sach hai, magar,bandOn kO buland ban-nE kA hAfiz tO khud khudA hi hai
Life imitates Art more than Art imitates Life. This results ,not merely from life’s imitative instinct ,but from the fact that the self-conscious aim of life is to find expression , and that Art offers certain beautiful forms through which it may realize that energy.
Oscar Wilde
A GREAT man of letters or any great artist is symbolic without knowing it. The things he describes are types because they are truths. Shakespeare may or may not have ever put it to himself that Richard the Second was a philosophical symbol; but all good criticism must necessarily see him so. It may be a reasonable question whether an artist should be allegorical. There can be no doubt among sane men that a critic should be allegorical.
GK Chesterton in his Introduction to 'Great Expectations.'
WE talk of art as something artificial in comparison with life. But I sometimes fancy that the very highest art is more real than life itself. At least this is true : that in proportion as passions become real they become poetical; the lover is always trying to be the poet. All real energy is an attempt at harmony and a high swing of rhythm; and if we were only real enough we should all talk in rhyme.
GK Chesterton in an essay
WHATEVER the merits or demerits of the Pantheistic sentiment of melting into nature of 'Oneness' (I think they call it) with seas and skies, it is not and it never has been a popular sentiment. It has been the feeling of a few learned aesthetes or secluded naturalists. It is all about the beautiful earth as an edge or fringe of something much better and quite distinct. Ballads and carols do not go to the tune of 'One with the Essence of the Boundless World.' Ballads and carols go to the tune of 'Over the hills and far away;' the sense that life leads by a strange and special path to something sacred and separate.
'GK Chesterton in the Daily News
IT is a common saying that anything may happen behind our backs: transcendentally considered, the thing has an eerie truth about it. Eden may be behind our backs, or Fairyland. But this mystery of the human back has, again, its other side in the strange impression produced on those behind: to walk behind anyone along a lane is a thing that, properly speaking, touches the oldest nerve of awe. Watts has realized this as no one in art or letters has realized it in the whole history of the world; it has made him great. There is one possible exception to his monopoly of this magnificent craze. Two thousand years before, in the dark scriptures of a nomad people, it had been said that their prophet saw the immense Creator of all things, but only saw Him from behind.
GK Chesterton on 'G. F. Watts
No wonder when I hear an artist exclaim 'The more I Learn, There is more that I dont know " , it seems like the echo of a Scientist's cry.IT is constantly assumed, especially in our Tolstoian tendencies, that when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb. The real problem is -- Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? That is the problem the Church attempted; that is the miracle she achieved.
NOTHING is important except the fate of the soul; and Art is only redeemed from an utter triviality, surpassing that of naughts and crosses, by the fact that it describes not the world around us, or the things on the retina of the eye, or the enormous irrelevancy of encyclopaedias, but some condition to which the human spirit can come.
GK Chesterton
kaTradu kaimmaNNaLavu; kallAdadu uLagaLavu - avvaiyAr'The more I Learn, There is more that I dont know "
Hmm, and what/who exactly is this god that remains? Elsewhere I think you equated god to existence, so are you saying existence is all remains? That's a tautological statement.vgvindan wrote:Once we achieve that aim - drop the mind - "I" (mamakAra yuta ahaMkAra) ceases to exist and not 'God' - He is the one only "I".
ragam talam,"Existence exists.
It is like countering the statement 'The early bird gets the worm' with 'The early worm gets caught.'ragam-talam wrote:It's interesting that people ascribe miracles to intervention by god etc.
There's this story of the fisherman who prayed long to god to help him catch a fish. He was successful, and brought home a large-sized fish, thus convinced that god exists and helps those in need.
Well, there's this little matter that the poor fish was not served well by this same god...
Most miracle stories are the same with a few variations on this central theme.
These are pretty strong assertions. Care to support with some argument/evidence or is it that the oracle hath spoken?srkris wrote:Most people who hold binary views on God are not sufficiently evolved spiritually. Those who know better about this subject dont talk and those who talk a lot dont know.
Your assertion is totally valid. In fact it is the same as what I have told.ragam-talam wrote:This 'sufficiently evolved spiritually' bit is also interesting. I could state that those who ramble on about god and such topics are not sufficiently evolved spiritually - and my assertion could easily be as valid.
No, what you say is vacuous. And you know it.srkris wrote:Your assertion is totally valid. In fact it is the same as what I have told.ragam-talam wrote:This 'sufficiently evolved spiritually' bit is also interesting. I could state that those who ramble on about god and such topics are not sufficiently evolved spiritually - and my assertion could easily be as valid.
To beings that can see only binaries (white or black, yes or no, truth or false), rainbows will obviously show a big vacuum. If I were sure that I'm wasting my time here, I wouldnt do it.ragam-talam wrote:No, what you say is vacuous. And you know it.
Besides, if you what you say is correct (I don't believe it is), then this thread itself ["Ramblings on God..."] represents lack of spiritual growth.
Talking will only make you understand and misunderstand things. What you misunderstood earlier will be understood, and what you understood now will become a misunderstanding later.ragam-talam wrote:It's only by talking and discussing that growth and learning happen. Keeping quiet about religion sounds like what the wahabis would want people to do. I sincerely hope we haven't reached that stage here!
.......and in the process we discover more and learn more!So am I! Thanks for posting your views!Music wrote:rshankar - thanks for starting this thoughtful discussion. Enjoying reading everyone's views.
For me, even after this step, the awe still persists! In fact, just because something is demystified doesn't make it any less 'divine' for me...I am always amazed by both the original design/designer (not 'intelligent design'music wrote:2. On the other hand, if you want to look at everything rationally, then so be it. Enjoy that feeling of demystifying things and understanding how nature works.
), as well as the team that unraveled the process.This is the most nonsensical statement in this thread yet. I don't believe this is what srkris meant.ragam-talam wrote:Keeping quiet about religion sounds like what the wahabis would want people to do. I sincerely hope we haven't reached that stage here!
And how do you know this? Also, what exactly is 'self-realization'?Uday_Shankar wrote:Self-realization can only come in the silence of the heart (not the physical organ) and not from the incessant prattle about names and forms, whether they originate from Adi Shankara or rshankara.
Arasi)
I will have to see how to tune my thinking to fit that in.