VERBAL TERRORISM, OR THE THIN LINE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE

James Lasdun, Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013) (From the bookjacket: "A true story of obsessive love turning to obsessive hate, Give Me Everything You Have chronicles the author's strange and harrowing ordeal at the hands of a former student, a self-styled 'verbal terrorist,' who began trying, in her words, to 'ruin him.' Hate mail, online postings, and public accusations of plagiarism and sexual misconduct were her weapons of choice and, as with more conventional terrorist weapons, proved remarkably difficult to combat. James Lasdun's account, while terrifying, is told with compassion and humor, and brilliantly succeeds in turning a highly personal story into a profound meditation on subjects as varied as madness, race, Middle East politics, and the meaning of honor and reputation in the Internet age.").

FRENCH MEMORY, FRENCH HISTORY, FRENCH THOUGHT

Jean-Vincent Blanchard, Eminence: Cardinal Richelieu and the Rise of France (New York: Walker, 2011).

Aurelian Craiutu, A Virtue of Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought, 1748-1839 (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2012) ("The question reins: what do moderates stand for? It would seem to me that they affirm three basic attitudes. First, they defend pluralism--of ideas, interests, and social forces--and seek to achieve a balance between them in order to temper political and social conflicts. Second, moderates prefer gradual reforms to revolutionary breakthroughs, and they are temperamentally inclined to making compromises and concessions on both prudential and normative grounds. They acknowledge that the best course of action in politics is often to 'rally around the least bad among your adversaries, even when that party is still remote from your own views.' Third, moderation presupposes a tolerant approach which refuses to see the world in Manichean terms that divide it into forces of good (or light) and agents of evil (or darkness). It consists in a distinct political style that stands in stark contrast to the overconfident modus operandi of those whose world is dominated by black-and-white contrasts. Moderates refuse the posture of prophets, even if sometimes they, too, may be tempted to make grand historical generalizations and predictions. Anti-perfectionists and fearful of anarchy, they endorse fallibilism as a middle way between radical skepticism and epistemological absolutism, and acknowledge the limits of political action and the imperfection of the human condition." Id. at 14-15.).

Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past: Volume I: Conflicts and Divisions, under the direction of Pierre Nora, English-Language Edition edited by Lawrence D. Kritzman, translated from the French by Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Columbia U. Press, 1996) (From Gerard Noiriel, "French and Foreigners": "The numerous Declarations of the Rights of Man since 1789 and the great constitutional principles of the Republic are the true underpinnings of the French tradition." "In order to understand how those great principles affect the collective consciousness, however, we cannot rely on legal texts alone. We must explore the thousand and one material channels that, unconsciously and therefore all that much more effectively, orient our everyday perception of the social world. An excellent example to illustrate this point is the official statistical apparatus of the government. It has often been said, and rightly so, that statistics are the lenses through which modern man observes the society in which he lives. A comparison of U.S. and French immigration statistics is enough to demonstrate, once again, the importance of the French Revolution as a foundational moment. Until the 1960s, American immigration statistics were based on racial and ethnic categories (race, religion, language, parents' place of birth). By contrast, French statistics since the nineteenth century have incorporated the principles of 1789: hence there are no questions about religion or parents' place of birth, and the most important criterion is the legal one of citizenship (French or foreign). A thorough comparative study would reveal the crucial effects of these initial differences in nomenclature in determining how the Americans and the French have perceived immigration over the past century and still perceive it today: on the one hand as an 'ethnic' problem, on the other as a problem of 'foreigners.'" Id. at 145, 149-150.).

Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past: Volume II: Traditions, under the direction of Pierre Nora, English-Language Edition edited by Lawrence D. Kritzman, translated from the French by Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Columbia U. Press, 1997) (From Jean Starobinski, "The Pulpit, The Rostrum, and the Bar": "In classical rhetoric there were three types of eloquence: deliberative (practiced in assemblies making political decisions), judicial (used for settling legal cases), and demonstrative (mostly encomiastic, that is, laudatory, but also deprecatory on occasion). ... Suffice it to say that eloquence, the 'art of persuasion,' has been taught for centuries because it was inseparable from all forms of nonviolent collective behavior. Whether in popular assemblies or (select) courtrooms, in halls of justice, in churches or academies, eloquence was cultivated by the leaders as well as their opponents, as the art of eliciting consent. Persuasive communication has undoubtedly always pervaded all walks of life, though taking many different forms. Nowadays, commercials and advertising have unfortunately taken over some of the functions which had been ascribed to education in the past." Id. at 391,  392. "The pulpit, the bar, and the rostrum are places where this power of language was exercised before it was relayed by books and newspapers. These same places could also be denounced as suspect when those who used them to gain a hearing for themselves were discredited by counterpropaganda that could avail itself of the same sites as well as of instruments such as a books, caricatures, and theatrical or journalistic satire." "...What is different now is that orators are no longer confined to the traditional sites; often they tend to avoid adopting the stance of an orator....  Now that the technical power of those influence--amplifiers, the media, ensures an  inexhaustible, endlessly renewable supply of messages, the orator on the rostrum, at the bar, or in the pulpit is an anachronistic figure, chained to a symbolic site from which the power of his speech to reach and penetrate an audience, even if magnified by currently available technologies, may seem limited. To be sure, there are still 'charismatic voices.' But authority and seduction avail themselves of other instruments." Id. at 393-394.) .

Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past: Volume III: Symbols, under the direction of Pierre Nora, English-Language Edition edited by Lawrence D. Kritzman, translated from the French by Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Columbia U. Press, 1998).

FEAR AND REPRESSION OF THOUGHT

Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, translated from the French by Peter Sedgwick with George Paizis, glossary and notes by Richard Greeman, and with a foreword by Adam Hochschild (New York New York Review Books, 1951, 2012) ("The relationship between error and true understanding are in any case too abstruse for anyone to presume to regulate them with any authority. Men have no choice but to make long detours through hypotheses, mistakes, and imaginative guesses, if they are to succeed in extricating assessments which are more exact, if partly provisional: for there are few cases of complete exactness. This means that freedom of thought seems to me, of all values, one of the most essential." "It is also the most contested. Everywhere and at every time, I have encountered fear of thought, repression of thought, an almost universal desire to escape or else stifle this ferment of restlessness." Id. at 441.).

RITES OF SPRING, KRISHNA LOVES RADHA

Jayadeva, son of Bhojadeva, Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva's Gitagovinda, edited and translated by Barbara Stoler Miller (New York: Columbia U. Press, 1977) ("Jayadeva's dramatic lyrical poem Gitagovinda is a unique work in Indian literature and a source of religious inspiration in both medieval and contemporary Vaishnavism. The poem is dedicated in devotion to the god Krishna. It concentrates Krishna's love with the cowherdess Radha in a rite of spring. Intense earthly passion is the example Jayadeva uses to express the complexities of divine and human love." Id. at ix.).

EROTIC MYSTICISM

Edward C. Dimock, Jr., The Place of the Hidden Moon: Erotic Mysticism in the Vaisnava-Sahajiya Cult of Bengal (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 1966) (From the bookjacket: "The dichotomy between sensual and ascetic is prominent in Indian as well as Western culture. Attempts have been made to incorporate the sensual and the erotic into Indian religion, especially by certain cults, in a way which has hardly occurred in the West, although there are suggestions of it in the cult of the troubadours." "The Vaisnava-sahajiva cult that arose on Bengal the sixteenth century was an intensely emotional attempt to reconcile the spirit and flesh. Edward C. Dimock, Jr., here partially lifts the veil from an obscure religious phenomenon in a study that will appeal to students of the history of religion as well as of Indian culture." "The Sahajiya, unlike the orthodox Vaisnava, not only exalted 'love in separation,' but even considered marriage as profane, poetically and doctrinally. They held that the union of the human and the divine was literally possible, that 'ultimately one can pass even beyond the pleasure of actual union . . . and know the divine joy entirely within one's self.'"  'The sect was viewed with disfavor by the society at large, an attitude heightened by its contempt for  social opinion and its esoteric emphasis. It was secretive on principle, with the doctrine and ritual transmitted exclusively from guru to disciple. The sources of our knowledge of the sect includes hundreds of poems written by numerous poets using the name 'Candidas.' Mr. Dimock has skilfully sorted out the many bards both in time and in their relationship to the cult.").

THE FEMININE BODY IN BUDDHISM

Liz Wilson, Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature, with a foreword by Catherine R. Stimpson (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 1996) (From the backcover: "In this highly original study of sexuality, desire, the body, and women, Liz Wilson investigates first-millennium Buddhist notions of spirituality. She argues that despite the marginal role women played in monastic life, they occupied a very conspicuous place in Buddhist hagiographic literature. In narratives used for the edification of Buddhist monks, women's bodies in decay (diseased, dying, and after death) served as a central object for meditation, inspiring a salutary sense of revulsion and a deepened commitment to chastity." "Taking up a set of universal concerns connected with the representation of women, Wilson displays the pervasiveness of androcentrism in Buddhist literature and practice. She also make persuasive use of recent historical work on the religious lives of women in medieval Christianity, finding a common emphasis on disfiguration in Buddhist and Christian hagiography.").

THE GODDESS DOES NOT LOVE US ANYMORE!

Robert Bly and Marion Woodman, The Maiden King: The Reunion of Masculine and Feminine (New York: Henry Holt, 1998) ("Mankind has begun now to sanctify pop culture. The pop culture pin, especially as transmitted by television, has caused a great sleep, so deep that many college students can no longer deal with Shakespeare's intensity. The Christian Science Monitor reported in January 1997 that fewer and fewer U.S. colleges now ask students to take a Shakespeare course, because their attention span has become too shortened. Interestingly, teachers who are allowed to teach Shakespeare in those colleges that still require such a course sometimes ask to be relieved of the task, because the resistance the students feel to any complicated language produces so much sadness in the teachers." Id. at 26. "If we receive from our mother all the good things that we need, we tend to remain infants all our lives: and it is life, food, comfort, nourishment, courage, support, and praise we want from her. [] But if all we see when we think of the Mother is the Abundant Mother, then we will never grow up. So the image of Kali as an Eater helps people to become adults. Many observers notice that people in the West, by contrast, are becoming more and more childish, not to say infantile. [] The consumer culture we live in promises an abundance almost inconceivable in earlier centuries. The Mall of America in Minneapolis is the largest mall in the world, and it has a statue of Snoopy taller than any statue of Christ in Minneapolis. If we replaced Snoopy with a statue of Kali, with her fangs, her bloody cleaver, her necklace of skulls, her long tongue hanging out, we would see the true face of mall culture. Everyone who saw it would be a tiny bit more adult. They might notice also that our abundance implies insatiable hunger elsewhere in the world." Id. at 68-69. "The secret us out. 'There is a Goddess who doesn't love you anymore.'" Id. at 88. "[T]he subordination of the feminine to the masculine, outwardly enacted as the subordination of women to men, is a horrendous lie. For at least three thousand years women have carried, whether consciously or unconsciously, their culturally determined role in relation to men, an inferior role that has left their masculinity wounded by patriarchal training. As a result of the inferior role assigned to the feminine, men are culturally and personally crippled by a weak feminine every bit as disabling as the weak masculine in women. As complementary energies, masculinity and femininity require each other for natural balance in relationships. A weak feminine in men produces a distorted, one-sided masculine--the militarist, the corporate robot; a weak masculine in women produces a distorted, one-sided feminine--the baby doll, who pretends to be everything any man imagines her to be, or a Gorgon, who reduces others to stone." Id. at 129-130. "The loss of connection to the positive mother is at the core of ... emptiness. [] Without the security of feminine love that trusts life in the body and is, therefore, open to trust life, we learn to fear life itself. [] We are a society famous for our greed. Without a loving connection to the Great Mother, we literalize her. Mother becomes mater. We accumulate mounds of matter in an effort to blind ourselves to our own yearning for the Divine mater. Ironically, we are materialists, essential a matriarchal society worshipping the Golden Cow at the center. In the absence of the natural mother, the greed of the stepmother, including sexual greed, takes over." Id. at 133. ).

'RESTORING THE UNITY OF BODY AND SOUL'

Marion Woodman, The Pregnant Virgin: A Process of Psychological Transformation ((Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts) (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1985) ("This book does not, however, make the traditional body/soul distinction between caterpillar and butterfly, mortal and immortal life. Rather it explores the presence of the one in the other, suggesting that immortality is a reality contained within mortality and, in this life, dependent upon it. The Pregnant Virgin, that is, looks at ways of restoring the unity of body and soul." Id. at 7. "Insecurity lies at the heart of the fear of change. Individuals who recognize their own worth among those they love can leave and return without fear of separation. They know they are valued for themselves. Our computerized society, fascinating and efficient as it is, is making deeper and deeper inroads into genuine human values. A machine, however intricate, has no soul, nor does it move with the rhythms of instinct. A computer may be able to vomit out the facts of my existence, but it cannot fathom the subterranean corridors of my aloneness, nor can it hear my silence, nor can it respond to the shadow that passes over my eyes. It cannot compute the depth and breadth and height of the human soul. When society deliberately programs itself to a set of norms that has very little to do with instinct, love or privacy, then people who set out to become individuals, trusting in the dignity of their own soul and the creativity of their own imagination, have good reason to be afraid. They are outcasts, cut off from society and to a greater or lesser degree from their own instincts. As they work in the silence of their cocoon, they often think they are crazy. They also think they would be crazier if they gave up their faith in their own journey. Like the chrysalis pinned to the kitchen curtain, Blake's proverb is pinned to their study wall: 'If a fool would persist in his folly, he would become become wise.'" Id. at 15-16. "A life that is being truly lived is constantly burning way the veils of illusion, gradually revealing the essence of the individual." Id. at 20. "Psychic intimacy and physical intimacy go together naturally, but, where they have been split apart at a pre-verbal level, the instinct is isolated. The emotional food that should be incorporated with the physical food is not present; thus the instinctual pole of what Jung called a 'a psychoid pocess' receives a different message from the psychic pole. Without the experience of the instincts, neither the feminine soul nor the masculine spirit is embodied; consequently in later life emotional intimacy, including love-making, may be undermined by a sense of betrayal. The body is not present. She is not there." "The woman who is whole resonates both physically and psychically. The soul, that is, is incarnate. Women who are robbed of that feminine birthright may have to experience physical acceptance by another woman, whether in dreams, in close friendships or in a lesbian relationship, before they can find security within themselves. (In rare cases, this can happen in relationship with a man, depending on the maturity of his anima.)" Id. at 38. Hmm! May explain a lot about one of the significant gender dynamic of yoga studios. "The adult world moves at such a pace and with so much fear that people cannot take in  what others are attempting to give. Bombarded by trivia, and bombarded equally by heartbreaking images of famine, wars, desecrated nature, they are obsessed with their own defenses. Locked into a rigid framework, they attempt to chisel themselves into images of the gods of our age--machines that perform efficiently but are without heart. Their bodies cry out in fear or rage when they pop pills, have an intestinal by-pass, staple their stomachs, yet they still ignore their ferocious rape dreams and rush on again in their male, goal-oriented pursuit of a perfection that is in fact a total illusion protecting them from looking at themselves as failed human beings." 'We are not gods; we are not machines that can be driven by logic or power. We do have hearts, and our hearts are in our bodies, and our bodies are related to our instincts. So long as we allow our heads to be cut off from our bodies, we are colluding with the madness of our age in attempting to cure physical ills without making the necessary psychic corrections. We may temporarily succeed, but the body will have its way. It will not lie. It has received the pain that the mind cannot endure. Eventually it will reject the shallow veneer that blocks the possibility of honest response--the kind that would take in, go through the slow, circuitous route of the gut and heart, and comes back with real reaction. In genuine conversation, intercourse takes place, soul is shared with soul. Each has enough Presence to allow the other in without distortion and projection. Each gives energy to the other." Id. at 129-130.).

WOMEN'S BODIES

Marion Woodman, The Owl Was a Baker's Daughter: Obesity, Anorexia, and the Repressed Feminine (Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts) (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1980) ("In essence I am suggesting that 20th-century women have been living for centuries in a male-oriented culture which has kept them unconscious of their own feminine principles. Now in their attempt to find their own place in a masculine world, they have unknowingly accepted male values--goal-oriented lives, compulsive drivenness, and concrete bread which fails to nourish their feminine mystery. Their unconscious femininity rebels and manifests in some somatic form. In this study, the Great Goddess either materializes in the obese or devours the anorexic. Her victim must come to grips with her femininity by dealing with the symptom. Only by discovering and loving the goddess lost within her own rejected body can a woman hear her own authentic voice. This book suggests practical ways of listening, and explores the meaning of the feminine as it 'slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.'" Id. at 9-10.).

READING HALL V

Sandra Anderson & Rolf Sovik, Yoga: Mastering the Basics (Honesdale, PA: Himalayan Institute, 2000) (very useful).

Thubten Chodron, Don't Believe Everything you Think: Living with Wisdom and Compassion (Boston & London: Snow Lion, 2012) ("Compassion is a very important element on the bodhisattva path. Without it there's no way to benefit sentient beings or attain enlightenment. The chief enemy of compassion is anger because when we're angry at someone, be it ourselves or others, there is no way to have compassion in the mind for them at the same time. As we know from our own experience, anger is disastrous. Each of us can think of times when, overwhelmed by our anger, we said or did things to the people that we cared about the most. Looking back on those words and deeds, we regret them now and know that we never would have said or done those things if anger had not overwhelmed our mind." Id. at 113.).

Bryan R. Donahue (with M. Rutledge McCall), On Borrowed Time: How I Built a Life While Beating Death (North Haven, CT: 2POINT2 LLC, 2012) ("Dying will either make you grow, or make you bitter. No way was I going to allow it to make me bitter. There was much in me that needed attention--and not just physically. I didn't want to be any  kind of a burden on anyone, for any reason. I wanted to be normal. And normal begins in the mind: the outlook, the mindset, the attitude, which (again) goes back to choice. Choice includes those little daily decisions we each must make to self-regulate our responses in order to overcome the natural human tendency to give in to the negative pressures that life continually throws our way." Id. at 64.).


Donald M. Epstein, Healing Myths, Healing Magic: Breaking the Spell of Old Illusions; Reclaiming Our Power to Heal (San Rafael, Ca.: Amber-Allen, 2000) (I don't think there is much substance to this book. "When we are frightened, confused, or lost in despair, we often turn to our 'myth spinners' to give meaning to our experience. In naive cultures, such individuals are usually shamans and other types of healers and magicians. In contemporary Western society, teachers, doctors, therapists, clergy, attorneys, and legislators are among the socially empowered storytellers of myth spinners of our time. Taking its cues from these authority figures, our society then legislates and enforces the prevailing myths to 'protect' us from harm." Id. at 3-4. "Myths have long exerted a powerful impact on the way we view health and healing. In centuries past, we were taught to believe that disease was caused by evil spirits.... Today, we are taught that disease is the result of viruses or faulty DNA." Id. at 6. "The purpose of Healing Myths, Healing Magic is to help you to become the storyteller of your own life; to recognize and empower those stories that help your life flourish, so you can experience a greater level of health and well-being than any previous story has allowed. Your job, as a storyteller, is to act as a catalyst to bring forth a new story--to convert it from myth to 'reality.'" Id. at 10.).

Jane Goodall (with Phillip Berman), Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey  (New York & Boston: Grand Central Publishing, 1999, 2003) ("Billions of couplings led to the bodies and minds of Beethoven, Saint Francis, Hitler. The blending and mixing of billions of unique life strands can lead to one person so strong, for good or evil, that he or she can influence the lives of billions of others and change the course of history. It was obvious that every human, every unique being, played some role in the shaping of progress, though only some got into the history books. Throughout every second of every day there was change abroad in the world, change due to the impact of mind on mind; teacher and pupil, parent and child, world leader each one of us carried seeds for change. Seeds that needed nurturing to realize their potential." "I had no doubts that, given time, we humans were capable of creating a moral society. The trouble was, as I knew only too well, time was running out. I had observed the chimpanzees, I had held in my hands the bones of our ancient stone age ancestors. I knew from whence, over millions of weary years, we had come. But we did not have the luxury of millions of years for all humans to become true saints, Not if we continued destroying our environment at the present rate. So, I thought, we would simply have to try, each and every one of us, to become just a little bit more saintlike, That, surely, we could do." Id. at 202-203.).

Carol Horton & Roseanne Harvey, eds., 21sr Century Yoga: Culture, Politics and Practice (Chicago: Kleio Books, 2012) (ugh!!  :-(( ).

Anodea Judith, Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self, Rev. ed. (Berkeley: Celestial Arts, 2004) (having a PhD is psychology is no safeguard against committing the offense of psychobabble, here masquerading as yoga).

Anodea Judith, Wheels of Life: A User's Guide to the Chakra System (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1987, 1999) (interesting; but the substance could have been conveyed in 100-150 pages, rather than 412).

B. K, S. Iyengar, Core of the Yoga Sutras: The Definitive Guide to the Philosophy of Yoga (London: HarperThorsons, 2012) ("Coordinating the intellect of the head with the intelligence of the heart achieves integration (samyama) between the two. I believe that yoga is the union (samyoga) of these two branches of intelligence. Though Patanjali does not say this explicitly, I feel that this union--of the intellect of the head with the intelligence of the heart--does take place through yoga sadhana. This integration makes consciousness spread in the body from the inner layer of the skin up to the seat of the soul (citta prasadanam), just as water spreads evenly across any surface. This, for me, is yoga." Id. at 15.).

Alanna Kaivalya & Arhuna van der Kooij, Myths of the Asanas: The Stories at the Heart of the Yoga Tradition (San Rafael, CA: Mandala Publishing, 2010) (interesting light read).

Sally Kempton, Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2013) (The book's targeted audience is almost exclusively women.There is little, or nothing, in this book which would motivate (straight) male readers to tap into their feminine side and see the goddess(es) within themselves. In other words, would not men benefit from awakening Shakti in themselves? Would not men benefit from the transformative power of the goddesses of yoga?  I think so. Missed opportunity.).

Ondrea Levine, The Healing I Took Birth For: An Autobiography of Ondrea Levine as Told to Stephen Levine (Vista, CA: Aperion Books, 2012) ("After a few more appointments at the Cancer Center getting labs and asking questions, my mind reexamined old escape routes that might be available to me. I scared myself silly. I was stressing out with fear. I rummaged through books about healing in our considerable library, which lacking much consolation, were donated to us by patients who had died." "I watched states of mind come and go on advancing waves. And I watched the body try to find a place to hide within itself. I was at first, so surprised that I had yet another round of cancer to go through. Though I knew better than be surprised; 'knowing' is often to superficial to penetrate our deepest fear." "As we used to say to groups in our workshops, 'understanding is not enough.' And understanding does not quite reach where this second cancer experience was about to take me."  It took me months before my meditation fully touched ground." "I had to forgive the body for betraying me. I had to send compassion into the explosion of cells in my marrow." Id. at 190-191.).

Michael Roach & Christie McNally, The Essential Yoga Sutra: Ancient Wisdom for Your Yoga (New York: Three Leaves Press/ Doubleday, 2005) ("The worst attachment of all is to be attached to the idea that the things all around us exist out there on their own, concretely, in the sense that they don't depend on how we lead our lives." Id. at ~13. "The serious study of the spiritual classics--burning the midnight oil in the pleasant company of the greatest Masters of history--is not much in vogue in our times. Perhaps it's because knowledge has come to be associated with universities and degrees, rather than years of deeply fulfilling apprenticeship under a true Master." Id. at ~59. "In Master Patanjali's time, people didn't relate to books the way we do: to read once from cover to cover, put away, or toss out. A relationship with a really meaningful book was like a marriage. You sat down and read it, studied it--probably memorized most or all of it. You kept it with you, as a friend and help-mate, your entire life." Id. at ~104).

Vanamali, Shakti: Realm of the Divine Mother (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2006, 2008) ("The wonder is that this modern age seems to have forgotten the Divine Mother's very existence. This the Dark Age, Kali Yuga, in which our increasing engrossment with the physical side of life has torn us away from our metaphysical roots and alienated us from our Divine Mother. The ancients were nurtured by the milk of kindness that is always oozing from the breasts of our Divine Mother, and that is why they had a sense of the higher purpose of human life, a sensibility that seems to be lost in this age." Id. at 8. "[T]he human vital energy of body and soul, when aroused, flows forth in either beneficent or destructive forms, demonic or divine, depending on the nature of the desire that prompts it to externalize. The battlefield of the world  is filled with such demonic and godly characters--the Hitlers, the Mussolinis, the Ghandhis, and the Christs. In fact, the universe itself and our individual worlds are just such transformations of the absolute. Each one of us projects our individual shakti (vital energy) into our own little universe--our immediate environment. We color the neutral screen of the supreme consciousness with the dramas and dreams of our inner personalities and get caught in the web of our own make-believe world. The world that we perceive and react to is the product of our own maya or delusion. Thus we are captives of our own maya shakti and get caught up in its dramatic events, delights, an calamities. Whenever we are entangled and enmeshed in any vital or passionate issue, we are dealing with the projection of our own imaginations. This is the spell of maya, of creative, life-engendering, life-maintaining energy. It is also the spell of nescience or ignorance, Since the mind is the chief producer of our personal dramas, ancient Indian wisdom is based on mind-transcending experiences in yoga and meditation, and aims at a total transmutation of human nature, a new awareness of both the world and itself. It seeks to release human beings from the spellbinding projections of their own maya shakti and thus expose their hidden divinity." Id. at 114-115.).

Alberto Villoldo, Yoga, Power, and Spirit: Patanjali the Shaman (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2007) (puff).

RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World, translated by Surendranath Tagore, with introduction by Anita Desai, and preface by William Radice (London & New York: Penguin Classics, 2005) (" 'Can one ever finish a subject with words?' " Id. at 11. " 'I am willing,' he said, 'to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a cure upon it.' " Id. at 29. " 'It is the same thing. Where our country makes itself the final object, it gains success at the cost of the soul. Where it recognizes the Greatest as greater than all, there it may miss success, but gains it soul.' " Id. at 80. " 'Our country,' I tried to explain, 'has been brought to death's door through sheer fear -- from fear of the gods down to fear of the police; and if you set up, in the name of freedom, the fear of some other bogey, whatever it may be called; if you raise your victorious standard on the cowardice of the country by means of downright oppression, then no true lover of the country can bow to your decision.' 'Is there any country, sir,' pursued the history student, 'where submission to Government is not due to fear?' 'The freedom that exists in any country,' I replied, 'may be measured by the extent of this reign of fear. Where its threat is confined to those who would hurt or plunder, there the Government may claim to have freed man from the violence of man. But if fear is to regulate how people are to dress, where they shall trade, or what they must eat, then is man's freedom of will utterly ignored, and manhood destroyed at the root.' " Id. at 129. "'We think, he said, 'that we are own masters when we get in our hands the objects of our desire -- but we are really our own masters only when we are able to cast out our desires from our minds.' " Id. at 134. From the backcover: "Vividly depicting the clash between old and new, realism and idealism, The Home and the World (1916) is a haunting allegory of India's political turmoil in the early twentieth century.").

Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Poems (Penguin Classics), translated by William Radice (London & New York: Penguin Books), 2005).

HAFIZ'S POEMS

Hafiz, The Gift: Poems by Hafiz, The Great Sufi Master, translated from the Persian by Daniel Ladinsky (New York: Penguin Compass, 1999) (My favorite from this collection is 'Act Great.' "What is the key / To unite the knot of your mind's suffering? // What / Is the esoteric secret / To slay the crazed one whom each of us / Did wed. // And who can ruin / Our heart's and eye's exquisite tender Landscape? // Hafiz has found / Two emerald words that ?Restored /Me // That I now cling to as as I would sacred / Tresses of Beloved's / Hair: // Act great, / My dear, always act great. / What is the key / To unite the knot of the mind's suffering? / Benevolent thought, sound / And movement" Id. 328.).

Hafiz, I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy, renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky (New York: Penguin Books, 1996, 2006).

Hafiz, The Subject Tonight Is Love: 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz, translated from the Persian by Daniel Ladinsky (New York: Penguin Compass, 1996. 2006) (My favorite from this collection is 'Ten Thousand Idiots.' "It is always a danger / To aspirants / On the / Path // When they begin / To believe and / Act // As if the ten thousand idiots / Who so long ruled / And lived / Inside // Have all packed their bags / And skipped town / Or / Died." Id. at 51.).

Hafiz, A Year With Hafiz: Daily Contemplations, translated from the Persian by Daniel Ladinsky (New York: Penguin Books, 2011) (My favorite from this collection is 'Rave-Worthy.' "What is true enlightenment? It is knowing everything is rave-worthy, / but having the balance, the discernment, to withhold your applause at times, when there are / young souls near . . . or people trying to sleep." Id. at 139. However, though it may be too late for me to make use of, 'Appear An Easy Mark At First, is more profoundly meaningful to me, as it embodies a lesson I wish I had known as a younger man. "The less friction you make as you move / through this world, the more power you will / gather and can store. Fire will take an interest / in you and think you are an heir to light. // Lightening will start to ride in your purse. / When could you then feel cold? What divine / food could you not prepare, or supply for any? // It is better like this sometimes: Most everyone / starts thinking you are an easy mark, while in / truth, you are just biding your time // waiting for the optimum moment to strike a / lethal blow and make a real difference. But for / that you need forbearance. What lasting / good has ever been rushed? // When you finally speak up or act with passion / you will help tear down some walls of tyranny." Id. at 331.).

GEORGE SAUNDERS!!!!

George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone: Essays (New York: Riverhead Books, 2007) ("From "The United States of Huck: Introduction to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn": "Twain would like this, I think, this continuing struggle to understand his book. We have not had a writer as devoted to seeking out the truth and outing lies. Huck Finn is great book because it tells the truth about the human condition in a way that delights us. It is a great work of our national literature because, more than any book before or since, it locates squarely on our National Dilemma, which is: How can anyone be truly free in a country as violent and stupid as ours? This book still lives because the question does." Id. at 187, 210.).

George Saunders, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (New York: Riverhead Books, 2005).

George Saunders, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella (New York: Riverhead Books, 1997).

George Saunders, In Persuasion Nation: Stories (New York: Riverhead Books, 2007).

George Saunders, Pastoralia: Stories and a Novella (New York: Riverhead Books, 2001).

George Saunders, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, illustrated by Lane Smith (San Francisco: McSweeney's Books, 2000).

CRIMINAL OR A JUDGE?

Sonali Deraniyagala, Wave (New York: Knopf, 2013) ("Steve and I encouraged our son's meanderings, defending him when his teacher complained that he held up the science lesson by insisting that cars were alive. But I worried about Malli's five-year-old cunning the day he deliberately tripped his brother up on the street. I wasn't there, our nanny described what happened, and Vik has a gash on his head. 'And the police saw you doing this and called me to complain,' I scolded, taking my own story too far now. He believed me but was undaunted. 'They didn't say what time it happened, did they? They didn't say what color the two boys were, maybe the.boys were white, some other boys.' 'Will he be a criminal or a judge?' I later asked Steve." Id. at 143-144.).

SAYINGS OF MUHAMMAD

Thomas Cleary, The Wisdom of the Prophet: Sayings of Muhammad, translated from the Arabic by Thomas Cleary (Boston & London: Shambhala, 1994, 2001) ("Whoever goes out in search of knowledge is on the Path of God until returning." Id. at 1. "When a man is in debt, he lies when he speaks and break promises he has made." Id. at 3. "No one eats better food than that earned by the work of his own hands." Id. at 15. "One who takes back his gift is like a dog that eats up it own vomit." Id. at 25. "There is charity incumbent upon every bone of a human being on every day that the sun rises. To judge fairly between two people is charity. To help someone mount or load his pack animal is charity. A good word is charity. Every step on the way to prayer is charity. Removal of what is harmful from the road is charity." Id. at 26. "The Miser's Fate [] If someone is given wealth by God but does not pay the welfare tax, his wealth will be presented to him on the Day of Resurrection as a viper encircling him, striking him with two streams of poison. It will seize him by the jaws and will say, 'I am your wealth; I am your hoard.'" Id. at 37. "There are three signs of a hypocrite: he lies when he speaks, he breaks promises, and he is unfaithful to a trust." Id. at 38. "Let none of you wish for death because of any loss or harm that has befallen you. But if you cannot avoid doing so, then say, 'O God, keep me alive as long as life is better for me, and take me if death is better for me.'" Id. at 52. "Emancipate the captive, feed the hungry, visit the sick." Id. at 64. "Business Ethics [] May God be merciful toward someone who is generous in buying, in selling, and in demanding payment." Id. at 67. "We do not assign authority to one who asks for it, or to one who covets it." Id. at 75. "Beware of suspicion, for suspicion is the falsest of talk. And do not snoop, and do not pry, and do not be divisive, but be brothers." Id. at 76. "Power [] The powerful one is not the one who overthrows others, but the one who controls himself in anger." Id. at 93. "If any of you sees something reprehensible, let him amend it by his hand. And if that is not possible, then by his speech. And if that is not possible, then by his heart. And that is the least that faith requires." Id. at 110-111. "The Influence of Association [] A man inclines to the belief of his friends, so let each one of you watch out who he befriends." Id. at 120. "Be on the world as if you were a stranger, or a wayfarer." Id. at 125. "Virtue and Sin [] Virtue is goodness of character, and sin is what you devise in your self and hate for people to find out about it. Id. at 128. "Anything is beautified by inclusion of kindness, and marred by its lack." Id. at 130.).