Realization

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 Erotic Mind (1995)

  Still in a trance I sat up, fumbled in my backpack for a pen and paper, and wrote the words “Cornerstones of Eroticism” without even thinking about it. I then scribbled this list: Longing and anticipation Violating prohibitions Searching for power Overcoming ambivalence I returned home feeling slightly dazed. But as weeks and months passed, the four cornerstones stayed with me, leading me to a deeper appreciation of the mysterious ways of the erotic mind. A few years later when I developed the Sexual Excitement Survey, one of my top goals was to look for explicit, clear references to the four cornerstones in the descriptions of peak sexual experiences. If the cornerstones are as central to the human experience as I believed, they should be particularly obvious during moments of peak excitement. As it turns out, unmistakable signs of at least one of the four cornerstones appears in more than three-quarters of The Group’s memorable encounters and fantasies. Because they are woven into the fabric of human existence, I consider the four cornerstones the existential sources of arousal-enhancing obstacles. No two lives follow exactly the same course, yet everyone has intimate knowledge of these four essential challenges. And because each cornerstone brings with it obstacles to be overcome, they are ripe for inclusion in our erotic patterns. I am not saying that the four cornerstones are required for enjoyable sex. But they add zest so effectively to memorable encounters and fantasies that without them, eroticism as we know it could not exist. I believe it is virtually impossible to appreciate your peak sexual experiences fully unless you understand the dynamics of the four cornerstones.1 Peak turn-ons provide unparalleled opportunities for you to observe the cornerstones in action. During peak moments all the key components of arousal are highlighted, making it easier to see how one or more of the cornerstones actively contributes to the memorability of a turn-on. Once you know what to look for, you can readily see them at work, usually more subtly, in everyday sexual experiences. As we discuss each cornerstone in detail, begin by noticing to what extent each one plays a part in your peak turn-ons. If you notice a cornerstone recurring in many of your peaks, it probably holds a special place in your eroticism. If so, there’s a good chance that you can uncover signs of it in your earliest sexual memories. To help you find out, contemplate two key questions: 1. Think back as far as your memory will take you, to the very first time you felt anything that now, in retrospect, seems even a little sexy or arousing. What do you remember about the circumstances surrounding this earliest experience of arousal? 2. How old were you when you first remember having any sexual fantasies or thoughts? What do you recall about them?

• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  This chapter is about the contrast between divine control and divine un-control, between the normalcy of imperial, or self-glorifying, divinity and the challenge of kenotic, or self-emptying, divinity. Caesar and Jesus were both destined for divine Sonship, but although Caesar accepted it as domination, Jesus accepted it as crucifixion. How then, the imprisoned Paul in Ephesus asks the enthroned Caesar in Rome, is your God my God and your people my people? There is, in the continuity from Augustus to Claudius and from Jesus to Paul, a fundamental clash of gospel, a basic divergence in what is good news for all the world. We begin with Rome’s careful control of religion both in a provincial capital and in the imperial capital itself. At Ephesus, for example, the Temple of Artemis-Diana was eventually integrated into the Roman religious establishment. In Rome, however, charismatic religion, especially with an Eastern accent, was authoritatively monitored and controlled at least by aristocratic contempt. Furthermore, imperial control was primarily by males, and the violence of martial conquest intertwined obscenely with that of sexual conquest. Male Nero grips female Britain in an image of conquest as rape. We turn next to Paul, imprisoned and facing possible execution at Ephesus and writing to the Philippians a letter extraordinary in both tone and theology. We first explain the most probable causes and conditions of his imprisonment, chained to a guard, allowed visits from friends, but under daily threat of execution. We also emphasize the mystical union between Paul and Jesus in their common sufferings under Roman power. Finally, and above all else, we look at the absolute normalcy of imperial divinity, that is, at how divinity is almost always understood by most people—in charge, in control, above, dominant, and on top. But, as Paul learned under capital charges in prison and hymned in Philippians 2:6–11, Christ received exaltation by crucifixion. How, then, did that change forever the nature of his exaltation? Even more important, what did that say about the very character of God if Jesus was, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:4, the very “image of God”? Ephesian Goddess and Roman God At Ephesus, the goddess Artemis was both claim to fame and reason for wealth. Twice in a story from Acts, Luke records the defiant, ritual chant, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians” (19:28, 34). The oracle of Apollo made Delos rich and famous and, when his twin sister, Artemis, moved to Asia Minor, she made the city of Ephesus wealthy and renowned. As one Ephesian inscription says, The deity over our city, Artemis, is honoured not only in her own city which she has made more famous than all other cities through her own divinity, but also by Greeks and foreigners; everywhere shrines and sanctuaries of her have been dedicated, temples founded and altars erected to her because of her vivid manifestations. (I. Ephesos 1a.24; Price 130–31)

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  CETs normally don’t change radically. I doubt, for example, that you’ll ever be drawn to passive, emotionally effusive men—although anything’s possible. Most likely, you’ll continue to appreciate a certain amount of aggressiveness and emotional reserve in a lover. But perhaps you now also require an all-important increase in warmth and affection. One more thing: it’s certainly conceivable that you’ll continue fantasizing about cold men, even though they bore you in reality. I mention this possibility because people often get upset when ingrained fantasies don’t keep pace with their evolving attractions. I’m afraid if I uncover too much about my CET I’ll ruin it. Could this happen? Also, do I have to tell my spouse about my CET? I wish I could give you the unequivocal reassurance you seek. But alas I must remind you that expanding consciousness is risky. You might, for example, be shocked by certain images that lurk, unrecognized, in the hidden recesses of your erotic mind. On the other hand, chances are slim that you will be confronted with anything you aren’t ready to handle. Your mind knows when not to notice. Implied in your question is the realization that you can, at least to some degree, decide whether to see—and how much, how fast, how clearly, or how deeply to absorb your impressions. Experimentation is the watchword. That said, I must also stress that expanding consciousness has a way of changing things—ultimately, I believe, for the better, but often not before shaking everything up. What if the original purpose of your CET was to convert a conflict from your early life into excitement? If you faced that conflict head-on and worked it through, you might no longer need your CET—at least not in the same way. But I doubt your CET would be totally ruined. Most likely you’d simply modify it or change how you use it. As to telling your spouse about your CET, here I can be unequivocal: you don’t have to. As we will see in Chapter 9, it may be in your interest to let a partner know something about what turns you on. But your CET itself is private. You, and only you, should decide when and if you want to discuss it. HONORING YOUR CETBecause your CET develops gradually in response to pivotal situations, in a sense it chooses you rather than you choosing it. This means you may not feel good about everything it contains, especially any shadow material that may have become a part of it. While it is clear that CETs are influenced by cultural norms, they also refuse to be limited by propriety. By nature your CET is untamed, primitive.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I return to the books. Eye each one. My hand lingers over Knotted briefly, before settling on the unnamed pile. I’ll start right here. [image file=image37.jpg] I read the book. Without the pages numbered, I am forced to read pell-mell. It’s like jumping backwards into a snowdrift and not knowing how deeply you’re going to sink. My life has always been filled with order, until I was taken and set aside to rot in this place. This place is chaos, and reading with no order is chaos. I hate it and yet I am too enslaved by the words to desist. The book is about a girl named Ophelia. On the very first page I read, which could be 5 or 500, Ophelia has been forced to give her premature baby up for adoption. Not by her parents, as most stories go, but by her controlling, schizophrenic husband. Her husband is a musician who writes what the voices tell him to write. So, when the voices tell him to give his five-pound baby girl away, he strong-arms Ophelia by threatening both her and her baby’s life. On the next page I pick up, Ophelia is a girl of twelve. She is eating a meal with her parents. It appears to be a normal family meal, but Ophelia’s inner dialogue is riddled with the kind of markers that herald a girl both strange and strangely old. She is angry with her parents for existing, for being such simple contributors to society. She compares them to her mashed potatoes then goes on to talk about their failed attempts to replace her with another baby. My mother has had four miscarriages. I’d take that as God’s way of saying you aren’t supposed to fuck up any more kids. I cringe at this part, wanting to know more about Carol Blithe’s broken uterus, but my page has come to an end, and I am forced to pick up a new one. It goes like this for hours, as I gather bursts of information about Ophelia, who almost seems like the anti-heroine. Ophelia is a narcissist; Ophelia has a superiority complex; Ophelia can’t stick with anything for too long before becoming bored. Ophelia marries a man who is the antithesis of boring, and she pays for it. She leaves him eventually, and marries someone else, but then she leaves him, too. I find a page where she speaks about a china doll that she had to leave behind after divorcing her second husband. She laments the loss of the china doll in the most peculiar way. I gather these details until my brain is hurting. I am trying to sort through all of it, put it in order, when I come across the last page. She is self- actuating on the last page of the book. When I reach the final line, my eyes cross. You will feel me in the fall I vomit.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  In my professional life, especially my studies of eroticism, I was also at a turning point. For years I had enthusiastically adhered to the principles of modern sex therapy launched by Masters and Johnson less than a decade before. They had made thousands of therapists realize that asking clients to try structured experiments at home could often help them work through even long-standing sexual problems more effectively than traditional therapies. This approach had a worthy goal: to reduce or eliminate impediments—such as performance anxieties, unrealistic expectations, or guilt—that block “natural” sexual responsiveness. It was becoming increasingly clear to me that sex therapy’s focus on the removal of impediments to sexual desire and arousal was far too narrow. Whereas modern sex therapy is anchored in the neat-and-clean model of sexual interaction that views barriers and inhibitions as unnecessary and unwelcome troublemakers, I was finding it impossible to ignore the fact that barriers seem to turn people on at least as often as they turn them off. Then, in preparation for a talk on sexual orientation, I was reading The Homosexual Matrix, an exceptional book by psychologist C. A. Tripp. In his chapter entitled “The Origins of Heterosexuality,” two sentences jumped out at me: A person’s sexual motivation is seldom aroused and is never rewarding unless something in the partner or in the situation itself is viewed as resistant to it. This resistance may be in the form of the partner’s hesitance, the disapproval of outsiders, or any other impediment to easy access.1 Not only was Dr. Tripp talking about me and my fizzled romance, but he was also addressing exactly the kinds of contradictions haunting me in my work. As I read on, my self-preoccupation gradually gave way to the realization that my own torturous struggle reflected a larger human drama: It is apparent that an erotic attitude does not develop toward a fully accessible partner (even one who’s wonderfully complementary), but is aroused like a cannibal’s appetite when a desired but somehow remote partner cannot “be had” by other means. As anyone can see, sexual motives are especially stimulated in a person who feels an urgent need or intense admiration for the qualities he sees in a partner and wants to “import.” Certainly there is much in sex that has to do with wanting, taking, conquering, or otherwise possessing a partner, sometimes one who has as little as a single highly desired quality. I had to admit the obvious truth: my ex-lover’s unavailability had been a key ingredient of the overwhelming intensity that had held me in its grip. Dr. Tripp’s resistance principle provided me with a new way to examine and understand my patterns of desire and arousal—a perspective I have used ever since, in both my personal and professional life.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Erotically healthy people recognize that sexual fantasies and behaviors operate in two separate yet interrelated spheres. Consequently, they grant themselves greater imaginative freedom than those who are less healthy. People who function in the world effectively and with respect for others are noted not for the purity of their thoughts but for the wisdom of their choices. At the opposite end of the spectrum are those who consider imaginative activities trivial or bearing little relationship to the rest of their lives. It is true that the majority of fantasies have little or no significance beyond the immediate stimulation they provide. But as we have seen, key fantasies—especially those based on our CETs—express crucial emotional realities that do affect the way we see ourselves and others and, in turn, how we behave. Erotically healthy people not only enjoy their fantasies but also use them to gain insights into their emotions and motivations. Consider a reasonably informed, well-functioning woman who recognizes undercurrents of hostility and revenge in some of her favorite fantasy turn-ons. She knows that such emotions are common in the erotic landscape and therefore feels little need to berate herself for unloving thoughts. Neither does she deny them or downplay their significance, but she does her best to understand what her fantasies reveal about unresolved emotional conflicts from earlier in her life. She also examines how her fantasies may influence her selection and treatment of actual partners. Another important sign of a healthful relationship with one’s sexual thoughts is the ability to claim a widening sphere of choice, not so much about whether to have a fantasy but rather how and when to give it free rein. Therefore, a man might choose to set aside a titillating image of being serviced by a harem of buxom blonds so he can concentrate on loving feelings toward his wife, even though he realizes that his wife’s body gives him less of a charge than the bodies of the young blonds. When healthy people exercise choice in their fantasy lives, their methods are subtle. Influencing the flow of fantasy is only possible for those who don’t strive for total control. The ability to turn one’s attention temporarily away from a fantasy is fostered by the realization that one can always come back to it later. The man with the buxom-blond fantasy told me he most enjoyed affectionate sex with his wife when he allowed images of the blonds to come and go freely without struggling with or worrying about them. His goal wasn’t to banish the blonds but simply to bring his attention gently back to his wife. The distinction between fantasy and action is particularly crucial when it comes to the dark impulses so prevalent in some of our erotic fantasies. Dr. Stoller makes an important point:

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

  A practical observation may end this chapter. If belief consists in an emotional reaction of the entire man on an object, how can we believe at will? We cannot control our emotions. Truly enough, a man cannot believe at will abruptly. Nature sometimes, and indeed not very infrequently, produces instantaneous conversions for us. She suddenly puts us in an active connection with objects of which she had till then left us cold. "I realize for the first time," we then say, "what that means!" This happens often with moral propositions. We have often heard them; but now they shoot into our lives; they move us; we feel their living force. Such instantaneous beliefs are truly enough not to be achieved by will. But gradually our will can lead us to same results by I very simple method: we need only in cold blood ACT as if the thing in question were real, and keep acting as if it were real, and it infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterize belief. Those to whom God' and 'Duty' are now mere names can make them much more than that, if they make a little sacrifice to them every day. But all this is so well known in moral and religious education that I need say no more.[334] CHAPTER XXII.[335] "REASONING." We talk of man being the rational animal; and the traditional intellectualist philosophy has always made a great point of treating the brutes as wholly irrational creatures. Nevertheless, it is by no means easy to decide just what is meant by reason, or how the peculiar thinking process called reasoning differs from other thought-sequences which may lead to similar results.

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

  Leaving lower animals aside, and turning to human instincts, we see the law of transiency corroborated on the widest scale by the alternation of different interests and passions as human life goes on. With the child, life is all play and fairy-tales and learning the external properties of 'things;' with the youth, it is bodily exercises of a more systematic sort, novels of the real world, boon-fellowship and song, friendship and love, nature, travel and adventure, science and philosophy; with the man, ambition-and policy, acquisitiveness, responsibility to others, and the selfish zest of the battle of life. If a boy grows up alone at the age of games and sports, and learns neither to play ball, nor row, nor sail, nor ride, nor skate, nor shoot, probably he will be sedentary to the end of his days; and, though the best of opportunities be afforded him for learning these things later, it is a hundred to one but he will pass them by and shrink back from the effort of taking those necessary first steps the prospect of which, at an earlier age, would have filled him with eager delight. The sexual passion expires after a protracted reign; but it is well known that its peculiar manifestations in a given individual depend almost entirely on the habits he may form during the early period of its activity. Exposure to bad company then makes him a loose liver all his days; chastity kept at first makes the same easy later on. In all pedagogy the great thing is to strike the iron while hot, and to seize the wave of the pupil's interest in each successive subject before its ebb has come, so that knowledge may be got and a habit of skill acquired—a headway of interest, in short, secured, on which afterward the individual may float. There is a happy moment for fixing skill in drawing, for making boys collectors in natural history, and presently dissectors and botanists; then for initiating them into the harmonies of mechanics and the wonders of physical and chemical law. Later, introspective psychology and the metaphysical and religious mysteries take their turn; and, last of all, the drama of human affairs and worldly wisdom in the widest sense of the term. In each of us a saturation-point is soon reached in all these things; the impetus of our purely intellectual zeal expires, and unless the topic be one associated with some urgent personal need that keeps our wits constantly whetted about it, we settle into an equilibrium, and live on what we learned when our interest was fresh and instinctive, without adding to the store. Outside of their own business, the ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives. They cannot get anything new. Disinterested curiosity is past, the mental grooves and channels set, the power of assimilation gone. If by chance we ever do learn anything about some entirely new topic we are afflicted with a strange sense of insecurity, and we fear to advance a resolute opinion. But, with things learned in the plastic days of instinctive curiosity we never lose entirely our sense of being at home. There remains a kinship, a sentiment of intimate acquaintance, which, even when we know we have failed to keep abreast of the subject, matters us with a sense of power over it, and makes us feel not altogether out of the pale.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  In chapter six of the Chandogya, we see Uddalaka initiating his son Shvetaketu into the esoteric lore of the new spirituality, a precious glimpse of the way this teaching was transmitted. Shvetaketu would eventually become an important sage in his own right, but in this chapter he had only just finished his twelve-year stint as a brahmacarin and had returned home, “swell-headed and arrogant,” thinking that he knew everything there was to know about Vedic life. 23 Uddalaka patiently undermined this misplaced confidence, teaching his son a different way of perceiving the world, himself, and the ultimate. He began by explaining that the identity of any object was inseparable from the material of which it was made—clay, copper, or iron. The same was true of the universe, which had originally consisted of being itself—absolute, undivided simplicity: “One only, without a second.” 24 Like Prajapati, the One propagated itself by means of heat (tapas), which eventually brought forth, from itself, the entire range of creatures. In this way, the One became the origin, the essence, and therefore, the true self of every single creature: “The finest essence here—That constitutes the self of this whole world,” Uddalaka explained, again and again. “That is the truth; That is the self [atman]. And you are That, Shvetaketu.” 25 These sentences run like a refrain through the whole chapter, reinforcing the central teaching. Shvetaketu was brahman, the impersonal essence of the universe, which Uddalaka, like other sages, refers to as the neutral, elliptical “that.” But metaphysical instruction alone would not suffice. Shvetaketu had to appropriate this knowledge internally, make it his own, and fuse these external teachings with his personal mental landscape. He had, as later thinkers would put it, to “realize” them, make them a reality in his own life, and Uddalaka had to act as a midwife, slowly and carefully bringing this new insight to birth within his son. This was not a wholly academic, abstract education. Shvetaketu had not only to listen to his father’s metaphysical explanations, but to perform tasks that made him look at the world in a different way. Uddalaka drew upon everyday examples, and made Shvetaketu take an active part in a series of experiments. In the most famous of these, he told his son to leave a chunk of salt in a beaker of water overnight. The next day, the lump had completely dissolved, but when his father made him take a sip from various parts of the cup, asking each time how it tasted, Shvetaketu had to reply: “Salty.” The salt was still there, in every part of the beaker. “You, of course, did not see it there, son, yet it was always right there.” So too was the invisible brahman, essence and self of the whole world. “And you are that, Shvetaketu.”

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

  If belief consists in an emotional reaction of the entire man on an object, how can we believe at will? We cannot control our emotions. Truly enough, a man cannot believe at will abruptly. Nature sometimes, and indeed not very infrequently, produces instantaneous conversions for us. She suddenly puts us in an active connection with objects of which she had till then left us cold. "I realize for the first time," we then say, "what that means!" This happens often with moral propositions. We have often heard them; but now they shoot into our lives; they move us; we feel their living force. Such instantaneous beliefs are truly enough not to be achieved by will. But gradually our will can lead us to same results by I very simple method: we need only in cold blood ACT as if the thing in question were real, and keep acting as if it were real, and it infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterize belief. Those to whom God' and 'Duty' are now mere names can make them much more than that, if they make a little sacrifice to them every day. But all this is so well known in moral and religious education that I need say no more. [334] CHAPTER XXII. [335] "REASONING." We talk of man being the rational animal; and the traditional intellectualist philosophy has always made a great point of treating the brutes as wholly irrational creatures. Nevertheless, it is by no means easy to decide just what is meant by reason, or how the peculiar thinking process called reasoning differs from other thought-sequences which may lead to similar results. Much of our thinking consists of trains of images suggested one by another, of a sort of spontaneous revery of which it seems likely enough that the higher brutes should be capable. This sort of thinking leads nevertheless to rational conclusions, both practical and theoretical. The links between the terms are either 'contiguity' or 'similarity,' and with a mixture of both these things we can hardly be very incoherent. As a rule, in this sort of irresponsible thinking, the terms which fall to be coupled together are empirical concretes, not abstractions. A sunset may call up the vessel's deck from which I saw one last summer, the companions of my voyage, my arrival into port, etc.; or, it may make me think of solar myths, of Hercules' and Hector's funeral pyres, of Homer and whether he could write, of the Greek alphabet, etc.

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

  I want to take a fresh look at things and form my own opinion, not just ape my parents, as in the proverb “The apple never falls far from the tree.” I want to reexamine the van Daans and decide for myself what’s true and what’s been blown out of proportion. If I wind up being disappointed in them, I can always side with Father and Mother. But if not, I can try to change their attitude. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll have to stick with my own opinions and judgment. I’ll take every opportunity to speak openly to Mrs. van D. about our many differences and not be afraid -- despite my reputation as a smart aleck -- to offer my impartial opinion. I won’t say anything negative about my own family, though that doesn’t mean I won’t defend them if somebody else does, and as of today, my gossiping is a thing of the past. Up to now I was absolutely convinced that the van Daans were entirely to blame for the quarrels, but now I’m sure the fault was largely ours. We were right as far as the subject matter was concerned, but intelligent people (such as ourselves!) should have more insight into how to deal with others. I hope I’ve got at least a touch of that insight, and that I’ll find an occasion to put it to good use. Yours, Anne MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 1944 Dearest Kitty, A very strange thing has happened to me. (Actually, “happened” isn’t quite the right word.) Before I came here, whenever anyone at home or at school talked about sex, they were either secretive or disgusting. Any words having to do with sex were spoken in a low whisper, and kids who weren’t in the know were often laughed at. That struck me as odd, and I often wondered why people were so mysterious or obnoxious when they talked about this subject. But because I couldn’t change things, I said as little as possible or asked my girlfriends for information. After I’d learned quite a lot, Mother once said to me, “Anne, let me give you some good advice. Never discuss this with boys, and if they bring it up, don’t answer them.” I still remember my exact reply. “No, of course not,” I exclaimed. “Imagine!” And nothing more was said. When we first went into hiding, Father often told me about things I’d rather have heard from Mother, and I learned the rest from books or things I picked up in conversations. Peter van Daan wasn’t ever as obnoxious about this subject as the boys at school. Or maybe just once or twice, in the beginning, though he wasn’t trying to get me to talk. Mrs. van Daan once told us she’d never discussed these matters with Peter, and as far as she knew, neither had her husband. Apparently she didn’t even know how much Peter knew or where he got his information.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The next category to emerge was the ego principle (ahamkara). All other creatures emanated from the ahamkara: gods, humans, animals, plants, and the insensate world. The ego principle was the source of our problem, because it transmitted nature to all the different beings, with the three gunas in different proportions. Satta (intelligence) was dominant in devas and holy men; rajas characterized ordinary people, whose passionate energy was often misdirected; and the lives of animals were obscured by the mental darkness of tamas. But whatever our status, the root of our unhappiness was our sense of ego, which trapped us in a false self that had nothing to do with our eternal purusha. We experienced thoughts, feelings, and desires. We said, “I think,” “I want,” or “I fear,” imagining that “I” represented our entire being, so we expended far too much energy preserving and propping up this “I” and hoped for its eternal survival in heaven. But this was an illusion. The ego on which we lavished so much attention was ephemeral, because it was subject to time. It would become sick, weak, diminish in old age, and finally flicker out and die, only to start the whole miserable process again in another body. And in the meantime, our true self, our purusha, which was eternal, autonomous, and free, was yearning to be liberated. Nature itself was longing to achieve this. If we wanted to get beyond the pain and frustrations of our lives, we must learn to recognize that the ego was not our real self. Once we had attained this saving knowledge, in an intense act of cognition, we would achieve moksha (“liberation”). Ignorance held us back. We were so imprisoned in the delusions of nature that we confused the purusha with our ordinary psychomental life, imagining that our thoughts, desires, and emotions were the highest and most essential part of our humanity. This meant that our lives were based on a mistake. We assumed that the self was simply an enhanced version of the ego that governed our daily existence. The renouncer had to rectify this ignorance in a course of meditation and study. The aspirant must become aware of the forms of nature and the laws that govern its evolution. He would thus acquire a knowledge that was not simply an intellectual mastery of the Samkhya system but an awakening to his true condition. In the course of his meditation, he learned to concentrate on the buddhi to the exclusion of all else in the hope of catching a glimpse of the purusha. Once he had seen the purusha reflected in his intellect, he achieved a profound realization that this was his true self. He cried, “I am recognized,”84 and immediately nature, which had been longing for this moment, withdrew, “like a dancer, who departs after satisfying the master’s desire.”85

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

  Between your legs there are two soft, cushiony things, also covered with hair, which press together when you’re standing, so you can’t see what’s inside. They separate when you sit down, and they’re very red and quite fleshy on the inside. In the upper part, between the outer labia, there’s a fold of skin that, on second thought, looks like a kind of blister. That’s the clitoris. Then come the inner labia, which are also pressed together in a kind of crease. When they open up, you can see a fleshy little mound, no bigger than the top of my thumb. The upper part has a couple of small holes in it, which is where the urine comes out. The lower part looks as if it were just skin, and yet that’s where the vagina is. You can barely find it, because the folds of skin hide the opening. The hole’s so small I can hardly imagine how a man could get in there, much less how a baby could come out. It’s hard enough trying to get your index finger inside. That’s all there is, and yet it plays such an important role! Yours, Anne M. Frank SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 1944 Dearest Kitty, You never realize how much you’ve changed until after it’s happened. I’ve changed quite drastically, everything about me is different: my opinions, ideas, critical outlook. Inwardly, outwardly, nothing’s the same. And, I might safely add, since it’s true, I’ve changed for the better. I once told you that, after years of being adored, it was hard for me to adjust to the harsh reality of grown-ups and rebukes. But Father and Mother are largely to blame for my having to put up with so much. At home they wanted me to enjoy life, which was fine, but here they shouldn’t have encouraged me to agree with them and only shown me “their” side of all the quarrels and gossip. It was a long time before I discovered the score was fifty-fifty. I now know that many blunders have been committed here, by young and old alike. Father and Mother’s biggest mistake in dealing with the van Daans is that they’re never candid and friendly (admittedly, the friendliness might have to be feigned). Above all, I want to keep the peace, and to neither quarrel nor gossip. With Father and Margot that’s not difficult, but it is with Mother, which is why I’m glad she gives me an occasional rap on the knuckles. You can win Mr. van Daan to your side by agreeing with him, listening quietly, not saying much and most of all . . . responding to his teasing and his corny jokes with a joke of your own. Mrs. van D. can be won over by talking openly to her and admitting when you’re wrong. She also frankly admits her faults, of which she has many.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  They may already have begun to develop techniques of concentration that enabled them to penetrate the subconscious. They discovered that if they got rid of their usual distracting preoccupations, “the doors of the mind may be opened,” 38 and that Agni, the inventor of brilliant speech, the light of the world, enabled them to see in the same way as a god. The rishis had laid the foundations for the Indian Axial Age. At this very early date, they had made a deliberate effort to go beyond empirical knowledge and intuit a deeper, more fundamental truth. Yet the rishis represented only a tiny minority of the Aryan community. The warriors and raiders lived in an entirely different spiritual world. Their lives alternated between the village (grama) and the jungle (aranya). During the monsoon rains, they had to live an asura-like existence in temporary, makeshift encampments. But after the winter solstice they yoked their horses and oxen and set off into the wilderness on a new cycle of raids, to replenish the wealth of the community. The opposition of the village and the forest became a social and spiritual paradigm in India. 39 Each complemented the other. The inhabitants of the settled community provided crops and bred the cattle that the warriors needed; yet they constantly feared attack from the bands of cattle rustlers, who roamed on the outskirts of society. The tropical forest was the place where the warrior proved his valor and explored the unknown. Later, during the Axial Age, hermits would retire to the forest to pioneer the spiritual realm. In the aranya, therefore, the Aryans experienced violence as well as religious enlightenment; and from this very early stage, the two were inextricably entwined. Instead of waiting patiently and emptying his mind and heart, like a rishi, a warrior knew that he would have to fight his way to vision and insight. Ever since they had taken up raiding on the steppes, the Aryans had altered the patterns of their rituals, to reflect the agonistic tenor of their daily existence. Zoroaster had been very disturbed by the new sacrificial rites of the cattle rustlers, though he did not describe them in any detail. “We must do what the gods did in the beginning,” an Indian ritual text of a later period explained. 40 “Thus the gods did, thus men do,” said another. 41 In their raids and battles, the Aryan warriors reenacted the heavenly wars between devas and asuras.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  But the more traditional, Avestan-speaking Aryans were appalled by Indra’s naked aggression, and began to have doubts about the daevas. Were they all violent and immoral? Events on earth always reflected cosmic events in heaven, so, they reasoned, these terrifying raids must have a divine prototype. The cattle rustlers, who fought under the banner of Indra, must be his earthly counterparts. But who were the daevas attack-ing in heaven? The most important gods—such as Varuna, Mazda, and Mithra, the guardians of order—were given the honorific title “Lord” (ahura). Perhaps the peaceful ahuras, who stood for justice, truth, and respect for life and property, were themselves under attack by Indra and the more aggressive daevas? This, at any rate, was the view of a visionary priest, who in about 1200 claimed that Ahura Mazda had commissioned him to restore order to the steppes.12 His name was Zoroaster. When he received his divine vocation, the new prophet was about thirty years old and strongly rooted in the Aryan faith. He had probably studied for the priesthood since he was seven years old, and was so steeped in tradition that he could improvise sacred chants to the gods during the sacrifice. But Zoroaster was deeply disturbed by the cattle raids, and after completing his education, he had spent some time in consultation with other priests, and had meditated on the rituals to find a solution to the problem. One morning, while he was celebrating the spring festival, Zoroaster had risen at dawn and walked down to the river to collect water for the daily sacrifice. Wading in, he immersed himself in the pure element, and when he emerged, saw a shining being standing on the riverbank, who told Zoroaster that his name was Vohu Manah (“Good Purpose”). Once he had been assured of Zoroaster’s own good intentions, he led him into the presence of the greatest of the ahuras: Mazda, lord of wisdom and justice, who was surrounded by his retinue of seven radiant gods. He told Zoroaster to mobilize his people in a holy war against terror and violence.13 The story is bright with the promise of a new beginning. A fresh era had dawned: everybody had to make a decision, gods and humans alike. Were they on the side of order or evil?

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  But metaphysical instruction alone would not suffice. Shvetaketu had to appropriate this knowledge internally, make it his own, and fuse these external teachings with his personal mental landscape. He had, as later thinkers would put it, to “realize” them, make them a reality in his own life, and Uddalaka had to act as a midwife, slowly and carefully bringing this new insight to birth within his son. This was not a wholly academic, abstract education. Shvetaketu had not only to listen to his father’s metaphysical explanations, but to perform tasks that made him look at the world in a different way. Uddalaka drew upon everyday examples, and made Shvetaketu take an active part in a series of experiments. In the most famous of these, he told his son to leave a chunk of salt in a beaker of water overnight. The next day, the lump had completely dissolved, but when his father made him take a sip from various parts of the cup, asking each time how it tasted, Shvetaketu had to reply: “Salty.” The salt was still there, in every part of the beaker. “You, of course, did not see it there, son, yet it was always right there.” So too was the invisible brahman, essence and self of the whole world. “And you are that, Shvetaketu.”26

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  Al-Shafii formulated what would become the classical doctrine of jihad, which, despite Shariah aversion to autocracy, drew on standard imperial ideology: it had a dualistic worldview, claimed that the ummah had a divine mission and that Islamic rule would benefit humanity. God had decreed warfare because it was essential for the ummah’s survival, Al-Shafii argued. The human race was divided into the dar al-Islam (“The Abode of Islam”) and the non-Muslim world, the dar al-harb (“The Abode of War”). There could be no final peace between the two, though a temporary truce was permissible. But since all ethical faiths came from God, the ummah was only one of many divinely guided communities, and the goal of jihad was not to convert the subject population. What distinguished Islam from other revelations, however, was that it had a God-given mandate to extend its rule to the rest of humanity. Its mission was to establish the social justice and equity prescribed by God in the Quran, so that all men and women could be liberated from the tyranny of a state run on worldly principles.80 The reality, however, was that the Abbasid caliphate was an autocracy that depended on the forcible subjugation of the majority of the population; like any agrarian state, it was constitutionally unable to implement Quranic norms fully. Yet without such idealism, which reminds us of the imperfection of our institutions, their inherent violence and injustice would go without critique. Perhaps the role of religious vision is to fill us with a divine discomfort that will not allow us wholly to accept the unacceptable. Al-Shafii also ruled against the conviction of “fighting scholars” that militant jihad was incumbent upon every Muslim. In Shariah law, the daily prayer was binding on all Muslims without exception, so it was fard ayn, an obligation for each individual. But even though all Muslims were responsible for the well-being of the ummah, some tasks, such as cleaning the mosque, could be left to the appointed official and was fard kifaya, a duty delegated to an individual by the community. Should this job be neglected, however, others were obliged to take the initiative and step in.81 Al-Shafii decreed that jihad against the non-Muslim world was fard kifaya and the ultimate responsibility of the caliph. Therefore, as long as there were enough soldiers to defend the frontier, civilians were exempt from military service. In the event of an enemy invasion, though, Muslims in the border regions might be obliged to help. Al-Shafii was writing at a time when the Abbasids had renounced territorial expansion, so he was legislating not for offensive jihad but only for defensive warfare. Muslims still debate the legitimacy of jihad in these terms today.

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

  A year after the death of Theobald, April 18, 1161, Becket was appointed by the king archbishop of Canterbury. He accepted reluctantly, and warned the king, with a smile, that he would lose a servant and a friend.153 The learned and energetic Bishop Gilbert Foliot of Hereford (afterwards of London) remarked sarcastically, perhaps from disappointed ambition, that "the king had wrought a miracle in turning a layman into an archbishop, and a soldier into a saint." Becket was ordained priest on the Saturday after Pentecost, and consecrated archbishop on the following day with great magnificence in Westminster Abbey, June 3, 1162. His first act was to appoint the Sunday after Whitsunday as a festival of the Holy Trinity in the Church of England. He acknowledged Alexander III. as the rightful pope, and received from him the pallium through his friend, John of Salisbury. He was the first native Englishman who occupied the seat of the primate since the Norman Conquest; for Lanfranc and Anselm were Italians; Ralph of Escures, William Of Corbeuil, and Theobald of Bec were Normans or Frenchmen. There is, however, no ground for the misleading theory of Thierry that Becket asserted the cause of the Saxon against the Norman. His contest with the king was not a contest between two nationalities, but between Church and State. He took the same position on this question as his Norman predecessors, only with more zeal and energy. He was a thorough Englishman. The two nations had at that time, by intermarriage, social and commercial intercourse, pretty well coalesced, at least among the middle classes, to which he belonged.154 With the change of office, Becket underwent a radical and almost sudden transformation. The foremost champion of kingcraft became the foremost champion of priestcraft; the most devoted friend of the king, his most dangerous rival and enemy; the brilliant chancellor, an austere and squalid monk. He exchanged the showy court dress for haircloth infested with vermin, fed on roots, and drank nauseous water. He daily washed, with proud humility and ostentatious charity, the feet of thirteen dirty beggars, and gave each of them four pieces of silver. He doubled the charities of Theobald, as Theobald had doubled the charities of his predecessor. He wandered alone in his cloister, shedding tears of repentance for past sins, frequently inflicted stripes on his naked back, and spent much time in prayer and reading of the Scriptures. He successfully strove to realize the ideal of a mediaeval bishop, which combines the loftiest ecclesiastical pretensions with personal humility, profuse charity, and ascetic self-mortification. He was no hypocrite, but his sanctity, viewed from the biblical and Protestant standpoint, was artificial and unnatural.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  But the Brahmanas insisted that the sacrificer had to understand what he was doing. It was no use going mindlessly through the motions: he had to know that Prajapati was the sacrifice; he had to be familiar with the new ritual lore. In his contest with Death, Prajapati’s “weapons” had been his knowledge of the bandhus, the “correspondences” between heavenly and earthly realities. Vedic religion had always seen physical objects as the replicas of divine beings. But the reformers made this early intuitive insight into a rigorous discipline. The ritualist learned to discover likenesses and connections that linked every single action, implement, or mantra in the sacrificial ritual with a cosmic reality.71 It was a collective yoga, a “yoking” of different levels of reality together.72 Similarity and resemblance constituted an identity. When the rites were performed in the full consciousness of this connective network, everything appeared in a new guise: gods were linked with humans, humans with animals, plants, and utensils, the transcendent with the immanent, and the visible with the invisible. Prajapati, for example, was the counterpart (bandhu) of the year (the cycle of the seasons), because time had emanated from his corpse on the day of creation; he was the animal victim, because he too had given himself up for immolation; the gods, who had emerged from his corpse, were also bandhus of Prajapati. While he was performing the rites of sacrifice, the patron was the offering that he fed to the fire, because he was really offering himself; he was the animal victim, for the same reason. And he was, therefore, Prajapati, because he was the sacrificer, who had commissioned the ritual, as well as its victim. Because he was repeating the primal sacrifice, he had become one with Prajapati, had abandoned the profane world of mortality, and had entered the divine realm. He could, therefore, declare: “I have attained heaven, the gods; I am become immortal!” This archetypal thinking was, of course, typical of ancient thought. What distinguished the Indian ritual reform, however, was that these links were actually forged in the course of the ritual by means of a mental effort. The ritualists tried to make the participants aware of these bandhus, and thus become more self-conscious. Even the smallest implement, such as a fire stick, had to be fused in their minds with the fire stick that had been used in the primordial rite. When the priest threw clarified butter into the fire, he uttered exactly the same cry as Prajapati (Svaha!) when he had made this offering. By means of the mental activity of the sacrificer and the priests, these earthly objects were “perfected”; they left behind the frail particularity of their profane existence to became one with the divine.

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

  When you’re standing up, all you see from the front is hair. Between your legs there are two soft, cushiony things, also covered with hair, which press together when you’re standing, so you can’t see what’s inside. They separate when you sit down, and they’re very red and quite fleshy on the inside. In the upper part, between the outer labia, there’s a fold of skin that, on second thought, looks like a kind of blister. That’s the clitoris. Then come the inner labia, which are also pressed together in a kind of crease. When they open up, you can see a fleshy little mound, no bigger than the top of my thumb. The upper part has a couple of small holes in it, which is where the urine comes out. The lower part looks as if it were just skin, and yet that’s where the vagina is. You can barely find it, because the folds of skin hide the opening. The hole’s so small I can hardly imagine how a man could get in there, much less how a baby could come out. It’s hard enough trying to get your index finger inside. That’s all there is, and yet it plays such an important role! Yours, Anne M. Frank SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 1944 Dearest Kitty, You never realize how much you’ve changed until after it’s happened. I’ve changed quite drastically, everything about me is different: my opinions, ideas, critical outlook. Inwardly, outwardly, nothing’s the same. And, I might safely add, since it’s true, I’ve changed for the better. I once told you that, after years of being adored, it was hard for me to adjust to the harsh reality of grown-ups and rebukes. But Father and Mother are largely to blame for my having to put up with so much. At home they wanted me to enjoy life, which was fine, but here they shouldn’t have encouraged me to agree with them and only shown me “their” side of all the quarrels and gossip. It was a long time before I discovered the score was fifty-fifty. I now know that many blunders have been committed here, by young and old alike. Father and Mother’s biggest mistake in dealing with the van Daans is that they’re never candid and friendly (admittedly, the friendliness might have to be feigned). Above all, I want to keep the peace, and to neither quarrel nor gossip. With Father and Margot that’s not difficult, but it is with Mother, which is why I’m glad she gives me an occasional rap on the