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25708 |
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Date: February 28, 2018 at 07:18:53
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Gibran on Freedom |
URL: http://www.katsandogz.com/onfreedom.html |
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"At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen
you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and
praise him though he slays them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of
the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear
their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.
And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free
when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a
harness to you, and when you cease to speak of
freedom as a goal and a fulfilment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not
without a care nor your nights without a want and a
grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet
you rise above them naked and unbound.
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights
unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of
your understanding have fastened around your noon
hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest
of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun
and dazzle your eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your own self you
would discard that you may become free?
If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law
was written with your own hand upon your own
forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by
washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour
the sea upon them.
And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first
that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but
for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in
their own pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has
been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of
that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the
feared.
Verily all things move within your being in constant
half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the
repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that
which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in
pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light
that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters
becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom."
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Responses:
[25709] [25714] [25715] [25721] [25725] [25710] [25711] [25712] |
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25709 |
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Date: February 28, 2018 at 07:20:37
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: ...on Good & Evil |
URL: http://www.katsandogz.com/ongood.html |
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Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger
and thirst?
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark
caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead
waters.
You are good when you are one with yourself.
Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not
evil.
For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is
only a divided house.
And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among
perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom.
You are good when you strive to give of yourself.
Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.
For when you strive for gain you are but a root that
clings to the earth and sucks at her breast.
Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me,
ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance."
For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a
need to the root.
You are good when you are fully awake in your speech,
Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue
staggers without purpose.
And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak
tongue.
You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and
with bold steps.
Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.
Even those who limp go not backward. But you who are
strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the
lame, deeming it kindness.
You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil
when you are not good,
You are only loitering and sluggard.
Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the
turtles.
In your longing for your giant self lies your
goodness: and that longing is in all of you.
But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing
with might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the
hillsides and the songs of the forest.
And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself
in angles and bends and lingers before it reaches the
shore.
But let not him who longs much say to him who longs
little, "Wherefore are you slow and halting?"
For the truly good ask not the naked, "Where is your
garment?" nor the houseless, "What has befallen your
house?"
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Responses:
[25714] [25715] [25721] [25725] [25710] [25711] [25712] |
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25714 |
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Date: March 03, 2018 at 09:41:22
From: Nevada, [DNS_Address]
Subject: ...Gibran on Donald Trump? |
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...if I'm understanding this right, Trump is probably
not nearly the threat our inner shadows would have us
believe.
In fact it might be just what the doctor ordered.
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Responses:
[25715] [25721] [25725] |
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25715 |
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Date: March 03, 2018 at 10:26:16
From: JimW, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: ...Gibran on Donald Trump? |
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He is not a threat to your inner shadow, because you
support him.
He is a threat to my inner shadow due to the fact
he is a profound major threat to the USA's inner shadow.
I am not OK with a mobster leading our country whose
behavior is borderline treason.
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Responses:
[25721] [25725] |
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25721 |
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Date: March 03, 2018 at 17:06:04
From: Nevada, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: ...Gibran on Donald Trump? |
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...I'm suggesting Gibran would not feel threatened by
Donald Trump and might even see it as an excellent
opportunity for spiritual growth.
You may not be there yet.
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Responses:
[25725] |
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25725 |
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Date: March 05, 2018 at 14:10:55
From: JimW, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Nevada, not your job, and... |
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YOU may not be there yet.
Please do not set yourself up to evaluate my
personal spiritual growth.
Not your job. No one is qualified to judge my
spiritual growth or yours but Source
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Responses:
None |
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25710 |
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Date: February 28, 2018 at 07:22:51
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: ...on Crime & Punishment |
URL: http://www.katsandogz.com/oncrime.html |
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"It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto
others and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait
a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.
Like the ocean is your god-self;
It remains for ever undefiled.
And like the ether it lifts but the winged. Even like
the sun is your god-self;
It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the
holes of the serpent.
But your god-self dwells not alone in your being.
Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet
man,
But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist
searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in
the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of
crime.
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits
a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a
stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous
cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one
of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the
lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the
silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden
will of you all.
Like a procession you walk together towards your god-
self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those
behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though
faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the
stumbling stone.
And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your
hearts:
The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder,
And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.
The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the
wicked,
And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of
the felon.
Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the
injured,
And still more often the condemned is the burden
bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.
You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the
good from the wicked;
For they stand together before the face of the sun
even as the black thread and the white are woven
together.
And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall
look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the
loom also.
If any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful
wife,
Let him also weigh the heart of her husband in
scales, and measure his soul with measurements.
And let him who would lash the offender look unto the
spirit of the offended.
And if any of you would punish in the name of
righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let
him see to its roots;
And verily he will find the roots of the good and the
bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined
together in the silent heart of the earth.
And you judges who would be just,
What judgment pronounce you upon him who though
honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?
What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh
yet is himself slain in the spirit?
And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver
and an oppressor,
Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?
And how shall you punish those whose remorse is
already greater than their misdeeds?
Is not remorse the justice which is administered by
that very law which you would fain serve?
Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift
it from the heart of the guilty.
Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may
wake and gaze upon themselves.
And you who would understand justice, how shall you
unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of
light?
Only then shall you know that the erect and the
fallen are but one man standing in twilight between
the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-
self,
And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher
than the lowest stone in its foundation."
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Responses:
[25711] [25712] |
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25711 |
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Date: February 28, 2018 at 07:24:58
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: ...on Beauty |
URL: http://www.katsandogz.com/onbeauty.html |
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"Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find
her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the
weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind
and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she
walks among us."
And the passionate say, "Nay, beauty is a thing of
might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and
the sky above us."
The tired and the weary say, "Beauty is of soft
whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light
that quivers in fear of the shadow."
But the restless say, "We have heard her shouting
among the mountains,
And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the
beating of wings and the roaring of lions."
At night the watchmen of the city say, "Beauty shall
rise with the dawn from the east."
And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say,
"We have seen her leaning over the earth from the
windows of the sunset."
In winter say the snow-bound, "She shall come with
the spring leaping upon the hills."
And in the summer heat the reapers say,
"We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves,
and we saw a drift of snow in her hair."
All these things have you said of beauty,
Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs
unsatisfied,
And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand
stretched forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
It is not the image you would see nor the song you
would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your
eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a
wing attached to a claw,
But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of
angels for ever in flight.
People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils
her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror."
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Responses:
[25712] |
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25712 |
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Date: February 28, 2018 at 07:27:34
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: ...on Religion |
URL: http://www.katsandogz.com/onreligion.html |
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"Have I spoken this day of aught else?
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a
wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul,
even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?
Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his
belief from his occupations?
Who can spread his hours before him, saying, "This
for God and this for myself; This for my soul, and
this other for my body?"
All your hours are wings that beat through space from
self to self.
He who wears his morality but as his best garment
were better naked.
The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.
And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons
his song-bird in a cage.
The freest song comes not through bars and wires.
And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but
also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his
soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the
lute,
The things you have fashioned in necessity or for
delight.
For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements
nor fall lower than your failures.
And take with you all men:
For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their
hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.
And if you would know God be not therefore a solver
of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing
with your children.
And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the
cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and
descending in rain.
You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and
waving His hands in trees."
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Responses:
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