You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’
(John 3:7)
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From our perception of the world there follows acceptance of a unique First Principle possessing various powers. Pictures of name and form, the person who sees, the screen on which he sees, and the light by which he sees: he himself is all of these.
(Sri Ramana Maharshi)
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‘Nothing is me,’ is the first step. ‘Everything is me’ is the next. Both hang on the idea: ‘there is a world’. When this too is given up, you remain what you are — the non-dual Self. You are it here and now.
(Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)
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The wind blows (breathes) where it wills; and though you hear its sound, yet you neither know where it comes from nor where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where the wind comes from or where it’s going. That’s the way it is with everyone born of the Spirit.
(John 3:8)
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and this openness opens the unity, renders it possible, and forbids it totality. Its openness allows receiving and giving.
(Jacques Derrida)
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Just as the day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach; yet the disciples did not know it was Jesus.
(John 21:4)
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Restless inquiry is not the only kind of knowing, self-examination not the only kind of awareness. Appreciation of an image, your life story studded with images since early childhood, and a deepening into them slows the restlessness of inquiry, laying to rest the fever and the fret of finding out. By its very definition, given by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologica, beauty arrests motion. Beauty itself is a cure for psychological malaise.
(James Hillman)
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This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: ‘Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ “Announce to the people of Jerusalem: ‘Your king is coming to you! He is humble and rides on a donkey. He comes on the colt of a donkey.’” “Tell the people of Zion, ‘Now your king is coming to you. He is humble and riding on a donkey. He is riding on a young donkey, born from a work animal.’”“Tell Jerusalem her King is coming to her, riding humbly on a donkey’s colt!” This is the full story of what was sketched earlier by the prophet: Tell Zion’s daughter, “Look, your king’s on his way, poised and ready, mounted On a donkey, on a colt, foal of a pack animal.”
(Mathew 21:5)
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In their form and in their grammar, these questions are all turned toward the past: they ask if we already have at our disposal such a concept and if we have ever had any assurance in this regard. To have a concept at one’s disposal, to have assurances with regard to it, this presupposes a closed heritage and the guarantee which is sealed, in some sense, by this heritage. And the word and the notion of the archive seem at first, admittedly, to point toward the past, to refer to the signs of consigned memory, to recall faithfulness to tradition. If we have attempted to underline the past in these questions from the outset, it is also to indicate the direction of another problematic. As much as and more than a thing of the past, before such a thing, the archive should call into question the coming of the future …
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The king has indeed a body (and it is not here the original text but that which constitutes the tenor of the translated text), but this body is only promised, announced and dissimulated by the translation. The clothes fit but do not cling strictly enough to the royal person. This is not a weakness; the best translation resembles this royal cape.
(Jacques Derrida)
mark forshee 