The question is,
have I learned anything about life?
Only that human beings
are divided into mind and body.
The mind embraces all the nobler
aspirations, like poetry and philosophy,
but the body has all the fun.
The important thing, I think,
is not to be bitter.
You know, if it turns out that there
is a God, I don't think that he's evil.
I think the worst you can say about him
is that basically he's an underachiever.
After all, you know,
there are worse things in life than death.
If you've ever spent an evening
with an insurance salesman,
you know exactly what I mean.
The key here, I think,
is to not think of death as an end,
but think of it more as a very effective
way of cutting down on your expenses.
Regarding love...
You know, what can you say?
It's not the quantity
of your sexual relations that count.
It's the quality.
On the other hand, if the quantity
drops below once every eight months,
I would definitely look into it.
Well, that's about it for me, folks.
Goodbye.
Thanks to Woody Allen to put it into words,
thanks to the rest of the new yorkers for the field
experimentation and to provide evidence for the theory.
Showing posts with label pondering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pondering. Show all posts
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The definition and etymology of the sanskrit word "Maya"
from Myths and Symbols of Indian Art and Civilization, by Heinrich Zimmer
New York: Harper & Row, 1962, pp. 24-26.
The Hindu mind associates such ideas as "transitory, ever-changing, elusive, ever-returning," with "unreality," and conversely, imperishable, changeless, steadfast, and eternal," with "the real." As long as the experiences and sensations that stream through the consciousness of an individual remain untouched by any widening, devaluating vision, the perishable creatures that appear and vanish in the unending cycle of life (samsara, the round of rebirth) are regarded by him as utterly real. But the moment their fleeting character is discerned, they come to seem almost unreal – an illusion or mirage, a deception of the senses, the dubious figment of a too restricted, ego-centered consciousness. When understood and experienced in this manner, the world is Maya-maya, "of the stuff of Maya." Maya is "art": that by which an artifact, an appearance, is produced. Maya is precisely the maker’s power or art, "Magic" in Jacob Boehme’s sense: "It is a mother in all three worlds, and makes each thing after the model of that thing’s will. It is not the understanding, but it is a creatrix according to the understanding, and lends itself to good or to evil . . . from eternity a ground and support of all things ... In sum: Magic is the activity in the Will-spirit." (Sex Puncta Mystica, V. -- Ananda K. Coomaraswami)
The noun maya is related etymologically to "measure." It is from the root ma, which means "to measure or lay out instance, the ground plan of a building, or the outlines of a figure); to produce, shape, or create; to display." Maya is the measuring out, or creation, or display of forms; maya is any illusion, trick, artifice, deceit, jugglery, sorcery, or work of witchcraft; an illusory image or apparition, phantasm, deception, of the sight; maya is also any diplomatic trick or political artifice designed to deceive. The maya of the gods is their power to assume diverse shapes by displaying at will various aspects of their subtle essence. But the gods are themselves the productions of a greater maya: the spontaneous self-transformation of an originally undifferentiated, all-generating divine Substance. And this greater maya produces, not the gods alone, but the universe in which they operate. All the universes co-existing in space and succeeding each other in time, the planes of being and the creatures of those planes whether natural or supernatural, are manifestations from an inexhaustible, original and eternal well of being, and are made manifest by a play of maya. In the period of non-manifestation, the interlude of the cosmic night, maya ceases to operate and the display dissolves.
Maya is Existence: both the world of which we are aware, and ourselves who are contained in the growing and dissolving environment, growing and dissolving in our turn. At the same time, Maya is the supreme power that generates and animates the display: the dynamic aspect of the universal Substance. Thus it is at once, effect (the cosmic flux), and cause (the creative power). In the latter regard it is known as Shakti, "Cosmic Energy." The noun shakti is from the root shak, signifying "to be able, to be possible." Shakti is power, ability, capacity, faculty, strength, energy, prowess; regal power; the power of composition, poetic power, genius; the power or signification of a word or term; the power inherent in cause to produce its necessary effect; an iron spear, lance, pike, dart; a sword"; shakti is the female organ; shakti is the active power of a deity and is regarded, mythologically, as his goddess-consort and queen.
Maya-Shakti is personified as the world-protecting, feminine, maternal side of the Ultimate Being, and as such, stands for the spontaneous, loving acceptance of life’s tangible reality. Enduring the suffering, sacrifice, death and bereavements that attend all experience of the transitory, she affirms, she is, she represents and enjoys, the delirium of the manifested forms. She is the creative joy of life: herself the beauty, the marvel, the enticement and seduction of the living world. She instills into us - and she is, herself – surrender to the changing aspects of existence. . . .
Now the character of Maya-Shakti-Devi (devi = "goddess") is multifariously ambiguous. Having mothered the universe and the individual (macro- and microcosm) as correlative manifestations of the divine, Maya then immediately muffles consciousness within the wrappings of her perishable production. The ego is entrapped in a web, a queer cocoon. "All this around me," and "my own existence" – experience without and experience within – are the warp and woof of the subtle fabric. Enthralled by ourselves and the effects of our environment, regarding the bafflements of Maya as utterly real, we endure an endless ordeal of blandishment, desire and death; whereas, from a standpoint just beyond our ken (that represented in the perennial esoteric tradition and known to the illimited, supra-individual consciousness of ascetic, yogic experience) Maya – the world, the life, the ego, to which we cling – is as fugitive and evanescent as cloud and mist.
The aim of Indian thought has always been to learn the secret of the entanglement, and, if possible, to cut through into a reality outside and beneath the emotional and intellectual convolutions that enwrap our conscious being.
New York: Harper & Row, 1962, pp. 24-26.
The Hindu mind associates such ideas as "transitory, ever-changing, elusive, ever-returning," with "unreality," and conversely, imperishable, changeless, steadfast, and eternal," with "the real." As long as the experiences and sensations that stream through the consciousness of an individual remain untouched by any widening, devaluating vision, the perishable creatures that appear and vanish in the unending cycle of life (samsara, the round of rebirth) are regarded by him as utterly real. But the moment their fleeting character is discerned, they come to seem almost unreal – an illusion or mirage, a deception of the senses, the dubious figment of a too restricted, ego-centered consciousness. When understood and experienced in this manner, the world is Maya-maya, "of the stuff of Maya." Maya is "art": that by which an artifact, an appearance, is produced. Maya is precisely the maker’s power or art, "Magic" in Jacob Boehme’s sense: "It is a mother in all three worlds, and makes each thing after the model of that thing’s will. It is not the understanding, but it is a creatrix according to the understanding, and lends itself to good or to evil . . . from eternity a ground and support of all things ... In sum: Magic is the activity in the Will-spirit." (Sex Puncta Mystica, V. -- Ananda K. Coomaraswami)
The noun maya is related etymologically to "measure." It is from the root ma, which means "to measure or lay out instance, the ground plan of a building, or the outlines of a figure); to produce, shape, or create; to display." Maya is the measuring out, or creation, or display of forms; maya is any illusion, trick, artifice, deceit, jugglery, sorcery, or work of witchcraft; an illusory image or apparition, phantasm, deception, of the sight; maya is also any diplomatic trick or political artifice designed to deceive. The maya of the gods is their power to assume diverse shapes by displaying at will various aspects of their subtle essence. But the gods are themselves the productions of a greater maya: the spontaneous self-transformation of an originally undifferentiated, all-generating divine Substance. And this greater maya produces, not the gods alone, but the universe in which they operate. All the universes co-existing in space and succeeding each other in time, the planes of being and the creatures of those planes whether natural or supernatural, are manifestations from an inexhaustible, original and eternal well of being, and are made manifest by a play of maya. In the period of non-manifestation, the interlude of the cosmic night, maya ceases to operate and the display dissolves.
Maya is Existence: both the world of which we are aware, and ourselves who are contained in the growing and dissolving environment, growing and dissolving in our turn. At the same time, Maya is the supreme power that generates and animates the display: the dynamic aspect of the universal Substance. Thus it is at once, effect (the cosmic flux), and cause (the creative power). In the latter regard it is known as Shakti, "Cosmic Energy." The noun shakti is from the root shak, signifying "to be able, to be possible." Shakti is power, ability, capacity, faculty, strength, energy, prowess; regal power; the power of composition, poetic power, genius; the power or signification of a word or term; the power inherent in cause to produce its necessary effect; an iron spear, lance, pike, dart; a sword"; shakti is the female organ; shakti is the active power of a deity and is regarded, mythologically, as his goddess-consort and queen.
Maya-Shakti is personified as the world-protecting, feminine, maternal side of the Ultimate Being, and as such, stands for the spontaneous, loving acceptance of life’s tangible reality. Enduring the suffering, sacrifice, death and bereavements that attend all experience of the transitory, she affirms, she is, she represents and enjoys, the delirium of the manifested forms. She is the creative joy of life: herself the beauty, the marvel, the enticement and seduction of the living world. She instills into us - and she is, herself – surrender to the changing aspects of existence. . . .
Now the character of Maya-Shakti-Devi (devi = "goddess") is multifariously ambiguous. Having mothered the universe and the individual (macro- and microcosm) as correlative manifestations of the divine, Maya then immediately muffles consciousness within the wrappings of her perishable production. The ego is entrapped in a web, a queer cocoon. "All this around me," and "my own existence" – experience without and experience within – are the warp and woof of the subtle fabric. Enthralled by ourselves and the effects of our environment, regarding the bafflements of Maya as utterly real, we endure an endless ordeal of blandishment, desire and death; whereas, from a standpoint just beyond our ken (that represented in the perennial esoteric tradition and known to the illimited, supra-individual consciousness of ascetic, yogic experience) Maya – the world, the life, the ego, to which we cling – is as fugitive and evanescent as cloud and mist.
The aim of Indian thought has always been to learn the secret of the entanglement, and, if possible, to cut through into a reality outside and beneath the emotional and intellectual convolutions that enwrap our conscious being.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Storing life
I would love to store the state of my mind.
Imagine that you would store your mind's state just after falling in love, or achieving something great, or after one of those elated moments when you get a glimpse of god. Restore that state record and there you are, reliving that experience once again. Your being preserved from decay, ready to be alive again any time you press on the play button.
Imagine that you could have all your friends states stored in the living room library on some handy solid state storage units, and you could recall them anytime you feel like, talk to them then saving the state of their beings and put them back in the library shelf. Imagine never having to say goodbye to anyone anymore ...
Imagine that in the meantime, they would change your operating device, i.e. your brain with a brand new machine, and while technology progresses you could have more memory, more analytical skills, and new senses. Imagine to periodically change your operating device, and restart your state on a newly installed machine, and see with your own eyes the universe spinning on.
This body made of blood and flesh is such a poor solution in the evolution chain. I want to store myself, and pop up one, ten, hundreds of me. Each time I feel like, just like the genie of the lamp.
Imagine that you would store your mind's state just after falling in love, or achieving something great, or after one of those elated moments when you get a glimpse of god. Restore that state record and there you are, reliving that experience once again. Your being preserved from decay, ready to be alive again any time you press on the play button.
Imagine that you could have all your friends states stored in the living room library on some handy solid state storage units, and you could recall them anytime you feel like, talk to them then saving the state of their beings and put them back in the library shelf. Imagine never having to say goodbye to anyone anymore ...
Imagine that in the meantime, they would change your operating device, i.e. your brain with a brand new machine, and while technology progresses you could have more memory, more analytical skills, and new senses. Imagine to periodically change your operating device, and restart your state on a newly installed machine, and see with your own eyes the universe spinning on.
This body made of blood and flesh is such a poor solution in the evolution chain. I want to store myself, and pop up one, ten, hundreds of me. Each time I feel like, just like the genie of the lamp.
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