Joy

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The terms “self” and “myself” were, he believed, mere conventions, since every sentient being was simply a succession of temporary, mutable states of existence. In our own day, some postmodernist philosophers and literary critics have come to a similar conclusion. The Buddha liked to use metaphors such as a blazing fire or a rushing stream to describe the human personality. It had some kind of identity, but was never the same from one moment to the next. Unlike the postmodernist idea, however, anatta was not an abstract, metaphysical doctrine but, like all his teachings, a program for action. Anatta required Buddhists to behave day by day, hour by hour, as though the self did not exist. Not only did the concept of “self” lead to unskillful thoughts about “me” and “mine,” but prioritizing the self led to envy, hatred of rivals, conceit, pride, cruelty, and—when the self felt threatened—violence. The Buddha tried to make his disciples realize that they did not have a “self” that needed to be defended, inflated, cajoled, or enhanced at the expense of others. As a monk became expert in the practice of mindfulness, he would no longer interject his ego into passing mental states, but would regard his fears and desires as transient, remote phenomena that had little to do with him. Once a monk had achieved this level of dispassion, the Buddha explained to his monks, he was ripe for enlightenment. “His greed fades away, and once his cravings disappear, he experiences the release of the mind.” 98 The texts tell us that when the Buddha’s first disciples heard his explanation of anatta, their hearts were filled with joy and they immediately experienced nibbana. Why should they have been so happy to hear that the self that we all cherish did not exist? The Buddha knew that anatta could sound frightening. An outsider might panic, thinking, “I am going to be annihilated and destroyed; I will no longer exist!” 99 But the Pali texts show people accepting anatta with relief and delight. Once they lived as though the self did not exist, they found that they were happier and experienced the same kind of enlargement of being as they did when practicing the immeasurables. To live beyond the reach of hatred, greed, and anxieties about our status and survival proved to be liberating. But there was no way of proving this rationally. The only way of assessing the Buddha’s method was to put it into practice. He had no time for abstract doctrinal formulae divorced from action. A person’s theology was a matter of total indifference to the Buddha. Indeed, to accept a dogma on somebody else’s authority was unskillful; it could not lead to enlightenment because it amounted to an abdication of personal responsibility. Faith meant trust that nibbana existed and a determination to realize it. He always insisted that his disciples test everything he taught them.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Instinctively, he had composed himself in the yogic position, and entered a tranced state, even though he had never had a yoga lesson in his life. As he looked back on this childhood event, Gotama realized that the joy he had felt that day had been entirely free of craving and greed. “Could this,” he asked himself, “possibly be the way to enlightenment?” If an untrained child could achieve yogic ecstasy and have intimations of nibbana, perhaps the liberation of moksha was built into the structure of our humanity. Instead of starving his body into submission, and making yoga an assault on his psyche, maybe he should cultivate these innate tendencies that led to cetovimutti, the “release of the mind” that was nibbana. He should foster helpful (kusala) states of mind, such as the disinterested impulse of compassion that had surfaced so naturally, and at the same time avoid any mental or physical states that would impede this liberation. 77 Like the Jains, Gotama realized that the traditional five “prohibitions” of the “unhelpful” (akusala) states of violence, stealing, lying, intoxication, and sex must be balanced by their positive counterparts. Instead of merely avoiding aggression, he must behave gently and kindly to everything and everybody, and cultivate thoughts of loving-kindness. It was important not to lie, but also crucial to ensure that whatever he said was “reasoned, accurate, clear, and beneficial.” 78 Besides refraining from stealing, he must rejoice in possessing only the bare minimum. From now on, he was going to work with his human nature and not fight against it. For the first time in months, he took solid food and started to nurse himself back to health. He also began to develop a special type of yoga. First came the practice of “mindfulness” (sati), in which, as a prelude to meditation, he scrutinized his behavior at every moment of the day, noting the ebb and flow of feelings and sensations, together with the fluctuations of his consciousness, and making himself aware of the constant stream of desires, irritations, and ideas that coursed through his mind in the space of a single hour. This introspection was not designed to induce a neurotic, self-regarding guilt. Gotama was simply becoming acquainted with the workings of his mind and body in order to exploit their capacities and use them to best advantage, in the same way as an equestrian seeks an intimate knowledge of the horse he is training. Like many other renouncers, Gotama was convinced that life was dukkha, and that desire was responsible for our suffering.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The fact of the resurrection, whereof the apostles were witnesses, sends a thrill of joy and an air of victory through the whole book. God raised Jesus from the dead and mightily proclaimed him to be the Messiah, the prince of life and a Saviour in Israel; this is the burden of the sermons of Peter, who shortly before had denied his Master. He boldly bears witness to it before the people, in his pentecostal sermon, before the Sanhedrin, and before Cornelius. Paul likewise, in his addresses at Antioch in Pisidia, at Thessalonica, on the Areopagus before the Athenian philosophers, and at Caesarea before Festus and Agrippa, emphasizes the resurrection without which his own conversion never could have taken place. The Acts and the Epistles. The Acts gives us the external history of the apostolic church; the Epistles present the internal life of the same. Both mutually supplement and confirm each other by a series of coincidences in all essential points. These coincidences are all the more conclusive as they are undesigned and accompanied by slight discrepancies in minor details. Archdeacon Paley made them the subject of a discussion in his Horae Paulinae,1100 which will retain its place among classical monographs alongside of James Smith’s Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul. Arguments such as are furnished in these two books are sufficient to silence most of the critical objections against the credibility of Acts for readers of sound common sense and unbiased judgment. There is not the slightest trace that Luke had read any of the thirteen Epistles of Paul, nor that Paul had read a line of Acts. The writings were contemporaneous and independent, yet animated by the same spirit. Luke omits, it is true, Paul’s journey to Arabia, his collision with Peter at Antioch, and many of his trials and persecutions; but he did not aim at a full biography. The following are a few examples of these conspicuously undesigned coincidences in the chronological order: Paul’s Conversion. Comp. Acts chs. 9; 22and 26; three accounts which differ only in minor details. Gal. 1:15–17; 1 Cor. 15:8; 1 Tim. 1:13–16. Paul’s Persecution and Escape at Damascus. Acts 9:23–25. The Jews took counsel together to kill him ... but his disciples took him by night, and let him down through the wall lowering him in a basket. 2 Cor. 11:32, 33. In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes, in order to take me; and through a window I was let down in a basket by the wall, and escaped his hands

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Since wasting time noes against your Brain. You read and study nearly all the day, Determined to chase the boredom away. The more difficult question, much harder to bear, Is “What on earth do I have to wear? I’ve got no more panties, my clothes are too tight, My shirt is a loincloth, I’m really a siaht! To put on my shoes I must off my toes, Dh dear, I’m plagued with so many woes!” Margot had trouble getting the part about food to rhyme, so I’m leaving it out. But aside from that, don’t you think it’s a good poem? For the rest, I’ve been thoroughly spoiled and have received a number of lovely presents, including a big book on my favorite subject, Greek and Roman mythology. Nor can I complain about the lack of candy; everyone had dipped into their last reserves. As the Benjamin of the Annex, I got more than I deserve. Yours, Anne TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 1943 Dearest Kitty, Heaps of things have happened, but I often think I’m boring you with my dreary chitchat and that you’d just as soon have fewer letters. So I’ll keep the news brief. Mr. Voskuijl wasn’t operated on for his ulcer after all. Once the doctors had him on the operating table and opened him up, they saw that he had cancer. It was in such an advanced stage that an operation was pointless. So they stitched him up again, kept him in the hospital for three weeks, fed him well and sent him back home. But they made an unforgivable error: they told the poor man exactly what was in store for him. He can’t work anymore, and he’s just sitting at home, surrounded by his eight children,

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  This passage from James Mill[88] gives a clear statement of the doctrine which Berkeley in his Theory of Vision made for the first time an integral part of Psychology. Berkeley compared our visual sensations to the words of a language, which are but signs or occasions for our intellects to pass to what the speaker means. As the sounds called words have no inward affinity with the ideas they signify, so neither have our visual sensations, according to Berkeley, any inward affinity with the things of whose presence they make us aware. Those things are tangibles; their real properties, such as shape, size, mass, consistency, position, reveal themselves only to touch. But the visible signs and the tangible significates are by long custom so "closely twisted, blended, and incorporated together, and the prejudice is so confirmed and riveted in our thoughts by a long tract of time, by the use of language, and want of reflection,"[89] that we think we see the whole object, tangible and visible alike, in one simple indivisible act. Sensational and reproductive brain-processes combined, then, are what give us the content of our perceptions. Every concrete particular material thing is a conflux of sensible qualities, with which we have become acquainted at various times. Some of these qualities, since they are more constant, interesting, or practically important, we regard as essential constituents of the thing. In a general way, such are the tangible shape, size, mass, etc. Other properties, being more fluctuating, we regard as more or less accidental or inessential. We call the former qualities the reality, the latter its appearances. Thus, I hear a sound, and say 'a horse-car'; but the sound is not the horse-car, it is one of the horse-car's least important manifestations. The real horse-car is a feelable, or at most a feelable and visible, thing which in my imagination the sound calls up. So when I get, as now, a brown eye-picture with lines not parallel, and with angles unlike, and call it my big solid rectangular walnut library-table, that picture is not the table. It is not even like the table as the table is for vision, when rightly seen. It is a distorted perspective view of three of the sides of what I mentally perceive (more or less) in its totality and undistorted shape. The back of the table, its square corners, its size, its heaviness, are features of which I am conscious when I look, almost as I am conscious of its name. The suggestion of the name is of course due to mere custom. But no less is that of the back, the size, weight, squareness, etc.

• From The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (2001)

  We are all subject to social laws and under obligation to family rites: we conform to what is now called the ‘enterprise culture’, and even in the intimacy of our sexual lives we instigate habits and institute a code for the exclusive use of two people – a ‘couple culture’, you could say. So open-air copulation forms part of Jacques’ and my ‘couple culture’. In the same way that I have put coloured drawing pins into a globe to show the places I have visited, I could tick off on detailed maps the ruins and the rocks, the bends in the road and the clumps of trees where someone looking through binoculars could have stumbled across the quiverings of a minute two-headed silhouette. Early one morning, against the off-white coloured rocks of a steep mountainside, me with my body braced in its usual position, clutching the narrow trunk of a young tree with sparse foliage, and with my shorts barely lifted, we are joined by a man: are we in the area for a holiday? Have we lost our way? Once he has moved away, we speculate that – to avoid possible burglaries – he must have the job of guarding the hermitage which was in fact the reason for our climb. Another chapel, this one in ruins, but still with high walls standing proud on a flat plateau with a criss-cross of little walls around it, those of the long crumbled sacristy where it’s good to walk and imagining its inhabitants, as in an ancient ruin. The short nave is in full sunlight, the choir in the shade, the altar of dark grey stone is intact. I lie down on it, too high off the ground to be taken. While Jacques leans over and arouses me with a few playful licks, I keep my eyes wide open, gazing at the sky defined by the ridge of black walls; I could be at the bottom of a well. Once again we end up upright, in a tiny space just big enough for the two of us, and whose use we can’t really guess. A corridor? A recess for a long lost statue?

• From The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (2001)

  Céret is a noble-looking town set in countryside which still has a wild quality. There are very good restaurants there. Having arrived late one afternoon, too early to sit down and eat straight away, Jacques and I decide to climb up to a sandy track some four or five metres wide. It slopes gently and the ground is level so I don’t even have to take off the very high black patent shoes I’m wearing for the occasion. In the near dusk the contrast between the white path and the high dark vegetation bordering onto it is more striking. On the valley side, breaks in the foliage afford glimpses over the overlapping expanses of rustic tiles which contradict the perception you have of the town when you walk between its elegant eighteenth-century facades, along its avenues roofed by 30-metre plane trees. You would think that the entire plain had been pushed by the sea like a vast barge, and had forced the town to huddle itself against the mountainside. We stop and, standing one in front of the other, pick out other villages as if we were looking at a map. Cautious men take you first by the shoulders and your breasts, tickling around the base of your neck with their lips. Jacques always starts by taking hold of the buttocks. He immediately grasps the fact that there is nothing under the designer, dog-tooth check, bustier dress which I shed in one swift movement as if sloughing off a skin. He slips in from behind, gently exploring my pussy with his little probe, but not trying to penetrate. I press my back against him. The air temperature is perfect. A correlation develops between the space around us and the way his hands wander expansively over my chest and stomach. I do, however, avoid these caresses because, even when his dick has really stiffened, I don’t take it in my cunt before devoting just the briefest fellation to it. At last I offer my rump. Balancing on my heels, with my legs slightly bent to be at the right height for the lovely, lubricated tip, I put my hands onto my tensed thighs and spread out my fingers. It is quite a tiring position to maintain without any other support. But what a good poking I had that evening, my rear end grasped between his hands, pinioned and kneaded, with my top half thrust forward over the Roussillon plain as it slowly dissolved! I can clearly remember then thinking to myself, in one of those hyper-conscious states crystallised by pleasure, that one day I would have to find a way of putting into words the extreme sensation of joy when two bodies that are joined together feel as if they are unfurling. To understand this, you just have to imagine those shots you see in films about the wonders of nature, which use accelerated footage to show the petals of a rose suffused with oxygen and methodically smoothing themselves out.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  "A great and mighty wonder, The festal makes secure: The Virgin bears the Infant With Virgin-honor pure. The Word is made incarnate, And yet remains on high: And cherubim sing anthems To shepherds from the sky. And we with them triumphant Repeat the hymn again: ’To God on high be glory, And peace on earth to men!’ While thus they sing your Monarch, Those bright angelic bands, Rejoice, ye vales and mountains! Ye oceans, clap your hands! Since all He comes to ransom, By all be He adored, The Infant born in Bethlehem, The Saviour and the Lord! Now idol forms shall perish, All error shall decay, And Christ shall wield His sceptre, Our Lord and God for aye."

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Carrying to the mouth of the object, when grasped. This instinct, guided and inhibited by the sense of taste, and combined with the instincts of biting, chewing, sucking, spitting-out, etc., and with the reflex act of swallowing, leads in the individual to a set of habits which constitute his function of alimentation, and which may or may not be gradually modified as life goes on. Crying at bodily discomfort, hunger, or pain, and at solitude. Smiling at being noticed, fondled, or smiled at by others. It seems very doubtful whether young infants have any instinctive fear of a terrible or scowling face. I have been unable to make my own children, under a year old, change their expression when I changed mine; at most they manifested attention or curiosity. Preyer instances a protrusion of the lips, which, he says, may be so great as to remind one of that in the chimpanzee, as an instinctive expression of concentrated attention in the human infant. Turning the head aside as a gesture of rejection, a gesture usually accompanied with a frown and a bending back of the body, and with holding the breath. Holding head erect. Sitting up. Standing. Locomotion. The early movements of children's limbs are more or less symmetrical. Later a baby will move his legs in alternation if suspended in the air. But until the impulse to walk awakens by the natural ripening of the nerve-centres, it seems to make no difference how often the child's feet may be placed in contact with the ground; the legs remain limp, and do not respond to the sensation of contact in the soles by muscular contractions pressing downwards. No sooner, however, is the standing impulse born, than the child stiffens his legs and presses downward as soon as he feels the floor. In some babies this is the first locomotory reaction. In others it is preceded by the instinct to creep, which arises, as I can testify, often in a very sudden way. Yesterday the baby sat quite contentedly wherever he was put; to-day it has become impossible to keep him sitting at all, so irresistible is the impulse, aroused by the sight of the floor, to throw himself forward upon his hands. Usually the arms are too weak, and the ambitious little experimenter falls on his nose. But his perseverance is dauntless, and he ends in a few days by learning to travel rapidly around the room in the quadrupedal way. The position of the legs in 'creeping' varies much from one child to another. My own child, when creeping, was often observed to pick up objects from the floor with his mouth, a phenomenon which, as Dr. O.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  I’m young and have many hidden qualities; I’m young and strong and living through a big adventure; I’m right in the middle of it and can’t spend all day complaining because it’s impossible to have any fun! I’m blessed with many things: happiness, a cheerful disposition and strength. Every day I feel myself maturing, I feel liberation drawing near, I feel the beauty of nature and the goodness of the people around me. Every day I think what a fascinating and amusing adventure this is! With all that, why should I despair? Yours, Anne M. Frank FRIDAY, MAY 5, 1944 Dear Kitty, Father’s unhappy with me. After our talk on Sunday he thought I’d stop going upstairs every evening. He won’t have any of that “Knutscherej”* [* Necking] going on. I can’t stand that word. Talking about it was bad enough -- why does he have to make me feel bad too! I’ll have a word with him today. Margot gave me some good advice. Here’s more or less what I’d like to say: I think you expect an explanation from me, Father, so I’ll give you one. You’re disap- pointed in me, you expected more restraint from me, you no doubt want me to act the way a fourteen-year-old is supposed to. But that’s where you’re wrong! Since we’ve been here, from July 1942 until a few weeks ago, I haven’t had an easy time. If only you knew how much I used to cry at night, how unhappy and despondent I was, how lonely I felt, you’d understand my wanting to go upstairs! I’ve now reached the point where I don’t need the support of Mother or anyone else. It didn’t happen overnight. I’ve struggled long and hard and shed many tears to become as independent as I am now. You can laugh and refuse to believe me, but I don’t care. I know I’m an independent person, and I don’t feel I need to account to you for my actions. I’m only telling you this because I don’t want you to think I’m doing things behind your back. But there’s only one person I’m accountable to, and that’s me. When I was having problems, everyone -- and that includes you -- closed their

• From The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (2001)

  A Brazilian adventure left me with more complex feelings. I had just arrived in Rio de Janeiro for the first time and, of all the telephone numbers I had been given, this artist was the only person to reply. As luck would have it, he was very familiar with an area of French cultural history which was my field, and we stayed up very late, chatting on a gloomy terrace in Ipanema. Several years went by, he came to Paris, I went back to Brazil a couple of times. In Sao Paulo, as we came away from a party for the Biennale, we took the same taxi. He gave the address of my hotel. Without taking my eyes off the taxi-driver’s neck, I drummed my fingers lightly on his thigh. He gave the address of his hotel. The bed stood by a bay window and street signs outside threw blocks of yellow light across it as in a Hopper painting. He did not cover me, he sowed parts of his body like gentle seeds over mine, reassuring himself that I was there with his hands, his lips, his penis, as well as his forehead, his chin, his shoulders and legs. I felt good, and then was drowned in the depths of a migraine which terrified him. I could hear him whispering about the time, about all that time. There was no second time with him, either. Later, in another taxi, in Paris this time, as I watched rather than listened to him speaking to me attentively, I was overcome by an intense feeling of joy: I was thinking about the geographical distance between us, the long intervals of time between our meetings which were nevertheless regular – sometimes, when in Rio, I might just give him a quick call; and I thought of that single occasion when time and space had come together, and their union had formed a perfect architecture.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  your bellyaching a minute longer. just wait, one day I’ll make you eat your words!” (End of Act One.) Actually, I couldn’t help giggling. Mother couldn’t either, and even Peter was biting his lips to keep from laughing. Oh, those stupid grown-ups. They need to learn a few things first before they start making so many remarks about the younger generation! Since Friday we’ve been keeping the windows open again at night. Yours, Anne M. Frank What Our Annex Family Is Interested In (A Systematic Survey of Courses and Readina Matter) Mr. van Daan. No courses; looks up many things in Knaur’s Encyclopedia and Lexicon; likes to read detective stories, medical books and love stories, exciting or trivial. Mrs. van Daan. A correspondence course in English; likes to read biographical novels and occasionally other kinds of novels. Mr. Frank. Is learning English (Dickens!) and a bit of Latin; never reads novels, but likes serious, rather dry descriptions of people and places. Mrs. Frank. A correspondence course in English; reads everything except detective stories. Mr. Dussel. Is learning English, Spanish and Dutch with no noticeable results; reads everything; goes along with the opinion of the majority. Peter van Daan. Is learning English, French (correspondence course), shorthand in Dutch, English and German, commercial correspondence in English, woodworking, economics and sometimes math; seldom reads, sometimes geography. Margot Frank. Correspondence courses in English, French and Latin, shorthand in English, German and Dutch, trigonometry, solid geometry, mechanics, phys- ics, chemistry, algebra, geometry, English literature, French literature, German literature, Dutch literature, bookkeeping, geography, modern history, biology, economics; reads everything, preferably on religion and medicine. Anne Frank. Shorthand in French, English, German and Dutch, geometry, algebra, history, geography, art history, mythology, biology, Bible history,

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The practice of mindfulness had made him aware that human beings were in constant flux; their bodies and feelings changed from one moment to the next. After systematically examining his shifting convictions, emotions, and perceptions an honest person had to conclude that none of these could be the self sought by so many of the renouncers, because they were so flawed and transitory: “This is not mine; this is not what I really am; this is not my Self.” 97 But the Buddha went even further and denied the reality of a stable, “lowercase” self too. The terms “self” and “myself” were, he believed, mere conventions, since every sentient being was simply a succession of temporary, mutable states of existence. In our own day, some postmodernist philosophers and literary critics have come to a similar conclusion. The Buddha liked to use metaphors such as a blazing fire or a rushing stream to describe the human personality. It had some kind of identity, but was never the same from one moment to the next. Unlike the postmodernist idea, however, anatta was not an abstract, metaphysical doctrine but, like all his teachings, a program for action. Anatta required Buddhists to behave day by day, hour by hour, as though the self did not exist. Not only did the concept of “self” lead to unskillful thoughts about “me” and “mine,” but prioritizing the self led to envy, hatred of rivals, conceit, pride, cruelty, and—when the self felt threatened—violence. The Buddha tried to make his disciples realize that they did not have a “self” that needed to be defended, inflated, cajoled, or enhanced at the expense of others. As a monk became expert in the practice of mindfulness, he would no longer interject his ego into passing mental states, but would regard his fears and desires as transient, remote phenomena that had little to do with him. Once a monk had achieved this level of dispassion, the Buddha explained to his monks, he was ripe for enlightenment. “His greed fades away, and once his cravings disappear, he experiences the release of the mind.” 98 The texts tell us that when the Buddha’s first disciples heard his explanation of anatta, their hearts were filled with joy and they immediately experienced nibbana. Why should they have been so happy to hear that the self that we all cherish did not exist? The Buddha knew that anatta could sound frightening. An outsider might panic, thinking, “I am going to be annihilated and destroyed; I will no longer exist!” 99 But the Pali texts show people accepting anatta with relief and delight. Once they lived as though the self did not exist, they found that they were happier and experienced the same kind of enlargement of being as they did when practicing the immeasurables. To live beyond the reach of hatred, greed, and anxieties about our status and survival proved to be liberating.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The teacher could not simply give his pupil the answers, but could only lead him through the stages of introspection. Just when it seemed that they had got to the root of the matter, the student discovered for himself that this was not the end of his quest, and that he had to go still deeper. Even the mighty Indra took 101 years to discover the atman that gave the gods immortality. 39 The sages of the Upanishads were seeking the essence of the personality, and in the course of that process some experienced an ineffable joy and peace. Guru Prajapati called the person who had made this interior journey “the deeply serene one,” who “emerges in his own true appearance.” 40 He had somehow come to himself, not by receiving privileged information, but by living differently. The process was just as important as the achievement of the final goal. Somebody who merely reads the text of the Chandogya, however, cannot have this experience. There could be no enlightenment unless the student had actually made the meditation, and gone through the long and difficult journey of introspection. Most important, metaphysical contemplation was only a small part of the initiation. Like a brahmacarin, the Upanishadic student had to live in a humble, self-effacing way, and this was as crucial as the intellectual content of the quest. Indra, a god who never stopped boasting about his exploits, had to gather wood for his teacher, look after his fire, clean Prajapati’s house, be chaste, give up warfare, and practice ahimsa. Human sages and gods were discovering a spiritual technology that would work only if people abandoned the aggressively self-assertive ego. M eanwhile, the Greeks were taking an entirely different path. Where the Indian sages of the Axial Age were abandoning their heroic code and reducing Indra, the archetypal Aryan warrior, to a lowly Vedic student, the Greeks were militarizing the entire polis. The gods of India were beginning to merge into the mental processes of the renouncer, but the Greeks were giving their gods greater definition than ever before. In one sense, the Hellenic world prospered during the seventh century. At this point, Athens lagged behind the other poleis, but some cities were thriving, especially in the Peloponnesus. 41 This was the century of Corinth, which was superbly placed for Mediterranean trade, had a thriving crafts industry, and, under the influence of Egypt, was experimenting with monumental architecture. The most radical state, however, was Sparta, which had a unique political system that subjugated the interests of the individual wholly to the polis.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  There had always been an element of the burlesque in the cult of Dionysus. In his civic processions all the inhabitants of the polis would mingle together, slaves marching side by side with aristocrats. It was the exact opposite of the Panathenaea, where every sector of the populace had a clearly defined place in the procession.78 Dionysian religion contained a hint of rebellion, which appealed to the craftsmen, artisans, and peasants from whom the tyrants drew their support, and so they often encouraged the cult of Dionysus. In 534, Peisistratos established the City Dionysia in Athens, and built a small temple to Dionysus on the southern slope of the Acropolis. Beside it was a theater, which had been cut out of the rocky hillside. On the morning of the festival, the god’s effigy was ceremonially carried into the city and placed on the stage. For the next three days, the citizens gathered in the theater to listen to the choral recitations of the ancient myths, which would slowly develop into a full-scale drama. In the dramatic rituals of the City Dionysia, the Greeks would come closest to the religious experience of the Axial Age. A few Greeks, in two marginal movements of the sixth century, also moved toward the vision of the Axial Age emerging in other parts of the world. The first was the Orphic sect, which rejected the aggressive ethos of the polis and embraced the ideal of nonviolence.79 Orphics would not even sacrifice an animal ceremonially, adopted a strict vegetarian diet, and because the sacrifice was essential to the political life of the city, they withdrew from the mainstream. Their model was Orpheus, a mythical hero of Thrace, which was a wild, peripheral, and “uncivilized” region of Greece. A man of sorrows, Orpheus mourned the loss of his wife, Eurydice, for his entire life and died a violent, horrible death: he had so enraged the women of Thrace by refusing to marry again that they tore him to pieces with their bare hands. Yet Orpheus was a man of peace, whose inspired poetry tamed wild beasts, calmed the waves, and made men forget their quarrels.80 The second of these movements was initiated by Pythagoras, a mathematician from Samos, who migrated to Italy in 530, traveled in the east, and taught a version of the Indian doctrine of karma. We know very little about him personally, except that he established an esoteric sect whose members purified the body by abstaining from meat, refused to take part in the sacrificial rituals, and sought enlightenment through the study of science and mathematics. By concentrating on pure abstractions, Pythagoreans hoped to wean themselves away from the contaminations of the physical world and glimpse a vision of divine order.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Thus far, they lacked the self-consciousness to analyze what they were doing. But later, during the third century, Xunzi, one of the most rationalistic philosophers of the Chinese Axial Age, reflected upon these ancient rites and was able to understand their spiritual importance. “The gentleman utilizes bells and drums to guide his will, and lutes and zithers to gladden his heart,” he explained. In the war dance he brandished weapons; in the peace dance he waved feather ornaments, passing symbolically from belligerence to harmony. These external gestures had an effect on his inner self: “Through the performance of music the will is made pure, and through the practice of rites the conduct is brought to perfection, the eyes and ears become keen, the temper becomes harmonious and calm, and customs and manners are easily reformed.” Above all, these elaborate rituals helped the participants to transcend themselves. “The mature person,” Xunzi continued, “takes joy in carrying out the Way; the petty man takes joy in gratifying his desires.” During the Axial Age, people would realize that getting beyond the limitations of selfishness brought deeper satisfaction than mere self-indulgence: “He who curbs his desires in accordance with the Way will be joyful and free from disorder, but he who forgets the Way in the pursuit of desire will fall into delusion and joylessness.” 54 During the Chinese Axial Age, some of the philosophers would reject the artifice of ritual, but others would build a profound spirituality based upon these liturgical ceremonies. The establishment of the rites was one of the great achievements of the Zhou, and later generations recognized this. The Record of Rites, a text that was only completed after the Axial Age, remarked that the Shang had put the spirits in first place, and the rites second, but the Zhou put the rites first and the spirits second. 55 The Shang had wanted to use their rituals to control and exploit the gods, but the Zhou had intuitively realized that the rites themselves contained a much stronger transformative power. By the end of the ninth century, it was clear that the Zhou dynasty was in dire straits. In 842, King Lih was deposed and forced into exile. The embarrassing failure of the kings made some people skeptical. If the sons of Heaven were so incompetent and shortsighted, what did that say about the High God himself? Poets began to write satirical odes: “Di on High is so contradictory, that the people below are all exhausted,” one wrote. The kings and their royal rites no longer embodied the Way: “You utter talk that is not true . . . and there is no substance at the altar.”

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The same was true of the yama and niyama. By dint of practice, these ethical disciplines would become second nature, and when this happened, Patanjali explained, the aspirant would experience “indescribable joy.” 87 As he left the “ego principle” behind, he had intimations of the final liberation. Once his teacher was satisfied that the aspirant had mastered the yama and niyama, he was ready to learn the first properly yogic discipline: asana, “sitting.” He had to sit with crossed legs, straight back, and in a completely motionless position for hours at a time. This was uncomfortable at first, and sometimes unbearably painful. Motion is what characterizes living creatures. Everything that moves is alive. Even when we imagine that we are sitting still, we are in constant motion: we blink, scratch, shift from one buttock to another, and turn our heads in response to stimulus. Even in sleep, we toss and turn. But in asana, the yogin was learning to sever the link between his mind and his senses. He was so still that he seemed more like a statue or a plant than a human being. In the old days, the Aryans had despised the asuras, who had sat at home all day. Now the new men of yoga sat for hours in one place, without a sign of life. Next the yogin learned to control his breathing, an even greater assault on his instinctual life. Respiration is the most fundamental and automatic of our physical functions, and is absolutely essential to life. In pranayama, however, the yogin learned to breathe more and more slowly. His aim was to pause for as long as possible between exhalation and inhalation, so that it seemed as though respiration had entirely ceased. His heart rate slowed down; he might even appear to be dead, and yet, once he had become adept at pranayama, he experienced a new kind of life. This controlled respiration, which is entirely different from the arrhythmic breathing of ordinary life, has been shown to have physical and neurological effects. It produces a sensation of calm, harmony, and equanimity, said to be comparable to the effect of music. There was a feeling of grandeur, expansiveness, and nobility—a sense of presence. Once he had mastered these physical exercises, the trainee yogin was ready for the mental discipline of ekagrata, concentration “on one point.” Here he refused to think, learning to focus uninterruptedly on a single object or idea. It could be a flower, the tip of his nose, or one of the teachings of his guru. The important thing was to exclude rigorously any other emotion or association, and to push away each one of the distractions that inevitably rushed into his mind. There were various forms of ekagrata. The aspirant learned pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), contemplating the object with the intellect alone.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Frank FRIDAY, MARCH 3,1944 My dearest Kitty, When I looked into the candle tonight, I felt calm and happy again. It seems Grandma is in that candle, and it’s Grandma who watches over and protects me and makes me feel happy again. But. . . there’s someone else who governs all my moods and that’s. . . Peter. I went to get the potatoes today, and while I was standing on the stairway with my pan full, he asked, “What did you do during the lunch break?” I sat down on the stairs, and we began to talk. The potatoes didn’t make it to the kitchen until five-fifteen (an hour after I’d gone to get them). Peter didn’t say anything more about his parents; we just talked about books and about the past. Oh, he gazes at me with such warmth in his eyes; I don’t think it will take much for me to fall in love with him. He brought the subject up this evening. I went to his room after peeling potatoes and remarked on how hot it was. “You can tell the temperature by looking at Margot and me, because we turn white when it’s cold and red when it’s hot.” I said. “In love?” he asked. “Why should I be in love?” It was a pretty silly answer (or, rather, question). “Why not?” he said, and then it was time for dinner. What did he mean? Today I finally managed to ask him whether my chatter bothered him. All he said was, “Oh, it’s fine with me!” I can’t tell how much of his reply was due to shyness. Kitty, I sound like someone who’s in love and can talk about nothing but her dearest darling. And Peter is a darling. Will I ever be able to tell him that? Only if he thinks the same of me, but I’m the kind of person you have to treat with kid gloves, I know that all too well.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Another birthday has gone by, so I’m now fifteen. I received quite a few gifts: Springer’s five-volume art history book, a set of underwear, two belts, a handkerchief, two jars of yogurt, a jar of jam, two honey cookies (small), a botany book from Father and Mother, a gold bracelet from Margot, a sticker album from the van Daans, Biomalt and sweet peas from Dussel, candy from Miep, candy and notebooks from Bep, and the high point: the book Maria Theresa and three slices of full-cream cheese from Mr. Kugler. Peter gave me a lovely bouquet of peonies; the poor boy had put a lot of effort into finding a present, but nothing quite worked out. The invasion is still going splendidly, in spite of the miserable weather -- pouring rains, gale winds and high seas. Yesterday Churchill, Smuts, Eisenhower and Arnold visited the French villages that the British have captured and liberated. Churchill was on a torpedo boat that shelled the coast. Uke many men, he doesn’t seem to know what fear is -- an enviable trait! From our position here in Fort Annex, it’s difficult to gauge the mood of the Dutch. No doubt many people are glad the idle (!) British have finally rolled up their sleeves and gotten down to work. Those who keep claim- ing they don’t want to be occupied by the British don’t realize how unfair they’re being. Their line of reasoning boils down to this: England must fight, struggle and sacri- fice its sons to liberate Holland and the other occupied countries. After that the British shouldn’t remain in Hol- land: they should offer their most abject apologies to all the occupied countries, restore the Dutch East Indies to its rightful owner and then return, weakened and impoverished, to England. What a bunch of idiots. And yet, as I’ve already said, many Dutch people can be counted among their ranks. What would have become of Holland and its neighbors if England had signed a peace treaty with Germany, as it’s had ample opportunity to do? Holland would have become German, and that would have been the end of that! All those Dutch people who still look down on the British, scoff at England and its government of old fogies, call the English cowards, yet hate the Germans, should be given a good shaking, the way you’d plump up a pillow. Maybe that would straighten out their jumbled brains!

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  and I think he was too. At nine-thirty we stood up. Peter put on his tennis shoes so he wouldn’t make much noise on his nightly round of the building, and I was standing next to him. How I suddenly made the right movement, I don’t know, but before we went downstairs, he gave me a. kiss, through my hair, half on my left cheek and half on my ear. I tore downstairs without looking back, and I long so much for today. Sunday morning, just before eleven. Yours, Anne M. Frank MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1944 Dearest Kitty, Do you think Father and Mother would approve of a girl my age sitting on a divan and kissing a seventeen-anda-half-year-old boy? I doubt they would, but I have to trust my own judgment in this matter. It’s so peaceful and safe, lying in his arms and dreaming, it’s so thrilling to feel his cheek against mine, it’s so wonderful to know there’s someone waiting for me. But, and there is a but, will Peter want to leave it at that? I haven’t forgotten his promise, but. . . he is a boy! I know I’m starting at a very young age. Not even fifteen and already so independent -- that’s a little hard for other people to understand. I’m pretty sure Margot would never kiss a boy unless there was some talk of an engagement or marriage. Neither Peter nor I has any such plans. I’m also sure that Mother never touched a man before she met Father. What would my girlfriends or Jacque say if they knew I’d lain in Peter’s arms with my heart against his chest, my head on his shoulder and his head and face against mine! Oh, Anne, how terribly shocking! But seriously, I don’t think it’s at all shocking; we’re cooped up here, cut off from the world, anxious and fearful, especially lately. Why should we stay apart when we love each other? Why shouldn’t we kiss each other in times like these? Why should we wait until we’ve reached a suitable age? Why should we ask anybody’s permission? I’ve decided to look out for my own interests. He’d never want to hurt me or make me unhappy. Why shouldn’t I do what my heart tells me and makes both of us happy?