will be the moral doer or receiver, and when in doubt err on the side of the other person. This is based on the philosopher John Rawls’s concepts of the “veil of ignorance” and the “original position” in which moral actors are ignorant of their position in society when determining rules and laws that affect everyone, because of the self-serving bias in human decision making.

Everything was sharper, clearer, and closer, as though, before, I had been seeing only little bits at a time, not all of it, of all of it but veiled or clouded. What was blocking my view before? Was there a veil between me and the world, or did I have blinkers on that narrowed my vision and kept me looking ahead? I did not know this until now--that I must have had a habit of not looking all around me. It was not that I had taken everything for granted before, but that I could not look at everything at once. Why? Was it so that I would not be tempted to do what I did not have the time or money to do, or so that I would not even think about something too distracting? I had to ignore of much of the world, or turn my thoughts away from it and back to the business at hand, whatever that might be...I used to think these places had to remain at just this distance, that I should long for them and that they should be almost imaginary, and that I should never visit them. Now, for a while, feeling as though I were outside my life, I thought I could visit them. At the same time, I felt closer to strangers. It was as thought something had been taken away that used to stand between me and them. I don't know if this was connected with the feeling that I was not inside my own life anymore. I suppose by "my own life" I mean the habitual worries, plans, and constraints that I thought were no longer even relevant.

Ultimately, the roast turkey must be regarded as a monument to Boomer's love. Look at it now, plump and glossy, floating across Idaho as if it were a mammoth, mutated seed pod. Hear how it backfires as it passes the silver mines, perhaps in tribute to the origin of the knives and forks of splendid sterling that a roast turkey and a roast turkey alone possesses the charisma to draw forth into festivity from dark cupboards. See how it glides through the potato fields, familiarly at home among potatoes but with an air of expectation, as if waiting for the flood of gravy. The roast turkey carries with it, in its chubby hold, a sizable portion of our primitive and pagan luggage. Primitive and pagan? Us? We of the laser, we of the microchip, we of the Union Theological Seminary and Time magazine? Of course. At least twice a year, do not millions upon millions of us cybernetic Christians and fax machine Jews participate in a ritual, a highly stylized ceremony that takes place around a large dead bird? And is not this animal sacrificed, as in days of yore, to catch the attention of a divine spirit, to show gratitude for blessings bestowed, and to petition for blessings coveted? The turkey, slain, slowly cooked over our gas or electric fires, is the central figure at our holy feast. It is the totem animal that brings our tribe together. And because it is an awkward, intractable creature, the serving of it establishes and reinforces the tribal hierarchy. There are but two legs, two wings, a certain amount of white meat, a given quantity of dark. Who gets which piece; who, in fact, slices the bird and distributes its limbs and organs, underscores quite emphatically the rank of each member in the gathering. Consider that the legs of this bird are called 'drumsticks,' after the ritual objects employed to extract the music from the most aboriginal and sacred of instruments. Our ancestors, kept their drums in public, but the sticks, being more actively magical, usually were stored in places known only to the shaman, the medicine man, the high priest, of the Wise Old Woman. The wing of the fowl gives symbolic flight to the soul, but with the drumstick is evoked the best of the pulse of the heart of the universe. Few of us nowadays participate in the actual hunting and killing of the turkey, but almost all of us watch, frequently with deep emotion, the reenactment of those events. We watch it on TV sets immediately before the communal meal. For what are footballs if not metaphorical turkeys, flying up and down a meadow? And what is a touchdown if not a kill, achieved by one or the other of two opposing tribes? To our applause, great young hungers from Alabama or Notre Dame slay the bird. Then, the Wise Old Woman, in the guise of Grandma, calls us to the table, where we, pretending to be no longer primitive, systematically rip the bird asunder. Was Boomer Petaway aware of the totemic implications when, to impress his beloved, he fabricated an outsize Thanksgiving centerpiece? No, not consciously. If and when the last veil dropped, he might comprehend what he had wrought. For the present, however, he was as ignorant as Can o' Beans, Spoon, and Dirty Sock were, before Painted Stick and Conch Shell drew their attention to similar affairs. Nevertheless, it was Boomer who piloted the gobble-stilled butterball across Idaho, who negotiated it through the natural carving knives of the Sawtooth Mountains, who once or twice parked it in wilderness rest stops, causing adjacent flora to assume the appearance of parsley.

Oh human heart, woman is your own reflection, and whatever you are, she is; wherever you live, she lives; she is like religion if not interpreted by the ignorant, and like a moon, if not veiled with clouds, and like a breeze, if not poisoned with impurities.

My house was built by a partnership called Desire and Ignorance; they often work together, and always with disastrous consequences. It’s surprising they aren’t more talked of in the press. They are great survivors but incompetent builders. Desire is famous only for pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, while Ignorance casts a veil over all his unexamined assumptions and makes wrong ones every hour. Together, they created the psychological reality where I live. Hardly a surprise, therefore, if it’s unfit for purpose!

I had a few glorious moments where my ignorance really was bliss, and then reality punched me in the gut. Like when you wake and think it’s a weekend, but it’s not. It’s a weekday, and you should have been at work an hour ago. Multiply that sensation by a hundred.

The opinions of men with respect to government are changing fast in all countries. The Revolutions of America and France have thrown a beam of light over the world, which reaches into man. The enormous expense of governments has provoked people to think, by making them feel; and when once the veil begins to rend, it admits not of repair. Ignorance is of a peculiar nature: once dispelled, it is impossible to re-establish it. It is not originally a thing of itself, but is only the absence of knowledge; and though man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be made ignorant.

And the centurion who stood by said: Truly this was a son of God. Not long ago but everywhere I go There is a hill and a black windy sky. Portent of hill, sky, day's eclipse I know; Hill, sky, the shuddering darkness, these am I. The dying at His right hand, at His left, I am - the thief redeemed and the lost thief; I am the careless folk; I those bereft, The Well-Belov'd, the women bowed in grief. The gathering Presence that in terror cried, In earth's shock in the Temple's veil rent through, I; and a watcher, ignorant, curious-eyed, I the centurion who heard and knew

Smith echoes the famous appeal of W.E.B. Du Bois to the human bond in books that ignores the veil of racial prejudice: I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm and arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing between the strong limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn or condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil.64 Committed to a goal (Truth) beyond what mere social life might offer, Du Bois finds in books a human community open to him in a way that his local human communities are not, riven as they are by segregation and hatred. Instead, on the basis of common humanity and common concern for truth, the dead authors welcome Du Bois into their company.

Socrates tried to soothe us, true enough. He said there were only two possibilities. Either the soul is immortal or, after death, things would be again as blank as they were before we were born. This is not absolutely comforting either. Anyway it was natural that theology and philosophy should take the deepest interest in this. They owe it to us not to be boring themselves. On this obligation they don’t always make good. However, Kierkegaard was not a bore. I planned to examine his contribution in my master essay. In his view the primacy of the ethical over the esthetic mode was necessary to restore the balance. But enough of that. In myself I could observe the following sources of tedium: 1) The lack of a personal connection with the external world. Earlier I noted that when I was riding through France in a train last spring I looked out of the window and thought that the veil of Maya was wearing thin. And why was this? I wasn’t seeing what was there but only what everyone sees under a common directive. By this is implied that our worldview has used up nature. The rule of this view is that I, a subject, see the phenomena, the world of objects. They, however, are not necessarily in themselves objects as modern rationality defines objects. For in spirit, says Steiner, a man can step out of himself and let things speak to him about themselves, to speak about what has meaning not for him alone but also for them. Thus the sun the moon the stars will speak to nonastronomers in spite of their ignorance of science. In fact it’s high time that this happened. Ignorance of science should not keep one imprisoned in the lowest and weariest sector of being, prohibited from entering into independent relations with the creation as a whole. The educated speak of the disenchanted (a boring) world. But it is not the world, it is my own head that is disenchanted. The world cannot be disenchanted. 2) For me the self-conscious ego is the seat of boredom. This increasing, swelling, domineering, painful self-consciousness is the only rival of the political and social powers that run my life (business, technological-bureaucratic powers, the state). You have a great organized movement of life, and you have the single self, independently conscious, proud of its detachment and its absolute immunity, its stability and its power to remain unaffected by anything whatsoever — by the sufferings of others or by society or by politics or by external chaos. In a way it doesn’t give a damn. It is asked to give a damn, and we often urge it to give a damn but the curse of noncaring lies upon this painfully free consciousness. It is free from attachment to beliefs and to other souls. Cosmologies, ethical systems? It can run through them by the dozens. For to be fully conscious of oneself as an individual is also to be separated from all else. This is Hamlet’s kingdom of infinite space in a nutshell, of “words, words, words,” of “Denmark’s a prison.

In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny.

She’s my mom and she’s never seen me this happy before. Of course, she thinks I love you.” I braved a look at him. “And do you?” “If I deny it, will you be able to get through dinner?” I nodded, ignoring the thin veil of his words over the truth I didn’t want to accept. “Then I don’t love you. You’re the most aggravating woman I’ve ever met. I can barely tolerate you.” “And my kids?” “Oh, no,” he chuckled. “I definitely love them.” “You do?” An aching affection flooded my body, filling in all of the cracks that fear and uncertainty had left me with. An emotional heat bubbled in my chest and wrapped my stiff limbs with something like hope. “Yes, I do. But they agree with me about you. You aggravate us all.

Your Self is the theme of all religions. Preceptors and preachings cannot help you find It unless you enquire into yourself. External sources of knowledge can only set you thinking. But you must make good use of the scriptural knowledge by engaging your intellect to reflect independently upon the truths therein. Do not sell your liberty of reflection to spiritual personalities regardless of their merit. You must seek the truth yourself. The Godhead lies within you. Remove the veil of ignorance and revel in the supreme bliss that lies within. Not realising your inherent wealth you try in vain to find peace and joy in the external world. So the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson rightly quipped: Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.

One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny.

But the harsh reality that we have achieved quite unequal success and at times appalling failures in our quest to attain a true meritocracy does not in any way compromise the validity of the principle nor obviate the imperative to strive for its greater realization. The model of a meritocracy can still be a sacrosanct model, a goal to which all societies might strive. I cling to the ideal of a true meritocracy, not because it is the societal model most closely consistent with the French Radical Enlightenment thinkers (which it happens to be), but because I believe it is the only model that aspires to simultaneously establish a just society and preserve the American spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. It is also the model I would design if given the authority to do so while under Rawls’s compulsory “veil of ignorance.

Don’t worry,” Patterson said to the child, “you’re quite safe in there.” He pulled her by her hair, dragging her along and she started to sob, tears streaking down her dirty face. She pulled at his large hand, where his fingers twisted in her hair and kicked out at him with bare feet as she shrieked, but he ignored her, making her small legs work quickly. When he got to Gemma’s gate, he grinned at her. “A gift for you,

Politics is the science of domination, and persons in the process of enlargement and illumination are notoriously difficult to control. Therefore, to protect its vested interests, politics usurped religion a very long time ago. Kings bought off priests with land and adornments. Together, they drained the shady ponds and replaced them with fish tanks. The walls of the tanks were constructed of ignorance and superstition, held together with fear. They called the tanks “synagogues” or “churches” or “mosques.” After the tanks were in place, nobody talked much about soul anymore. Instead, they talked about spirit. Soul is hot and heavy. Spirit is cool, abstract, detached. Soul is connected to the earth and its waters. Spirit is connected to the sky and its gases. Out of the gases springs fire. Firepower. It has been observed that the logical extension of all politics is war. Once religion became political, the exercise of it, too, could be said to lead sooner or later to war. “War is hell.” Thus, religious belief propels us straight to hell. History unwaveringly supports this view. (Each modern religion has boasted that it and it alone is on speaking terms with the Deity, and its adherents have been quite willing to die—or kill—to support its presumptuous claims.) Not every silty bayou could be drained, of course. The soulfish that bubbled and snapped in the few remaining ponds were tagged “mystics.” They were regarded as mavericks, exotic and inferior. If they splashed too high, they were thought to be threatening and in need of extermination. The fearful flounders in the tanks, now psychologically dependent upon addictive spirit flakes, had forgotten that once upon a time they, too, had been mystical. Religion is nothing but institutionalized mysticism. The catch is, mysticism does not lend itself to institutionalization. The moment we attempt to organize mysticism, we destroy its essence. Religion, then, is mysticism in which the mystical has been killed. Or, at least diminished. Those who witness the dropping of the fourth veil might see clearly what Spike Cohen and Roland Abu Hadee dimly suspected: that not only is religion divisive and oppressive, it is also a denial of all that is divine in people; it is a suffocation of the soul.

And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth.” He was the only man of us who still “followed the sea.” The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them—the ship; and so is their country—the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.

One and all they are driven by the twin engines of ignorance and willful barbarism. You nod, you also are familiar with these two powerful components of our national character, ignorance and willful barbarianism. Yes, everywhere you turn, and even among the most gifted of us, the most extensively educated, these two brute forces of motivation will eventually emerge. The essential information is always missing; sensitivity is a mere veil to self-concern. We are all secret encouragers of ignorance, at heart we are all willful barbarians.

Darkness my beloved home, I return! I return, not whole, but damaged. Fatigued by quixotic tendencies, The prodigal has come back famished. An outer world, so hostile and strange Filled immensely with ignorant natives The land where all good is forgotten Where hatred itself is life’s matrix. Though I’ve brought an odd mystery, An enigma that requires my genius A phenomenon, in foreign land; A veiled embodiment of Venus. Since, I’ve craved for my sanctuary, I have returned to you, oh darkness! Now I will restore my lost vigor to Unravel demeanors of this goddess. But..... Why am I estranged to this darkness? Maybe I’ve been away for too long, But shouldn’t home always feel home? Why am I in dire need to belong? As if this soul is deprived of life As if this body is in swift decay As if this mind screams for peace As if this heart calls to be lured ‘way Unwise, to have brought the goddess, When she is of a different realm Unfortunate, to have fallen in love, As she leaves to retain her helm Perhaps, this home lies deep within For everything is, but mere illusion Hence, I’ll reside her in my heart; To feel her, even in seclusion.

One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say a little tremulously, "I am lying here in the dark waiting for death." The light was within a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, "Oh, nonsense!" and stood over him as if transfixed. Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror - of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision - he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath - "The horror! The horror!" I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The pilgrims were dining in the mess-room, and I took my place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored. He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his meanness. A continuous shower of small flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces. Suddenly the manager's boy put his insolent black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt - "Mistah Kurtz - he dead.

Do you not see — talking up this plea of Sattva, the country has been slowly and slowly drowned in the ocean of Tamas or dark ignorance? Where the most dull want to hide their stupidity by covering it with a false desire for the highest knowledge which is beyond all activities, either physical or mental; where one, born and bred in lifelong laziness, wants to throw the veil of renunciation over his own unfitness for work; where the most diabolical try to make their cruelty appear, under the cloak of austerity, as a part of religion; where no one has an eye upon his own incapacity, but everyone is ready to lay the whole blame on others; where knowledge consists only in getting some books by heart, genius consists in chewing the cud of others' thoughts, and the highest glory consists in taking the name of ancestors: do we require any other proof to show that that country is being day by day drowned in utter Tamas?

Hello, Gwyn,' he said warmly. 'Good to see you again.' Gwyn blushed, shaking herself out of her stupor and bowed low. 'My lord.' Nesta rolled her eyes, and found Rhys watching her. That casual smile sharpened as he met her stare. 'Nesta.' 'Rhysand.' The other two women were glancing between them, the bouncing of their stares almost comical. Cassian just strode to Nesta's side and slung an arm around her shoulders before drawling to Rhys, 'These ladies are going to hand your ass to you in combat soon enough.' Nesta made to step out from under the heavy, sweaty weight of his arm, but Cassian clamped a too-friendly hand on her shoulder, his grin unfaltering. Rhys's gaze slid between them, little warmth to be found in his eyes. But plenty of wariness. Little princeling didn't like her with his friend. Nesta leaned into Cassian. Not much, but enough for a trained warrior like Rhysand to note. A dark, silken hand brushed inside her mind. A request. She debated ignoring it, but found herself opening a small door through the steel, spiked barrier she kept around herself day and night. The door was essentially a peephole, and she allowed what she supposed was the equivalent of her mental face to peer through it to the dark, sparkling plane beyond. What? You are to treat Gwyn with kindness and respect. The thing that stood beyond the fortress of her mind was a creature of claws, scales and teeth. It was veiled from sight beneath writhing shadows and the occasional passing star glinting in the darkness, but every now and then, a glimpse of a wing or talon shone. Mind your own business. Nesta slammed the small viewing hole shut. She blinked, slowly registering Emerie asking Cassian about tomorrow morning's lesson, and what she'd miss today by leaving an hour early. Rhysand's eyes glimmered. Cassian's arm remained around Nesta, and his thumb moved over her shoulder in an idle, reassuring caress. Whether he knew of or sensed her silent conversation with his High Lord, he didn't let on.

She’s the daughter of Lord Asriel,” said Farder Coram. “And her mother is Mrs. Coulter, of the Oblation Board.” “And apart from that?” The old gyptian had to shake his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t know any more. But she’s a strange innocent creature, and I wouldn’t have her harmed for the world. How she comes to read that instrument I couldn’t guess, but I believe her when she talks of it. Why, Dr. Lanselius? What do you know about her?” “The witches have talked about this child for centuries past,” said the consul. “Because they live so close to the place where the veil between the worlds is thin, they hear immortal whispers from time to time, in the voices of those beings who pass between the worlds. And they have spoken of a child such as this, who has a great destiny that can only be fulfilled elsewhere—not in this world, but far beyond. Without this child, we shall all die. So the witches say. But she must fulfill this destiny in ignorance of what she is doing, because only in her ignorance can we be saved. Do you understand that, Farder Coram?” “No,” said Farder Coram, “I’m unable to say that I do.” “What it means is that she must be free to make mistakes. We must hope that she does not, but we can’t guide her. I am glad to have seen this child before I die.

The veil of forgetfulness that divides eternity in two has its own powerful justifications. Philip Barlow, a modern religious scholar, has written eloquently of the surprising value of the veil: My impression is that, informed and animated by a thoughtful faith in a wider horizon, the veil quite properly funnels the bulk of our attention to the here and now: on the time, people, problems, and opportunities of this day, this moment. Despite glimpses of eternal purposes that come as gifts and hopes, my life unfolds in tremendous, all-but-complete ignorance of our mysterious universe. There is no proving God to others. Ultimate reality is not something we know; it is something in which we put our trust. . . . The veil is not a curse or cause for existential lament. It is necessary to our stage of progression as beings. While we search, listen, and pray for comfort and direction beyond our sphere, the veil—the necessary epistemic distance from this “beyond”—affords us freedom for independent action not possible if we could literally and readily see God smiling or frowning at each move. And freedom independently to discern and choose between good and evil (morality) and good and bad (quality) is at the core of our purpose, as the powerful mythos of Genesis suggests. The

Indeed, Newton confessed, “an evil heart of unbelief fills my sky with many clouds.”73 This lack of trust in God “is the primary cause of all our inquietude.”74 Newton prayed hard against the unbelief in his heart: “For this I sigh and long, and cry to the Lord to rend the veil of unbelief, scatter the clouds of ignorance, and break down the walls which sin is daily building up to hide him from my eyes.”75 Yet in our pride we hold tightly to our cares and open ourselves to spiritual attack (1 Pet. 5:6–8). We pull anxiety close like a blanket, so close that we cover our faces and cloud our souls from the victory and sovereign reign of Christ in the heavens. Even worse, unbelief makes us despondent. By faith we see our sin more clearly, and we see the sufficiency of Christ, which brings daily opportunities for joy in Christ. In turn, joy in Christ brings spiritual fortitude. “The joy of the Lord is the strength of his people: whereas unbelief makes our hands hang down, and our knees feeble, dispirits ourselves, and discourages others; and though it steals upon us under a semblance of humility, it is indeed the very essence of pride.”76 Pride exchanges joy in Christ for a cloud of spiritual despondency. Unbelief also brings insecurity about our salvation, and insecurity in Christ carries compounded anxieties and doubts to snuff out joy in Christ.

Amar loosed a breath. “I understand, you know.” I looked up. “The forced silence…the voices of this palace.” We stood there, not saying anything. I felt too aware of the space between us. Even with Akaran’s secrets spiraling in the shadows of my head, I couldn’t ignore the weightless feeling that had gripped me. Standing beside Amar did something to me. Like my center had shifted to make room for him. “You do not trust me, do you?” “No,” I said. I had no reason to lie. “I told you in the Night Bazaar that trust is won in actions and time. Not words.” “I wish you trusted me.” “I don’t place my faith in wishes,” I said. “How can I? I can’t even--” I bit back the rest of my words. I can’t even see your face. Perhaps Gupta was lying and he really did have a disfiguring scar. Amar moved closer until we were only a hand space apart. “What?” he coaxed, his voice hovering between a growl and a question. “I can’t even see your face.” A strange chill still curled off of him like smoke and even though the glass garden was teeming with little lights, shades veiled him. “Is that what you want?” he said. “Would it make you trust me?” “It would be a start.” “You are impossible to please.” I said nothing. Amar leaned forward, and I felt the silken trails of his hood brush across my neck. My breath constricted. “Is that what you want? An unguarded gaze can spill a thousand secrets.” “I would know them anyway,” I said evenly.

She went on speaking, and he did not interrupt her, but gathered up, with an eager and sorrowful piety, the words that fell from her lips, feeling (and rightly feeling, since she was hiding the truth behind them as she spoke) that, like the sacred veil, they retained a vague imprint, traced a faint outline, of that infinitely precious and, alas, undiscoverable reality—what she had been doing that afternoon at three o'clock when he had called—of which he would never possess any more than these falsifications, illegible and divine traces, and which would exist henceforward only in the secretive memory of this woman who could contemplate it in utter ignorance of its value but would never yield it up to him. Of course it occurred to him from time to time that Odette's daily activities were not in themselves passionately interesting, and that such relations as she might have with other men did not exhale naturally, universally and for every rational being a spirit of morbid gloom capable of infecting with fever or of inciting to suicide. He realised at such moments that that interest, that gloom, existed in him alone, like a disease, and that once he was cured of this disease, the actions of Odette, the kisses that she might have bestowed, would become once again as innocuous as those of countless other women. But the consciousness that the painful curiosity which he now brought to them had its origin only in himself was not enough to make Swann decide that it was unreasonable to regard that curiosity as important and to take every possible step to satisfy it.

Are we to treat persons known for liars and strife-makers as the children of the devil or not? Are we to turn away from them, and refuse to acknowledge them, rousing an ignorant strife of tongues concerning our conduct? Are we guilty of connivance, when silent as to the ambush whence we know the wicked arrow privily shot? Are we to call the traitor to account? or are we to give warning of any sort? I have no answer. Each must carry the question that perplexes to the Light of the World. To what purpose is the spirit of God promised to them that ask it, if not to help them order their way aright? One thing is plain—that we must love the strife-maker; another is nearly as plain—that, if we do not love him, we must leave him alone; for without love there can be no peace-making, and words will but occasion more strife. To be kind neither hurts nor compromises. Kindness has many phases, and the fitting form of it may avoid offence, and must avoid untruth. We must not fear what man can do to us, but commit our way to the Father of the Family. We must be nowise anxious to defend ourselves; and if not ourselves because God is our defence, then why our friends? is he not their defence as much as ours? Commit thy friend's cause also to him who judgeth righteously. Be ready to bear testimony for thy friend, as thou wouldst to receive the blow struck at him; but do not plunge into a nest of scorpions to rescue his handkerchief. Be true to him thyself, nor spare to show thou lovest and honourest him; but defence may dishonour: men may say, What! is thy friend's esteem then so small? He is unwise who drags a rich veil from a cactus-bush.

The pacifist-humanitarian idea may indeed become an excellent one when the most superior type of manhood will have succeeded in subjugating the world to such an extent that this type is then sole master of the earth. This idea could have an injurious effect only in the measure in which its application became difficult and finally impossible. So, first of all, the fight, and then pacifism. If it were otherwise, it would mean that mankind has already passed the zenith of its development, and accordingly, the end would not be the supremacy of some moral ideal, but degeneration into barbarism and consequent chaos. People may laugh at this statement, but our planet moved through space for millions of years, uninhabited by men, and at some future date may easily begin to do so again, if men should forget that wherever they have reached a superior level of existence, it was not as a result of following the ideas of crazy visionaries but by acknowledging and rigorously observing the iron laws of Nature. What reduces one race to starvation stimulates another to harder work. All the great civilisations of the past became decadent because the originally creative race died out, as a result of contamination of the blood. The most profound cause of such a decline is to be found in the fact that the people ignored the principle that all culture depends on men, and not the reverse. In other words, in order to preserve a certain culture, the type of manhood that creates such a culture must be preserved, but such a preservation goes hand in hand with the inexorable law that it is the strongest and the best who must triumph and that they have the right to endure. He who would live must fight. He who does not wish to fight in this world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist. Such a saying may sound hard, but, after all, that is how the matter really stands. Yet far harder is the lot of him who believes that he can overcome Nature, and thus in reality insults her. Distress, misery, and disease, are her rejoinders. Whoever ignores or despises the laws of race really deprives himself of the happiness to which he believes he can attain, for he places an obstacle in the victorious path of the superior race and, by so doing, he interferes with a prerequisite condition of, all human progress. Loaded with the burden of human sentiment, he falls back to the level of a helpless animal. It would be futile to attempt to discuss the question as to what race or races were the original champions of human culture and were thereby the real founders of all that we understand by the word ‘humanity.’ It is much simpler to deal with this question in so far as it relates to the present time. Here the answer is simple and clear. Every manifestation of human culture, every product of art, science and technical skill, which we see before our eyes to-day, is almost, exclusively the product of the Aryan creative power. All that we admire in the world to-day, its science and its art, its technical developments and discoveries, are the products of the creative activities of a few peoples, and it may be true that their first beginnings must be attributed to one race. The existence of civilisation is wholly dependent on such peoples. Should they perish, all that makes this earth beautiful will descend with them into the grave. He is the Prometheus of mankind, from whose shining brow the divine spark of genius has at all times flashed forth, always kindling anew that fire which, in the form of knowledge, illuminated the dark night by drawing aside the veil of mystery and thus showing man how to rise and become master over all the other beings on the earth. Should he be forced to disappear, a profound darkness will descend on the earth; within a few thousand years human culture will vanish and the world will become a desert.

Everyone knew there had never been a cowardly Confederate soldier and they found this statement peculiarly irritating. He always referred to the soldiers as “our brave boys” or “our heroes in gray” and did it in such a way as to convey the utmost in insult. When daring young ladies, hoping for a flirtation, thanked him for being one of the heroes who fought for them, he bowed and declared that such was not the case, for he would do the same thing for Yankee women if the same amount of money were involved. Since Scarlett’s first meeting with him in Atlanta on the night of the bazaar, he had talked with her in this manner, but now there was a thinly veiled note of mockery in his conversations with everyone. When praised for his services to the Confederacy, he unfailingly replied that blockading was a business with him. If he could make as much money out of government contracts, he would say, picking out with his eyes those who had government contracts, then he would certainly abandon the hazards of blockading and take to selling shoddy cloth, sanded sugar, spoiled flour and rotten leather to the Confederacy. Most of his remarks were unanswerable, which made them all the worse. There had already been minor scandals about those holding government contracts. Letters from men at the front complained constantly of shoes that wore out in a week, gunpowder that would not ignite, harness that snapped at any strain, meat that was rotten and flour that was full of weevils. Atlanta people tried to think that the men who sold such stuff to the government must be contract holders from Alabama or Virginia or Tennessee, and not Georgians. For did not the Georgia contract holders include men from the very best families? Were they not the first to contribute to hospital funds and to the aid of soldiers’ orphans? Were they not the first to cheer at “Dixie” and the most rampant seekers, in oratory at least, for Yankee blood? The full tide of fury against those profiteering on government contracts had not yet risen, and Rhett’s words were taken merely as evidence of his own bad breeding. He not only affronted the town with insinuations of venality on the part of men in high places and slurs on the courage of the men in the field, but he took pleasure in tricking the dignified citizenry into embarrassing situations. He could no more resist pricking the conceits, the hypocrisies and the flamboyant patriotism of those about him than a small boy can resist putting a pin into a balloon. He neatly deflated the pompous and exposed the ignorant and the bigoted, and he did it in such subtle ways, drawing his victims out by his seemingly courteous interest, that they never were quite certain what had happened until they stood exposed as windy, high flown and slightly ridiculous.

When Oliver called time a few moments later, she’d beaten them all. But she’d beaten Mr. Pinter by only one bird. “It appears, Lady Celia, that you’ve won a new rifle,” the duke said graciously. “No,” she answered. They all stared at her. “It doesn’t seem sporting to win a challenge only because one of my opponents had a faulty firearm. Which we provided to him, by the way.” “Don’t worry,” Mr. Pinter drawled. “I won’t hold the fault firearm against you and your brothers.” “That’s not the point. This should be fair, and it isn’t.” “Then we’ll move forward,” Oliver said, “and let the servants flush the grouse again. Pinter can take one more shot. That’s probably all that the misfire delayed him by. If he misses, then you’ve won squarely. If he hits his target then it’s a tie, and we’ll decide a tie breaker.” “That seems fair.” She glanced over at Mr. Pinter. “What do you say, sir?” “Whatever my lady wishes.” His eyes met hers in a heated glance. She had the unsettling feeling that he referred to more than just the shooting. “Well, then,” she said lightly. “Let’s get on with it.” The beaters headed forward to flush the grouse, but either because of where the grouse had last settled or because of the beaters’ position, the birds rose farther away than was practical. “Damn it all,” Gabe uttered. “He won’t make a shot from here.” “You can ignore this one, and we’ll have them flushed again,” Celia said. But Mr. Pinter raised his gun to follow their flight. With a flash and the repugnant smell of black powder igniting, the gun fired and white smoke filled the air. She saw a bird fall. No, not one bird. He’d hit two birds with an impossible shot. Her breath lodged in her throat. She’d hit two with one shot a few times, due to how they clustered and how well the birdshot scattered, but to do it at such a distance… She glanced at him, astonished. No one had ever beaten her-and certainly not with such an amazing shot. Mr. Pinter gazed at her steadily as he handed off the gun to a servant. “It appears that I’ve won, my lady.” Her mouth went dry. “It does indeed.” Gabe hooted pleased at having escaped buying her a rifle. The duke and the viscount scowled, while Devonmont just looked amused as usual. All of that fell away as Mr. Pinter’s gaze dropped to her mouth. “Well done, Pinter,” Oliver said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You obviously more than earned a kiss.” For a moment, raw hunger flickered in his eyes. Then it was as if a veil descended over his face, for his features turned blank. He walked up to her, bent his head… And kissed her on the forehead. Hot color flooded her cheeks. How dared he kiss her last night as if she were a woman, and then treat her like a child in front of her suitors! Or worse, a woman beneath his notice! “Thank heavens that’s done,” she said loftily, trying to retain some dignity. The men all laughed-except Mr. Pinter, who watched her with a shuttered expression. As the other gentleman crowded round to congratulate him on his fine shot, she plotted. She would make him answer for every remark, every embarrassment of this day, as soon as she had the chance to get him alone. Because no man made a fool of her and got away with it.

Christ's sacred face was spat upon to cleanse our soul which was blacker than coal. His precious flesh was covered with a robe that the veil of ignorance we had incurred by sin might be lifted and our spiritual blindness cured: he was presented before the judges that we might appear fearlessly before the Judge of all men. He kept silence to make satisfaction for Eve's speech with the serpent, and that our much and evil speaking might be chastised in his divine Person. He was left naked that we might be stripped of the old man and adorn ourselves with virtuous habits in readiness for the eternal nuptials, Christ was scourged to screen us from the scourge of justice we so well deserved; mock honors were paid to him on earth to win true honor for us in heaven. He wore a crown of thorns to crown us with glory; bore a reed in his hand that we might be given the scepter of the kingdom and was crucified between thieves to deliver us from the infernal companions with whom we had made friends and to make us companions of the holy angels.

The ego creates a veil of ignorance, a false sense of identity, which shields us from our true nature as souls. The more we identify with our thoughts, opinions, and physical characteristics, the further we remove ourselves from the Divine. As a result, we forget we are souls. We forget our connection to something higher than ourselves. We forget all are one.

Jesus’ throat hurt to speak. “I see you are disguising yourself in more humble appearance these days. Afraid of something?” “The jester from Galilee. I am impressed you can maintain your wits after so many days in my little home away from home.” Belial spread his hands out, gesturing to the dry deadly expanse around them. “I will admit that the advance of civilization has made it somewhat disadvantageous for the Watchers to reveal our true nature or presence. Yes, we are working more behind the veil than we did in primeval days. On the other hand, the way things are going, I can foresee an age when humanity has turned religion into pretty fictions, and blinded themselves to our reality. Imagine the influence we will then have on ignorant fools who no longer believe in us.

He knew no color-line, poor dear--and the Veil, though it shadowed him, had not yet darkened half his sun. He loved the white matron, he loved his black nurse; and in his little world walked souls alone, uncolored and unclothed. I--yea, all men--are larger and purer by the infinite breadth of that one little life. She who in simple clearness of vision sees beyond the stars said when he had flown, "He will be happy There; he ever loved beautiful things." And I, far more ignorant, and blind by the web of mine own weaving, sit alone winding words and muttering, "If still he be, and he be There, and there be a There, let him be happy, O Fate!

Nature has the appearance of greatness to man in proportion as she is veiled in mystery; and the ignorant are prone to put faith in everything that borders on the marvellous.

We do indeed encounter new parts of ourselves by stripping away the veils of our slumber; we become aware of our essential character and are opened to capabilities beyond limits self-imposed through ignorance,

Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying to 4:1 tell the children of Israel, “If a soul sins against any of Yahweh’s commandments through ignorance of the things that ought not be done, and does any of them, 4:2 or if the anointed priest sins and brings guilt upon the people, let him bring a young bull without blemish for a sin offering to Yahweh. 4:3 He shall bring the bull to the door of the tabernacle and lay his hand upon the bull's head, and kill the bull before Yahweh. 4:4 The anointed priest shall take the bull's blood, and bring it to the tabernacle of the congregation. 4:5 And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle the blood seven times before Yahweh in front of the veil of the sanctuary. 4:6 The priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of sweet incense before Yahweh, which is in the tabernacle, then pour all the blood of the bull at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle. 4:7 And he shall take from the bull all the fat for the sin offering— the fat that covers the innards, and all the fat that is upon the innards, 4:8 and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, which he shall take away with the kidneys, 4:9 just as it was taken from the bull of the sacrifice of peace offerings— and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt offering. 4:10 The skin of the bull, and all his flesh, and his head, and his legs, and his innards and his dung— 4:11 the whole bull he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on a wood fire. Where the ashes are poured out, he shall be burnt.

Your mother will die some day, and you and I will have to die some day, too. Yet My God has never died. Perhaps you haven’t heard clearly the story that tells how He goes on living for ever and ever. In appearance only did He die. But three days after He had died He came to life again and with great pomp He rose up to heaven.” “How often?” the chief asked in a dry tone. Astonished at this unexpected question, the monk answered, “Why . . . why . . . eh . . . once only, quite naturally once only.” “Once only? And has he, your great god, ever returned to earth?” “No, of course not,” Padre Balmojado answered, his voice burdened with irritation. “He has not returned yet, but He has promised mankind that He will return to earth in His own good time, so as to judge and to . . .” “. . . and to condemn poor mankind,” the chief finished the sentence. “Yes, and to condemn!” the monk said in a loud and threatening tone. Confronted with such inhuman stubbornness he lost control of himself. Louder still he continued: “Yes, to judge and to condemn all those who deny Him and refuse to believe in Him, and who criticize His sacred words, and who ignore Him, and who maliciously refuse to accept the true and only God even if He is brought to them with brotherly love and a heart overflowing with compassion for the poor ignorant brethren living in sin and utter darkness, and who can obtain salvation for nothing more than having belief in Him and having the true faith.” Not in the least was the chieftain affected by this sudden outburst of the monk, who had been thrown off routine by these true sons of America who had learned to think long and carefully before speaking. The chieftain remained very calm and serene. With a quiet, soft voice he said: “Here, my holy white father, is what our god had put into our hearts and souls, and it will be the last word I have to say to you before we return to our beautiful and tranquil tierra: Our god dies every evening for us who are his children. He dies every evening to bring us cool winds and freshness of nature, to bring us peace and quiet for the night so that we may rest well, man and animal. Our god dies every evening in a deep golden glory, not insulted, not spat upon, not spattered with stinking mud. He dies beautifully and glori¬ously, as every real god will die. Yet he does not die forever. In the morning he returns to life, refreshed and more beautiful than ever, his body still trailing the veils and wrappings of the dead. But soon his golden spears dart across the blue firmament as a sign that he is ready to fight the gods of darkness who threaten the peoples on earth. And before you have time to realize what happens, there he stands before wondering human eyes, and there he stays, great, mighty, powerful, golden, and in ever-growing beauty, dominating the universe. “He, our god, is a spendthrift in light, warmth, beauty, and fertility, enriching the flowers with perfumes and colors, teaching the birds to sing, filling the corn with strength and health, playing with the clouds in an ocean of gold and blue. As my beloved mother does, so does he give and give and never cease giving; never does he ask for prayers, not expect¬ing adoration or worship, not commanding obedience or faith, and never, never condemning anybody or thing on earth. And when evening comes, again he passes away in beauty and glory, a smile all over his face, and with his last glimmer blesses his Indian children. Again the next morning he is the eternal giver; he is the eternally young, the eternally beautiful, the eternally new-born, the ever and ever returning great and golden god of the Indians. “And this is what our god has put into our hearts and souls and what I am bound to tell you, holy white father: ‘Do not, not ever, beloved Indian sons of these your beautiful lands, give away your own great god for any other god.’ ” ("Conversion Of Some Indians")

There is a Life-Principle of the world, a universal agent, wherein are two natures and a double current, of love and wrath. This ambient fluid penetrates everything. It is a ray detached from the glory of the sun, and fixed by the weight of the atmosphere and the central attraction. It is the body of the Holy Spirit, the universal Agent, the Serpent devouring his own tail. With this electro-magnetic ether, this vital and luminous caloric, the ancients and the alchemists were familiar. Of this agent, that phase of modern ignorance termed physical science talks incoherently, knowing naught of it save its effects; and theology might apply to it all its pretended definitions of spirit. Quiescent, it is appreciable by no human sense; disturbed or in movement, none can explain its mode of action; and to term it "fluid," and speak of its "currents," is but to veil a profound ignorance under a cloud of words.

Saucha PURITY MEANING Saucha is the first of five healthy disciplines called Niyamas (inner observances). Saucha translates to “purity and cleanliness.” Start scrubbing within! SIGNIFICANCE Purity is the inner cleanse, while cleanliness is the outer representation of that inward clarity. Toxins thicken your veil of ignorance, making your journey to Yoga harder.

Since the beginning of time,” the camerlengo said, “this church has fought the enemies of God. Sometimes with words. Sometimes with swords. And we have always survived.” The camerlengo radiated conviction. “But the demons of the past,” he continued, “were demons of fire and abomination . . . they were enemies we could fight—enemies who inspired fear. Yet Satan is shrewd. As time passed, he cast off his diabolical countenance for a new face . . . the face of pure reason. Transparent and insidious, but soulless all the same.” The camerlengo’s voice flashed sudden anger—an almost maniacal transition. “Tell me, Mr. Kohler! How can the church condemn that which makes logical sense to our minds! How can we decry that which is now the very foundation of our society! Each time the church raises its voice in warning, you shout back, calling us ignorant. Paranoid. Controlling! And so your evil grows. Shrouded in a veil of self-righteous intellectualism. It spreads like a cancer. Sanctified by the miracles of its own technology. Deifying itself! Until we no longer suspect you are anything but pure goodness. Science has come to save us from our sickness, hunger, and pain! Behold science—the new God of endless miracles, omnipotent and benevolent! Ignore the weapons and the chaos. Forget the fractured loneliness and endless peril. Science is here!

The Vedic scriptures declaire that the physical world operates under one fundamental law of maya [=illusion]. [...] Physical science, then, cannot formulate laws outside of maya: the very fabric and structure of creation. Nature herself is maya. [...] Those who cling to the cosmic illusion must accept its essential law of polarity: flow and ebb, rise and fall, pleasure and pain. [...] Delusive maya in man manifests itself as avidya, ignorance. Maya or avidya can never be destroyed through intellectual convinction or analysis, but solely through attaining the interior state of nirbikalpa samadhi. [...] To remove the veil of maya is to uncover the secret of creation.

The young bourgeoisie, which seems stricken by premature senility, ignores the advice proffered and proves incapable of understanding that it is in its own interest to veil, even slightly, its exploitation of the people.

Allow that veil of ignorance drop off from thy face, so that you can see once again. Do not allow yourself to be among those who have eyes but cannot see.

The scientist who asserts that cell division is a misnomer, that cell membranes are mere veils, and that all differentiation serves but the purpose of love, may face an arduous battle. Nevertheless, it is a noble and worthy battle, a battle of wisdom over ignorance.

The soil, where family seeds are laid in this city, is rotten. Boys and men still believe in the illusion that their crowning achievements are sleeping with as many women as they can. The more women, the more they are revered as a man. They are left in the dark, completely oblivious to the truth that a part of them is given away or dies with every meaningless sexual exploit. The ignorant remain content until one day, and that day may come when they are on their deathbed, where the veil is removed and the harsh reality slaps them with a sobering truth. And that truth, wrapped with regret, sucks the nectar out of all the names, the faces, the bodies, the women who they thought they conquered. They are left free-falling in a never-ending pit. It could be in a flash, and time and space no longer hold ground. That split second will feel like their entire lifetime. That never-ending pit is their hell. As for the girls and women, they too are lost souls. They dive into a virtual world of selfies, likes, hearts and fire emojis. They get chased by men, their sense of self-worth builds to a crescendo, filling them with a sense of desire. A sense of being wanted. The dopamine, the deceitful dopamine, gives them a false sense of value. They lose sight of the difficult “real world” questions: What am I worth? What is my purpose? What are my principles? They lose themselves in pixels and scrolls. It starts with a selfie and pouchy lips. Then a collarbone. Then the breasts. Then the ass. This never-ending loop of reward tricks them into baring themselves naked, physically and emotionally, for men behind a screen to admire. They buy into the idea that every man desires them. They entertain them. And they do. Only for a brief period of time. Then time starts plotting. They get old. The same breasts that got likes and drooling emoji faces from men start to sag. Her ass no longer the peach standard emoji. Her womb, no longer able to bear children. She is left empty. Hollow. All of those likes, comments and meaningless nights with men who do not even remember her name leave her shattered. They gave in their youth for cheap thrills unaware that Father Time comes after every living soul. They then too plunge into that never-ending pit with the men they lived a lie in. That also becomes their hell.

Our grandmothers didn't agonize over such existential questions as to whether marriage was ultimately "right" for them as women or if having a baby would "compromise" them as individuals. Yet we do. We approach these aspects of life warily and self-consciously: A new bride adjusts her veil in the mirror and frets that she is selling out to some false idea of femininity; a new wife is horrified to find herself slipping into the habit of cooking dinner and doing the laundry; a new mother, who has spent years climbing the corporate ladder, is thrown into an identity crisis when she's stuck at home day after day, in a sweatsuit, at the mercy of a crying infant. It is because of feminism's success that we now call these parts of our lives into question, that we don't thoughtlessly march down the aisle, take up our mops, and suppress our ambitions. But feminism, for all its efforts, hasn't been able to banish fundamental female desires from us, either - and we simply cannot be happy if we ignore them.

Consciousness represents the intuitive ability to recognize the universal truths that govern existence, which lurk behind the veil of ignorance. But no one recognizes that he is ignorant until he exposes himself, internally or externally, to the questions that will lead to such recognition.

Philosopher John Rawls offered the image of a “veil of ignorance” as a means of thinking through what would be best for society.22 Rawls’s challenge is to imagine that you know nothing about your position in society. In this uninformed state, behind a veil of ignorance, you will be in a better position to decide how society should be structured for the greater good. Rawls intuitively understood that your status, wealth, position, and so on form cognitive barriers to objectively assessing

One must propitiate the Divine Mother, the Primal Energy, in order to obtain God’s grace. God Himself is Mahāmāyā, who deludes the world with Her illusion and conjures up the magic of creation, preservation, and destruction. She has spread this veil of ignorance before our eyes. We can go into the inner chamber only when She lets us pass through the door. Living outside, we see only outer objects, but not that Eternal Being, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute.

She and her kisses It was Saturday afternoon, The Summer Sun shone bright, And there she was as usual basking in the casual moments of the noon, While I stood there looking at her beautiful face in the Summer light, She turned sideways and sometimes I could only see her back, And as her locks of hair descended downwards from her shoulders, I could witness in the daylight the magic of the beautiful black, It was a beautiful sight for all heavenly and earthly beholders, To see her splendor of beauty humble the Summer light, And what made her even more beautiful was her ignorance of this fact, That she was brighter than the summer light and during the night she was the envy of moonlight, And with time she seemed to have a secret pact, For the afternoon sun had now set behind the horizon of dusk, But she and her beauty were still embalmed by a mysterious eternal light, That charged at the keeper of time like the ferocious tusk, And guarded her beauty like the most devout knight, When she finally stood up and left the place, I followed the trail of her scent, her shadows and her feet, And there I saw her enter a grand palace of grace, The residence of beautiful innocence made radiant by acts of kindness that nothing can defeat, Because time and beauty are the gatekeepers of this place, Where she sleeps and renews her youth, her charms and her sensitive acts of tenderness, Then in a moment she vanishes behind the veil of sleep without leaving any trace, On the fleeting moments of time, so nobody knows how she attains this beautiful grace of absolute calmness, Maybe it is her ability to look at men and women differently, For no matter who she comes across she greets them genuinely, And offers them a smile of kindness fondly, And it is these acts, small insignificant acts of kindness that flash on her face so beautifully, That is why I love her, even if it means looking at her from the distance, Because I seek not that smile of kindness that she offers to all, I love to be with her and feel that secret romance, That has enslaved time to her commands and makes her the most beautiful woman of all, Someday when the sun has set and the moonlight is bright, And she travels in her dreams into the kingdom of time and eternity, There I shall be her dream, to be so then every night, And then that is what I shall love to be her and my eternity, Where she kisses me, And we lie cocooned in the shell of love, With time winding its silk strings around me, As she kisses me like the rain drops of love, Then as the silk cocoon of time preserves us both, I shall confess to her, under the afternoon Sun, That for her I was the moth, That died a billion times just to let her face, be the beauty’s eternal Sun, So she owes me a moment of love, with a billion kisses, And as she agrees we both shall sleep in the cocoon of time together, Nothing to separate us, not even light, we shall then grow as a grand feeling of love thriving on kisses, And grow in the cocoon of eternal time where love and kisses shall be the only weather.

In Hegelian terms, this means that we are dealing with two In-itself: the way things are really (independently of us) in itself, and the way they appear to us to be in-itself—every appearance implies (or, rather, creates) its own in-itself, it conceals-and-indicates a dimension of substantial reality behind its veil, and, for Hegel, we pass from substance to subject when we realize that there is nothing behind the veil, just what we (the observing subjects) put (or, rather, projected) there. “Object-oriented-ontology” ignores this duality, it identifies these two in-itself; its “transcendence” (reality in itself) is therefore immanent, transcendentally constituted, i.e., what it conceives as the In-itself is subjectively constituted, it emerges within a given horizon of meaning.

All knowledge, therefore, secular or spiritual, is in the human mind. In many cases it is not discovered, but remains covered, and when the covering is being slowly taken off, we say, “We are learning,” and the advance of knowledge is made by the advance of this process of uncovering. The man from whom this veil is being lifted is the more knowing man, the man upon whom it lies thick is ignorant,

As I will reveal, actions, policies, laws, and international agreements continue to be developed and enforced based on one or more of the twenty-five myths I will discuss in this book. In the past, when I have pointed out that the practices conform to a specific myth, my colleagues claim they never believed it—that it’s so out-of-date, it isn’t even worth discussing. This is so they can ignore the criticism and tell everybody else to do the same. Then, when nobody is looking, they continue to formulate their policies that are based on the myth, while others continue basic research that assumes and supports the myth. It is against this contradiction between claim and action that I write, hoping independent thinkers will see through the veil placed between claims and actions.

He was aware that the way things really were was far different than most people believed. The world a wilder, more feral, more abnormal environment than ordinary civilians were able to accept. Ordinary civilians lived in a state of innocence, veiling their eyes against the truth. The world unveiled would scare them, destroy their moral certainties, lead to losses of nerve or retreats into religion or drink.

The Blindfold refers to a thought experiment invented by the political philosopher John Rawls in his 1971 book A Theory of Justice. Imagine you stand behind a “veil of ignorance,” not knowing what position in society you will be born into—you have no idea what your wealth, sex, ethnic background, intelligence, or values will be. In this “original position,” asked Rawls, how would you distribute the resources of society?

the Mahāyāna Buddhist master Nāgārjuna pointed out so vigorously, nirvāna is samsāra and samsāra is nirvāna. This grand spiritual realization entails the recognition that even while we are afraid of change and death and are troubled by the vicissitudes of samsāra, we are immersed in the freedom of the Spirit, or transcendental Reality. For the Spirit, which is devoid of any trace of suffering, is our inalienable nature. We are simply ignorant of this deep truth and consequently deem ourselves to be finite beings who are destined to suffer and die. In other words, it is our ignorance (avidyā) of our true nature that is responsible for our misidentification with a particular body-mind. In actuality, according to Yoga, our true identity is the Spirit, which is the same superconscious Reality in every being and thing. As soon as we take our first breath in a human body, this illusion is created and becomes more overpowering as the brain/mind is educated to function ever more in human ways. In the end, we might even come to the conclusion that there is no reality beyond the body-mind, and that consciousness is a function of the brain. The testimony of all great spiritual masters, however, is otherwise: What we conventionally call consciousness (citta) is merely the borrowed light of a sublime radiance that exceeds the physical and mental levels of existence. It is indeed largely dependent on brain functions, which, in turn, are dependent on the body’s biochemistry. But Awareness—or Supraconsciousness (cit)—requires for its existence no neurons, chemicals, or atomic and subatomic particles. It is, in fact, that in which all matter and thought arises and vanishes in every moment. That verity is glimpsed in higher states of ecstasy (samādhi) and fully realized upon enlightenment (bodhi), which is a permanent identity shift: Instead of experiencing ourselves as a specific individuated being, we realize our true nature as the superconscious substratum of all individuated beings and their perceived environments. Upon enlightenment, we cease to run around in circles. On the contrary, we stand at the still point, the axle hole (kha) of the great samsaric wheel, which continues to whirl round and round at dizzying speed for all those who are as yet unenlightened. Our own bodies, which are crystallized karmic residue, continue to live out their destiny (which is inevitable death), but “we”—as Spirit—are completely unaffected by the bodily processes and experiences. According to some schools of Yoga, the enlightened being’s supraconscious radiance gradually transforms and transubstantiates the physical body itself and creates a “body of light” or superconductive body (ativāhika-deha). This nonphysical vehicle defies the laws of Nature and is endowed with all kinds of extraordinary capacities. It is really an extension of the enlightened being’s unfettered mind, which has pierced the veil of illusion (māyā) and is perfectly attuned to the ultimate Reality. This superconductive body allows the liberated one to remain in the conditional realms and serve the awakening of others, without becoming subject to decay and death, which is the inexorable fate of ordinary bodies.

Truth is not the journey from one veil to another. Truth involves peeling the veil one layer after another.