I have received and am still receiving

  illustration by Vladimir Radunsky

 for On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne

How strange is the lot of us mortals!

 Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, 

though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection

 one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — 

first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being

 our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, 

unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. 

 

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life

 are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, 

and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure

 as I have received and am still receiving.

 

 I am strongly drawn to a frugal life and am often oppressively aware

 that I am engrossing an undue amount of the labor of my fellow-men.

 I regard class distinctions as unjustified and, in the last resort,

 based on force. I also believe that a simple and unassuming life

 is good for everybody, physically and mentally.

 ~ Albert Einstein

our rebelliousness

Those who are indignant at and rebel against
the things that befall them are blind with self-love.
I speak to you now in general and in particular, and
I say that they take for evil and regard as misfortunes, ruin,
evidence of hate towards themselves, the things that I
do out of love and for their good, that they may be
saved from eternal loss and receive the life that shall not
pass away. Why then do they murmur against Me? Because
They have put their trust in themselves, and so all becomes
dark for them and they do not know things as they are.




~ Saint Catherine of Siena

a process of intellection

We name, we give a term to our various feelings, don't we?
 In saying, 'I am angry', we have given a term, a name,
 a label to a particular feeling. Now, please watch your own minds
 very clearly. When you have a feeling, you name that feeling;
 you call it anger, lust, love, pleasure, don't you? And this naming 
of the feeling is a process of intellection which prevents you from looking
 at the fact, that is, at the feeling.

You know, when you see a bird and say to yourself that it is a parrot
 or a pigeon or a crow, you are not looking at the bird. You have already
 ceased to look at the fact because the word parrot or pigeon or crow
 has come between you and the fact.

This is not some difficult intellectual feat but a process of the mind
 that must be understood. If you would go into the problem of fear 
or the problem of authority or the problem of pleasure or the problem of love, 
you must see that naming, giving a label, prevents you from looking at the fact.

~ J. Krishnamurti

from The Collected Works

Vol. XI, 350,Choiceless Awareness

art by Edvard Munch

glorious

~ MaMuse