posted June 14, 2009 01:41 PM
A Grain of Salt
Aphorisms and Fragments
by Valerian Silenus Valus
"A short saying often contains much wisdom." ~ Sophocles
"A short prayer pierces the heavens." ~ The Cloud of Unknowing
The first requirement for greatness is the audacity to be great;
one must begin upon the heights to ascend beyond the clouds.
Good men find their greatest pleasure in being virtuous,
while the rest of us find great pleasure a virtue.
We tend to lose sympathy for a man to the extent that his suffering,
having quite overwhelmed him, begins to affect ourselves.
We generally reproach a man for the immodesty of his suffering
when it is ourselves who cannot bear so much as the suggestion of it.
Judgment is the antithesis of understanding.
It is superfluous to judge a man
if he is guilty in his own eyes,
and ridiculous if he is not.
The moral sense is strong in some, weak in others.
Yet, even in this, the strong still persecute the weak.
Hatred of evil is the craftiest and least well-known of vices,
so easily is it mistaken for love of good.
Superficial talk is delusory; all reality is excavated.
The wisdom of the earth is lofty in the underworld.
The nut may not fall far from the tree,
but the roots spread into eternity.
The horizon recedes on the crest of an eternal dusk.
The Sun does not rise; the Earth rotates:
Nothing is created; everything is revealed.
Ignorance does not create error; error reveals ignorance.
It is the same with a man and his actions;
he does not create them, but they reveal him.
"All is One."
There is nothing else worth knowing and understanding.
The rest are details; for the tourists!
I sought the One Thing, but I found All Things.
An aphorism is a finale, in a nutshell.
To know an aphorism is human;
to know when to apply it, divine.
Who is more unreasonable:
The man who possesses no respect for human life?
Or the man who expects it of him?
Crime may make a man a criminal,
but only conscience can make him guilty.
If a man is unfit to judge himself, who is fit to judge him?
I will surely take responsibility for myself,
but who will take responsibility for me?
We walk clumsily in another man's shoes,
when we've yet to remove our own.
In order to know him,
it is not enough to walk a mile or two in a man's shoes;
one does not come to understand the nature
of drunkenness after a single drink.
Faith goes nowhere without her shadow of doubt.
Cynicism is the denial of hope
by the fear of disappointment.
A godless man doubts the existence of god
as a loveless man doubts the existence of love.
The finest line does not divide.
The subtlest minds fall through the cracks;
stupidity keeps us sane.
A genius is a man who has his madness,
but whose madness does not have him.
Silence is the wisdom of the foolish
and the folly of the wise.
The beautiful is a stain on the sublime.
Substance is the height of style;
good form takes the form of the good.
Patience isn’t waiting for something.
Nothing teaches,
and nothing prejudices,
like experience.
The Sun is a brilliant light,
but light must be carried underground,
and only a candle can serve.
Humility works hard to satisfy its pride.
Pride covets virtue, vanity covets her appearance.
Self-contempt is the highest form of pride.
Only the proud may be virtuous in humility;
the humble should cultivate a healthy pride.
Whether confident or insecure, self-rapport is the same in every man;
the self to which he remains attached is always the self that regards him,
and never the self which is regarded.
You can't judge a book by the book.
Ignorance is the price of education.
There is a teaching for every time and place,
but only one teaching is timeless and all-pervading;
the former may be taught, the latter learned.
A jack of all virtues is a master of none.
A wise man acts because he has something to do,
not because he has to do something.
What is good cannot be true. Only what is great can be true. Truth belongs to the heights. She is free and without purpose, because she is great, and not good; purposefulness is good, but pure being is great. A good teacher teaches with purpose, so that others may learn. But a great teacher teaches for no reason at all, and only because she is a true teacher. What is true has no purpose; this is what it means to truly "be".
All men tell the truth;
liars tell the truth by lying;
their lie is their truth,
and, if they did not lie,
it would be untruth,
or else, they would not be liars.
Liars are always the last to hear the truths they speak.
Every work of art is an affirmation, however dark and brooding.
It may be that the greatest affirmation is provided by the darkest work,
for, here, the artist affirms creation even in the midst of the blackest pitch,
shrinking neither from the darkness, nor the work of expressing it;
while despair never lifts the brush, and hope scarcely feels its weight.
Great works of art create the illusion, not of reality, but of fiction. It is only when we believe we are a safe distance from the battle that we begin to discard our shields.
Good men are not free to do evil and evil men are not free to do good;
a warm heart cannot fail to give warmth, nor a cold heart chills.
To turn the other cheek is just to look the other way,
but trading blow for blow is the worst kind of hypocrisy.
There are those who see shipwrecked men and say,
"The sea is off-limits to sensible men!"
Perhaps it is so. And I would rather be senseless.
We resent the ones
who have given us the most,
for not having given us more;
it is with them that our appetites
and expectations have been spoiled.
All men are so inherently flawed, that we must look to their most valuable qualities, if we are to form a sympathetic estimation of their worth. What Shakespeare lacked, a fool could have provided. But Shakespeare is still Shakespeare, and a fool is still a fool.
Bright souls outshine the merely good; despite a cloak of vices,
a fugitive light breaks through between the shallow stitching.
And if such a soul were to be purified, and made good,
it would shine naked in the sun, and would outshine the sun.
Witness Jesus; the purified genius.
From those who cannot give their approval to Life, she accepts their detraction; and thus consoles them for the deprivation of all that she lacks (in their eyes). This is the freedom God, and Life, grants to a decadent: The freedom to curse one's captor. Let us not begrudge, as God does not begrudge, the decadent his right to curse the heavens and bemoan his lot. If we would be distinguished by our willingness to affirm Life, let us affirm Life's decadents, as well.
Reform that man who seeks to reform the gods rather than himself!
In silence there is sweetness.
Words fall, and often rise, into this;
and fall back through, to rise again.
The mind thrives on uncertainty, while the will starves.
Some speak boldly for action, and say, "nothing comes from inaction". But action comes from inaction, and who can draw that thin grey line where inaction ends and action begins? Surely, what changes we've seen in a sudden instant were prepared for ages underground.
Where there’s a way, there’s a will.
Only the inevitable is ever truly possible.
He elects, whom God has elected;
He chooses, who is chosen;
Free Will is Divine Intervention.
Inventions are higher discoveries. --
God is our most ingenious invention,
and our highest discovery.
Flesh is not merely the corruption of Spirit,
it is also the Divine Manifestation;
the Fall is also the Incarnation.
Herein lies distilled the mystery and essence
of the Christian cosmo-conception.
The bell of the world is struck
by the birth of the man,
or is silent.
Not all who are wise convey wisdom,
not all who convey wisdom are wise;
One is spiritual, but another
has power to convey the spirit;
the gifts of grace are without discrimination.
Every man's philosophy is his own.
It will never fit anyone so well as himself,
and, even then, it will begin to pinch.
The beauty of an infant is so pure that, in contrast, all the adults we meet seem to have acquired a dull, unattractive, and greasy patina. What makes the child glow, as if surrounded by a halo of gauzy light, is merely the absence of this film, which we might never notice, if not for the stark contrast provided by the child. Innocence is not a positive element of existence, in the sense that, it is not a thing in itself, but, rather, the absence of some other thing; it is an emptiness; a negative element; it appears only in the space that gives definition to forms. Our true nature is innocence, and it is regarded only in the absence of impurities. This is why saints glow again like children.
When the excavation of one area of life becomes exhausting, we can always find relief by turning to another area of life. When we have spent years, even decades, exhausting ourselves upon one area of life,we may spend years, even decades, finding relief in detachment from that area, - but, if life were only long enough, we would exhaust that relief as well, and turn back to the very things we thought we'd learned detachment from. Detachment is not the sign of maturity we like to suppose it is.
Who is moved by angels is moved by devils.
He blushes before beauty who cannot look upon homeliness.
Ask yourself if you are dreaming, and, at once, you begin to awaken.
We are frequently engaged in many places at once, and present nowhere.
Have you been blinded in the darkest depths?
You will be blinded in the light, as well.
Look around you now.
Heidegger would certainly agree that,
if you are a painter, painting is dasein for you.
But would he understand his own dasein, as a thinker?
My theory is my dasein.
"There is a season to give and a season to receive":
Trying to cry on each other's shoulders,
we only end up butting heads.
Water carried over cliffs by water;
fire consumed in flames; the ego,
swallowed up by its own big mouth!
Our broken songs are half-composed,
and we ourselves, half-composed;
we sing ourselves,
and sing ourselves completely.
There are two ways humanity may yet preserve itself:
The first is by becoming more compassionate.
The second is by becoming more cruel.
And I'm not sure about the first.
Great truths are dropped from great heights,
so they are sure to crush a few egos.
Fantasy is the better part of reality.
He has courage to attack who lacks courage to defend.
The courage to jump is also the fear of not jumping.
If suicide is cowardly,
how much more so is the fear of death?
Go with the flow... but dont forget the ebb.
A clever man may be deemed almost a genius if he would but apply his wit to matters of profundity. The quality of his thoughts is found as much in what he thinks about as in how he thinks; as the value of a light is reflected by the worth of the objects it illuminates; and not by its own brilliance alone.
Dependence on rules leaves you at the mercy of exceptions;
an open mind is frequently as clever as a well-ordered one.
The clearer our purpose, the quicker our progress.
Who said, "There are no contradictions,"?
He only spoke half-truths.
Consistency is self-contradiction.
All truths are contextual,
all wisdom contingent;
metaphors lack corners.
Truth is context; the "whole truth" has never been spoken; by anyone; ever.
There is no context. It is impossible to say everything. In attempting to say anything at all, our words must sit like islands in the stream, surrounded on all sides by a restless uncertainty; or, like a bit of cloth, frayed around the edges. No matter how clearly you articulate a truth, at the frontier of your speech there is ambiguity, and the likelihood that your wisdom will be subject to presumptions and displaced into inappropriate contexts is almost absolute. Only intuition circumferences the unspoken. Only wisdom knows her own.
There is no consistency, in individuals, nations, ages, - you name it. In every man, we may discover instincts and ideas as diverse as those exhibited by the most dissimilar cultures on the planet. Read a book and you will not find the man; only a proximal point of convergence, where all that is not the man comes to blows; this conflict is the man. The measure of identity appearing to the casual observor is but a momentary "blip" in the eye of the observor; the fin that, for an instant, breaks the surface; but never the fish. Were she to look with deeper insight, this "identity" would crumble, - or, rather, concresce into manifold characteristics without definition; each giving way to another, and unable to maintain an independent integrity. Everything that achieves (appears to achieve) any degree of particularity divests itself (appears to divest itself) from the totality of Being, in order to exhibit a momentary singularity; a sanctuary, of sorts. And everything must end in a compost of contradicting impulses, drives, and currents, since, being a particularity (appearing to be a particularity), it is, in itself, something of a ruse. Yet, that which we so-called "spiritually minded" folk are fond of calling "ultimate truth" is no more (or less) real. All things, including that which we call The One Thing, have reality only to the extent that they are subjectively witnessed and experienced; to think that this reality may be objectively considered would be a mistake. The act of reflection is not divested from the thing reflected upon, but, rather, is the continued reverberation of it. So, while we may appear to reflect, it is we who are reflected. That which arises before the mind is like a hammer striking a bell or a stone; the mind is the bell, or stone, reverberating according to the nature of the strike; the reverberations in the mind are our impressions of the thing. Even to reflect upon them is to experience them, for the impressions made on the senses are no more "real", or legitimate, than the impressions awakened in the mind, which is only a more sublte extension of bodily sense. But a mind which has been anchored in the depths of things will not mistake the reverberation, or the thing, for something definite and concrete. Any judgements formed will be nuanced, tentative, and conditional in the extreme. Likewise, sense impressions will acquire an indefiniteness, or a kind of fleeting quality, even as they are received. The mind operates as a witness, without forming absolute judgments, and, even when formulating conceptions, does not take itself too seriously. There is a lightness; even the most reverent emotions and meaningful insights are accompanied by a flexible and irreverent wit. And the action of thinking becomes, as it were, a kind of dancing, with the object being, not to distinguish true from false, but, to dance well. She, the illumined, orchestrates her thoughts as a dance is choreographed, and the question in matters of choreography is never, "Is it true or false?", but, "Is it well or poorly done?"; "Does it evoke, at once, both soul and spirit?"; "Is it beautiful?"; "Is it sublime?" This, then, becomes, in a sense, the new criterion of truth. "Is it sublime?" Moreover, "Does it flow?"; "Can it dance?"
The admonition to "Go within" can also be a subtle ploy of the ego.
We do not care to admit that we, as individuals, are incomplete,
and that wholeness may have more to do with learning cooperation,
than with "finding ourselves", or contenting ourselves with ourselves.
Close-mindedness is always being mistaken for self-reliance.
Sometimes the best thing to do is listen.
People often know what is best for themselves,
and in those instances we ought to let nature take her course.
The most reluctant patients are not always wrongly so;
they may refuse our prescriptions for better reasons than we know.
Many times it is our insistence on treating them which is bullheaded.
It may even be that God marks out certain people, at certain times,
and will not permit anyone else to “play doctor” before Himself;
though we may be called to assist at crucial moments,
as hands, to place the Surgeon's tools closer,
or daub the patient's burning brow.
A small hope is a cold comfort, warmed between praying hands;
or a grain of sand within an oyster, slowly nursed into a pearl.
If they doubt the value of the fruits,
how much more, the value of the seed?
The greatest tragedy of human existence is not that things change,
but, that they change before we’ve grown tired of them,
and refuse to change long after we have.
There is divinity in idealism; to have an ideal is not to be godless, --
and it is a kind of blessedness to remain faithful to one's ideal.
When we need a reason to forgive,
a reason can always be found.
The trick is not needing one.
Frequent admissions of fault in oneself
breed tolerance for the faults of others.
To admit when you are wrong,
suggests that it is not your pride
which insists on being right.
Every man praises those virtues which he seems to possess in himself,
and finds a way to criticize those which he clearly does not possess;
while those who lack the power to reason,
and must find a way to the truth through intuition,
will tell you that reason is a dead end,
and only intuition lights the highest paths, --
those lacking intuitive power,
but well-armed with reason,
will reason their way to the heights,
and remark only upon the pitfalls of intuition.
Both seem to find fault in the method,
and rarely acknowledge it in themselves.
Some people take the hint,
and some people take the hit.
Love is certain;
for to be certain is to rest,
and there is no rest but in love.
Only love is at rest.
Only love is certain.
The key to happiness?
Demand nothing of yourself
and settle for anything.
Reason is to revelation
what the mind is to the soul.
Reason mediates revelation:
mind mediates soul.
Every head is a headstone;
every body, a grave for restless spirits.
I am a ferment of other minds.
The view that is not represented is never assented to.
The essential difference between a philosopher
and someone who is not a philosopher is this:
Both have a head full of contradictory and irreconcilable points of view,
but the philosopher knows it, -- and, beyond knowing it,
embraces this conflict as the fountainhead of creative thinking.
Nine times out of ten:
Religion is a man who smiles
and praises God's goodness, --
while burning His martyrs at the stake.
Religions are nice places to visit,
but I wouldnt want to live in them.
I’ve not chosen a religion, but I’ve tasted the many cups.
To drunkards who protest that I drink not, but merely swish and spit,
I say, “Perhaps I am a connoisseur.”
They wear crosses like anchors around their necks,
and fall on their knees like ships run aground;
their hands, joined in prayer, fork the sand:
"Lord, deliver us from oceans, though we be ships!"
The domes of polished churches gleam;
Turned-down goblets with broken stems.
These priests have drunk too much!!
Or is it not enough?
The truth of love, spoken clearly, is like a great flood, purging the land of all that is merely superficial and unrooted in the natural order. Nothing false can stand in its wake. The mouths of the foolish and the wicked are stopped, and the tides of ignorance and animosity ebb like phantoms in the morning light. Only the truth of love has this magnificent cleansing power. But it must be spoken. It must never be silent.
Silence is wise; speaks no lies.
The words of a wise man never reach the ears of a fool.
If fools could be silent, wisdom could speak.
To most people,
the choice between flapping their gums
and holding their peace,
resembles the choice of a small bird
who must remain aloft, or, else,
perched on the nose of a crocodile.
To speak or not to speak;
that is the question.
All things are needful.
Words find the ears for them.
All things speak of God,
but the Voice of God is Silence.
Speaking well is the art of
treating with equal respect
the claims of honesty and tact.
That which is mortal in us is undisturbed by loud noises and harsh words. Being of the same nature as these, it will only grow louder and more harsh itself, in order to accomodate them. But that which is divine is truly delicate. The slightest noise, the merest hint of discord, is enough to dispel it. A mound of stones is not upset by a strong wind, but a mound of powder is lost in the weakest breeze. Though we may not disturb what is coarse by behaving in our usual way, we must take greater care not to disturb what is fine. So it is that we must be gentle with one another, not for the sake of what is mortal, but for the sake of what is divine.
The deepest questions are cultivated in the underworld, and the loftiest answers are harvested in the spheres; therefore, the one who’s job it is to tend and deliver them must necessarily be estranged from worldly matters to the extent that he is successful in his work. That this principle is so universally misunderstood may help to explain society’s hostility toward the visionary type. He is stigmatized for being different, while his differentness is precisely that which qualifies him to take a detached perspective on the affairs of men, of nations, and of ages. Expected to abide by a conventional standard, he is constantly inhibited from pursuing his true calling, and the only thing capable of (eventually) earning him a living in the world. Nor is it generally understood that the seemingly immaterial contributions he makes are of a subtle enough substance to reach (and nourish) the very roots of mankind. In the final analysis, he is the exception which exists in order to prove their rule; the more oppressed for all that he upholds.
Mother God is unconditionally loving,
Father God makes impossible demands;
where they meet, a Messiah is born.
Lord,
did you make the worms for the birds,
or the birds for the worms?
The world is a longing for God.
Like a vagrant,
I fall asleep on the steps of my prayer,
and never ascend to the door of His love.
A thousand unlocked doors between us,
but I still search for a key.
His words were clay,
but his thoughts were silver.
Form is modest,
beautiful and deep,
like silence.
Those noble truths, beyond all human understanding, are cold monuments, carved in aether; but the Lord is here with us; in the world; in the flesh. Here is sickness, sadness, hunger, accident, loss and death. Where else is your love so needed and desired? What purpose or work have you, more sacred and pressing than this? Look to your brothers, that they may stand washed in a heavenly light; do not stare yourself blind, scouring the sun. Some of the highest adepts have wandered off, and left us, to go investigate the incorruptible spheres. Let us pray that they return, with wisdom to raise up the world. And we, who seek to exalt ourselves to heavenly heights, -- let us seek, rather, to exalt the world, and the entire creation of the Father. Truly, the world is our proper sphere. May we cease to long for vain infinities! May we, rather, long for the vision to know the world in Her honesty and glory. She does not deceive us, though we often wish that she would, and endeavor to believe that she does.
The soul is a fallen woman,
and the Lord, her unlikely suitor.
She eyes Him always with suspicion,
unable to believe that her longing
is answered by His love.
She is coy, elusive, silly.
He is sincere and devoted in pursuit.
By and by, He will win her heart,
and, with it, the dowry of the world.
We've all seen with that true eye. For a moment, somewhere, we looked on things in a spirit of poverty; simply. Saw how only nature is perfect and pure, and all the works of men, even those we most admire, bear the stamp of something at once silly and scary, childish and exaggerated. We stood in the silence, and were a part of the silence, humble, and without knowing ourselves to be profound. We had to become self-conscious, distanced in an instant from "that hollow note", dragged as if by some great and implacable whirlwind back into the roar of the familiar, before we could know just what had happened. What had we touched? What had we lost, in that instant, and maybe forever? Walking amidst the bookshelves, you know the poetry speaks of moments like these, but the books are tombs, enshrined facades, - somehow, there is no taking them down, no opening, no entering into the life of them, for us. We might thumb at them, trying to recapture that devout and elusive magic, which springs unsummoned, and only at some unforeseen time, when person and book are perfectly matched by providence, and neither is capable of holding in itself that ineffable nature, that true splendor which shines through only of its own accord, and in its own patient hour. Or, when you stepped over branches, sheilded heavy leaves from your path, to get somewhere through the woods, and you caught scent of something unmistakable, something real, and stopped dead in your tracks, to notice it gone. Now, the path is familiar, and you brush those leaves away with annoyance, and hardly remember (or remember with annoyance) having been there once, and felt, for a precious instant, the presence of grace, the breath of God on your nape. And the sadness that is a deadening of soul drags you down and down, and forgetfulness, like a curtain, closes off to you the life that once was so real and true, if only for an instant. And you think that it is gone forever, but that thought is both the seal of your tomb, and the emptiness from which all new things are born, and receive their spark of life.
Lindaland
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