2020 (#103) : Malaguzzi , Montessori , Emerson , Genesis , Mathew , Sri Ramana Maharshi

It’s important for the teacher who works with young children to understand that she knows little about children. Teachers need to learn to see the children, to listen to them, to know when they are feeling some distance from us as adults and from children, when they are distracted, when they are surrounded by a shadow of happiness and pleasure, and when they are surrounded by a shadow of sadness and suffering. We have to understand that they are moving and working with many ideas, but their most important task is to build relationships with friends. They are trying to understand what friendship is. Children grow in many directions together, but a child is always in search of relationships. Children get to know each other through all their senses. Touching the hair of another child is very important. Smell is important. This is a way children are able to understand the identity of themselves and the identity of others.
— Malaguzzi

It is by studying the behaviour of these children
and their re-actions to each other in this atmosphere of
freedom that the real secret of society is revealed. They
are fine and delicate facts that have to be examined
with a spiritual microscope, but they are of the utmost
interest since they reveal facts inherent in the very
nature of man. These schools, therefore, are thought
of as laboratories for psychological research, although
it is not really research, but observation that is carried
out. It is this observation which is important. (Montessori)

When I watch that flowing river which, out of regions I see not, pours for a season its streams into me, I see that I am a pensioner; not a cause but a surprised spectator of this ethereal water; that I desire and look up and put myself in the attitude of reception, but from some alien energy the visions come. (Emerson)

22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.– Genesis

“According to your faith let it be done to you” — Mathew

Under whatever name and form one may worship the Absolute Reality, it is only a means for realizing It without name and form. That alone is true realization, wherein one knows oneself in relation to that Reality, attains peace and realizes one’s identity with it. (Sri Ramana Maharshi)

——————————————————————————–

“EIN-SOF (Heb. אֵין סוֹף; “The Infinite,” lit. that which is boundless), name given in Kabbalah to God transcendent, in His pure essence: God in Himself, apart from His relationship to the created world. Since every name which was given to God referred to one of the characteristics or attributes by which He revealed Himself to His creatures, or which they ascribed to Him, there is no name or epithet for God from the point of view of His own being. Consequently, when the kabbalists wanted to be precise in their language they abstained from using names like Elohim, the Tetragrammaton, “the Holy One, blessed be He,” and others. These names are all found either in the Written or the Oral Law. The Torah, however, refers only to God’s manifestations and not to God’s own being which is above and beyond His relationship to the created world. Therefore, neither in the Bible, nor in rabbinic tradition was there a term which could fulfill the need of the kabbalists in their speculations on the nature of God. “Know that Ein-Sof is not alluded to either in the Pentateuch, the Prophets, or the Hagiographa, nor in the writings of the rabbis. But the mystics had a vague tradition about it” (Sefer Ma’arekhet ha-Elohut). The term Ein-Sof is found in kabbalistic literature after 1200. However, it was apparently not coined as a technical term since this was not the style in which, in the medieval period, negative terms were coined. Most probably its source is to be found in those phrases stressing God’s sublimity which is infinite (ad le-ein sof), or which emphasize the characteristics of the (Divine) thought, comprehension of which “has no end” (ad le-ein sof). The use of this epithet in early kabbalistic literature proved without doubt that the term grew out of this kind of expression. It originated, apparently, in the circle of *Isaac the Blind, and his disciples. In the view of some kabbalists, the name Ein-Sof was likewise applicable to the first product of emanation, the Sefirah Keter, because of its completely concealed nature, and this double use of the word gave rise in kabbalistic literature to considerable confusion. There is no doubt that from the beginning the intention was to use the name in order to distinguish the absolute from the Sefirot which emanated from Him. The choice of this particular name may be explained by the emphasis placed on the infinity of God in the books of *Saadiah Gaon which had a great influence on the circle of the Provençal kabbalists. The term also shows that the anthropomorphic language in which the kabbalists spoke of the living God of faith and revelation does not represent the totality of their theosophical theological approach. At first there was no definite article used in conjunction with Ein-Sof, and it was treated as a proper name, but after 1300 there were kabbalists who spoke of “the Ein-Sof.” At first, the term was used only rarely (even in the principal part of the *Zohar its occurrence is very rare), but from about 1300 its use became habitual, and later Kabbalah even speaks of several “kinds of Ein-Sof,” e.g., the enveloping Ein-Sof, the enveloped Ein-Sof, the upper Ein-Sof.”

EIN-SOF (Heb. אֵין סוֹף; “The Infinite,” lit. that which is boundless), name given in Kabbalah to God transcendent, in His pure essence: God in Himself, apart from His relationship to the created world. Since every name which was given to God referred to one of the characteristics or attributes by which He revealed Himself to His creatures, or which they ascribed to Him, there is no name or epithet for God from the point of view of His own being. Consequently, when the kabbalists wanted to be precise in their language they abstained from using names like Elohim, the Tetragrammaton, “the Holy One, blessed be He,” and others. These names are all found either in the Written or the Oral Law. The Torah, however, refers only to God’s manifestations and not to God’s own being which is above and beyond His relationship to the created world. Therefore, neither in the Bible, nor in rabbinic tradition was there a term which could fulfill the need of the kabbalists in their speculations on the nature of God. “Know that Ein-Sof is not alluded to either in the Pentateuch, the Prophets, or the Hagiographa, nor in the writings of the rabbis. But the mystics had a vague tradition about it” (Sefer Ma’arekhet ha-Elohut). The term Ein-Sof is found in kabbalistic literature after 1200. However, it was apparently not coined as a technical term since this was not the style in which, in the medieval period, negative terms were coined. Most probably its source is to be found in those phrases stressing God’s sublimity which is infinite (ad le-ein sof), or which emphasize the characteristics of the (Divine) thought, comprehension of which “has no end” (ad le-ein sof). The use of this epithet in early kabbalistic literature proved without doubt that the term grew out of this kind of expression. It originated, apparently, in the circle of *Isaac the Blind, and his disciples. In the view of some kabbalists, the name Ein-Sof was likewise applicable to the first product of emanation, the Sefirah Keter, because of its completely concealed nature, and this double use of the word gave rise in kabbalistic literature to considerable confusion. There is no doubt that from the beginning the intention was to use the name in order to distinguish the absolute from the Sefirot which emanated from Him. The choice of this particular name may be explained by the emphasis placed on the infinity of God in the books of *Saadiah Gaon which had a great influence on the circle of the Provençal kabbalists. The term also shows that the anthropomorphic language in which the kabbalists spoke of the living God of faith and revelation does not represent the totality of their theosophical theological approach. At first there was no definite article used in conjunction with Ein-Sof, and it was treated as a proper name, but after 1300 there were kabbalists who spoke of “the Ein-Sof.” At first, the term was used only rarely (even in the principal part of the *Zohar its occurrence is very rare), but from about 1300 its use became habitual, and later Kabbalah even speaks of several “kinds of Ein-Sof,” e.g., the enveloping Ein-Sof, the enveloped Ein-Sof, the upper Ein-Sof.

2020 (#102) : Malaguzzi , Emerson , Montessori , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Genesis , Mathew , Heidegger , Sri Ramana Maharshi , Psalms , Jung , Derrida

We have to let children be with children. Children learn a lot from other children, and adults learn from children being with children. Children love to learn among themselves, and they learn things that it would never be possible to learn from interactions with an adult. The interaction between children is a very fertile and a very rich relationship. If it is left to ferment without adult interference and without that excessive assistance that we sometimes give, then it’s more advantageous to the child. — Malaguzzi

from within or from behind a light shines through us upon things , and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all.
(Emerson)

The constructor, therefore^
can be neither the mother nor the teacher. They are not
the architects, they are not almighty to say, like God in
the Bible : ” Let there be light, and the light was made/*
They can only help the creative work that comes from
the child himself. That should be their function and
their aim, but it is equally in their power to destroy it, to
break it by repression. This point, darkened by so many
prejudices, deserves to be made clear. (Montessori)

I am a dream that can wake you up. You will have the proof of it in your very waking up. (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth,[h] saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” 26 Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.
At that time people began to call on[i] the name of the Lord. — Genesis

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. — Mathew

In order to be capable of thinking, we need to learn it first. What is learning? Man learns when he disposes every thing he does so that it answers to whatever essentials are addressed to him at any given moment. We learn to think by giving our mind to what there is to think about. What is essential in a friend, for example, is what we call “friendly.” In the same sense we now call “thought-pro voking” what in itself is to be thought about. Everything thought-provoking gives us to think. But it always gives that gift just so far as the thought-provoking matter already is intrinsically what must be thought about. From now on, we will call “most thought-provoking” what re mains to be thought about always, because it is at the beginning, before all else. What is most thought-provoking? How does it show itself in our thought-provoking time.
(Heidegger)

The duality of subject and object and trinity of seer, sight, and seen can exist only if supported by the One. If one turns inward in search of that One Reality they fall away. Those who see this are those who see Wisdom. They are never in doubt. (Sri Ramana Maharshi)

But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children— with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.(Psalms)

In a tract of the Lurianic Kabbalah, the remarkable idea is developed that man is destined to become God’s helper in the attempt to restore the vessels which were broken when God thought to create a world. Only a few weeks ago, I came across this impressive doctrine which gives meaning to man’s status exalted by the incarnation. (Jung)

I have constantly insisted on the fact that the movement of deconstruction was first of all affirmative – not positive, but affirmative. Deconstruction, let’s say it one more time, is not demolition or destruction. Deconstruction – I don’t know if it is something, but if it is something, it is also a thinking of Being, of metaphysics, thus a discussion that has it out with [“s’explique avec”] the authority of Being or of essence, of the thinking of what is, and such a discussion or explanation cannot be simply a negative destruction. All the more so in that, among all the things in the history of metaphysics that deconstruction argues against [“s’explique avec”], there is the dialectic, there is the “opposition” of the negative to the positive. To say that deconstruction is negative is simply to reinscribe it in an intrametaphysical process. The point is not to remove oneself from this process but to give it the possibility of being thought. (Derrida)

2020 (#101) : Malaguzzi , GENESIS (BERESHIT/BEREISHITH) , Tao Te Ching , Heidegger , Montessori , Buber , Sri Ramana Maharshi , Mathew , Derrida , GENESIS (BERESHIT/BEREISHITH) , Genesis

Observing in this way offers tremendous benefits. It
requires a shift in the role of the teacher from an
emphasis of teaching to an emphasis on learning,
teachers learning about themselves as teachers as
well as teachers learning about children. This is a
self-learning that takes place for the teacher and it
enables the teacher to see things that are taking place
in children that teachers were not able to see before.
(Malaguzzi)

5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth[a] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams[b] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. — Genesis

Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness? — Tao

It is not simply a matter of just waiting until something occurs to man within 300 years, but rather to think forward without prophetic claims into the coming time in terms of the fundamental thrust of our present age that has hardly been thought through [at all]. Thinking is not inactivity, but is itself by its very nature an engagement that stands in dialogue with the epochal moment of the world. It seems to me that the distinction between theory and practice comes from metaphysics, and the conception of a transmission between these two blocks the way to insight into what I understand by thinking.
(Heidegger)

Can you let your body become
supple as a newborn child’s?
— Tao

The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. — Genesis

Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
— Tao

The real fact is that the will of man (child) does not
lead to disorder or violence ; these are a mark of devia-
tion and suffering. The will in its natural field is a force
which compels us to carry out actions considered to
benefit our life. The task given by nature to the child is
growth, so the child’s will is a force urging to growth and
development. (Montessori)

Can you love people and lead them
without imposing your will? — Tao

10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. — Genesis

Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?
–Tao

So long as the heaven of Thou is spread out over
the winds of causality cower at my heels, and the
whirlpool of fate stays its course. — Buber

Can you step back from you own mind
and thus understand all things? – Tao

28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. 29 He named him Noah[c] and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.” 30 After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31 Altogether, Lamech lived a total of 777 years, and then he died.
32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
(Genesis)

Giving birth and nourishing,
having without possessing,
acting with no expectations,
leading and not trying to control:
this is the supreme virtue.
— Tao

If this is so, the entire history of the concept of structure, before the rupture of which we are speaking, must be thought of as a series of substitutions of center for center, as a linked chain of determinations of the center. Successively, and in a regulated fashion, the center receives different forms or names. The history of metaphysics, like the history of the West, is the history of these metaphors and metonymies. Its matrix . . . is the determination of Being as presence in all the senses of this word. It would be possible to show that all the names related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the center have always designated an invariable presence—eidos, arche, telos, energeia, ousia (essence, existence, substance, subject) aletheia, transcendentality, consciousness, God, man, and so forth. (Derrida)

Yes. God is seen in the mind. A concrete form may be
seen but still it is only in the devotees’ mind. The form and
appearance in which God manifests are determined by the mind
of the devotee. But that is not the ultimate experience. There is
a sense of duality in it. It is like a dream or vision. After God is
perceived, Self-enquiry begins and that leads to Realisation of
the Self/Atman. Self-enquiry is the ultimate route.
(Sri Ramana Maharshi)

“Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment. — Mathew

18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” — Genesis

2020 (#100) : Malaguzzi , Tao Te Ching , Genesis (Bereshit/Bereishith) , Martin Buber , Montessori , 2 Samuel , Mathew , John , Sri Ramana Maharshi , Heidegger , Derrida , Genesis (Bereshit/Bereishith)

What the child doesn’t want is an observation from
the adult who isn’t really there, who is distracted.
The child wants to know that she is observed, carefully, with full attention. The child wants to be
observed in action. She wants the teacher to see the
process of her work, rather than the product. The
teacher asks the child to take a bucket of water from
one place to the other. It’s not important to the child
that the teacher only sees him arrive with the bucket
of water at the end. What is important to the child is
that the teacher sees the child while the child is
working, while the child is putting out the effort to
accomplish the task — the processes are important,
how much the child is putting into the effort, how
heroic the child is doing this work. What children
want is to be observed while engaged, they do not
want the focus of the observation to be on the final
product. When we as adults are able to see the
children in the process, it’s as if we are opening a
window and getting a fresh view of things. (Malaguzzi)

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn’t possess,
acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever. – Tao

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis)

To the world is twofold, in accordance with his
twofold attitude.
The attitude of man is twofold, in accordance with
the twofold nature of the p ^ ^ ^ words which he speaks.
The primary words are not isolated words, but
combined words. .
The one p ^ ^ ^ word is the combination I-Thou.
The other primary word is the combination I-It;
wherein, without a change in the primary word, one
of the words He and She can replace It.
Hence the I of J;D.an is e.lso twofold.
For the I of the prima^ word I-Thou is a diferent
I from that of the primary word I-It. — Buber

The Tao is called the Great Mother:
empty yet inexhaustible,
it gives birth to infinite worlds.
It is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.
— Tao

I would like to clarify these ideas, basing myself not
on any opinion of my own, but on my experience. First
of all we must admit that there is a great confusion in
these topics. Some biological studies tell us that the will
of man is part of a universal power (horme), and that
this universal force is not physical, but a force of life
along the path of evolution. All life is urged irresistibly
towards evolution, and this urge is called horme*
Evolution is governed by laws and is not haphazard or
casual. These laws of life show us that the will of man
is an expression of that force and shapes his behaviour.
In childhood this force becomes partly conscious as soon
as the child carries out a certain self-determined action and
then this force is developed in children, but only through
experience. So let us begin by saying that the will is
something which must develop and, being natural, it
obeys natural laws. (Montessori)

The Tao is infinite, eternal.
Why is it eternal?
It was never born;
thus it can never die.
Why is it infinite?
It has no desires for itself;
thus it is present for all beings.
— Tao

David longed for water and said, “Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethelehem!”
(2 Samuel)

Primary words do not sig^njfy thithings, but they intimate
relations.
Primary words do not describe something that
might exist independently of them, but b^eing spoken
they bring about existence.
Primary words are spoken from the being.
If Thou is said, the I of the combination I-T^rn is
se.id along with it.
If It is se.id, ■ the I of the combination I-It is raid along
with it.
The primary word I-Thou can only be spoken with
the whole being.
The primary word I-It can never be spoken with the
whole being. — Buber

The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.
— Tao

“If only you had seen all I had to do.” The child
wants this observation. We all want this. This means
that when you learn to observe the child, when you
have assimilated all that it means to observe the
child, you learn many things that are not in books —
educational or psychological. And when you have
done this you will learn to have more diffidence and
more distrust of rapid assessments, tests, judgments.
The child wants to be observed, but she doesn’t want
to be judged. Even when we do judge, things escape
us, we do not see things, so we are not able to evaluate in a wide way. This system of observing children
carries you into many different feelings and thoughts,
into a kind of teaching full of uncertainty and doubt,
and it takes wisdom and a great deal of knowledge
on the part of the teachers to be able to work within
this situation of uncertainty. — Malaguzzi

The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain.
Thus it is like the Tao. — Tao

The life of human beings is not passed in the sphere .
of transitive verbs alone. It does not exist in virtue
of activities alone which have some thing for their
object.
I perceive something. I am sensible of something.
I imagine something. I something. I feel something. I think something. The life of human beings
does not consist of all this and the like alone.
. This and the like together establish the reahn of It.
But the re^m of Thou has a ^fierent basis.
When Thou is spoken, the speaker no ^thing for
his object. For where there is a thing there is another
thing. Every It is bounded by others; It exists only
through being bounded by others. But when Thou is
spoken, there is no thing. Thou has no bounds.
When Thou is spoken, the speaker has no thing; he has
indeed nothing. But he takes his stand in relation. — Buber

7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. — Mathew

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don’t try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.
— Tao

Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
(John)

The doctrine of the Trinity was explained: God the Father is
equivalent to Ishwara, God the Son to the Guru, and God the
Holy Ghost to the Atman. Isvaro gururatmeti murti bheda vibhagine
vyomavad vyapta dehaya dakshinamurtaye namah, means that God
appears to His devotee in the form of a Guru (Son of God) and
points out to him the immanence of the Holy Spirit.
That is to say, that God is Spirit, that this Spirit is immanent
everywhere and that the Self must be realised, which is the same
as realising God. (Sri Ramana Maharshi)

The first help might be the readying of this readiness. It is not through man that the world can be what it is and how it is — but also not without man. In my view, this goes together with the fact that what I call “Being” (that long traditional, highly ambiguous, now worn-out word) has need of man in order that its revelation, its appearance as truth, and its [various] forms may come to pass. The essence of technicity I see in what I call “pos-ure” (Ge-Sull), an often ridiculed and perhaps awkward expression.28 To say that pos-ure holds sway means that man is posed, enjoined and challenged by a power that becomes manifest in the essence of technicity — a power that man himself does not control. Thought asks no more than this: that it help us achieve this insight. Philosophy is at an end. (Heidegger)

… a presence both perceived and not perceived, at once image and model, and hence image without model, neither image nor model, a medium (medium in the sense of middle, neither/nor, what is between extremes, and medium in the sense of element, either, matrix, means). When we have rounded a certain corner in our reading we will place ourselves on that side of the lustre where the “medium” is shining.
(Derrida)

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. — Genesis

2020 (#99) : Malaguzzi , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Montessori , Exodus , Emerson

There are many things that are part of a child’s life
just as they are part of an adult’s life. The desire to
do something for someone, for instance. Every adult
has a need to feel that we are seen/observed by
others. (Observing others is also important.) This is
just as true for children as for adults. Therefore, it’s
possible to observe, to receive a lot of pleasure and
satisfaction from observing in many different ways.
— Malaguzzi

Attachment destroys courage. The giver is always ready to give. The taker is absent. Freedom means letting go. People just do not care to let go everything. They do not know that the finite is the price of the infinite, as death is the price of immortality. Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go everything. The giving up is the first step. But the real giving up is in realising that there is nothing to give up, for nothing is your own. It is like deep sleep — you do not give up your bed when you fall sleep — you just forget it. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

People who are in charge of children of this age
have to serve the psychic needs of the children. It is
not indispensable to know them scientifically. If we say
to a mother : ” Carry the child of one year always with
you, so that he may see the world, and take him where
people talk so that he may hear his mother tongue *\
the mother can understand and the teacher can explain
it very easily. Also the teacher can tell the mother not
to carry a child when he is old enough to walk, not to be
afraid of letting him carry heavy things if he wants to do
so. All these things are easy to understand if the mind
is not encumbered with prejudices. (Montessori)

27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water. — Exodus

“Supreme Mind finds itself related to all its works and will travel a royal road to particular knowledges and powers. In ascending to this primary and aboriginal sentiment we have come from our remote station on the circumference instantaneously to the center of the world, where, as in the closet of God, we seecauses, and anticipate the universe, which is but a slow effect.” — EMERSON

2020 (#97) : Malaguzzi , Montessori , Tao Te Ching , Nietzsche , The Zohar , Exodus , Mathew , Rumi , John Ashbery , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Heidegger , Sri Ramana Maharshi

We need to know how to recognize a new presence,
how to wait for the child. This is something that is
learned, it’s not automatic. We often have to do it
against our own rush to work in our own way. We’ll
discover that our presence, which has to be visible
and warm, makes it possible for us to try to get inside
the child and what that child is doing. And this may
seem to be passive, but it is really a very strong
activity on our part. — Malaguzzi

Thus a transformation and adaptation take place
and what is this but building social life > Basically society
is not founded upon liking, but on a combination of
activities which must harmonize together. By these
children’s experience another social virtue is developed :
patience. This patience is a sort of abnegation of
impulses. Thus the features of the character we call
virtues come by themselves. One cannot teach this type
of morality to children of three years, but experience can.
— Montessori

The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled. — Tao

In this state, your own fullness leads you to enrich everything: whatever you see, whatever you will, you see as swollen, packed, vigorous,
overloaded with strength. In this state you transform things until they are
mirrors of your own power—until they reflect your perfection. This
necessity to transform things into perfection is—art. Even everything that
you are not turns into self-enjoyment; in art, human beings enjoy themselves as perfection.— Nietzsche

We have learned that just as the Torah is renewed by one’s mouth, that
renewal ascends and appears before the Creator. And the Creator accepts this
wisdom, kisses it, and adorns it with seventy adornments. And the renewed
wisdom itself ascends and settles on the head of the righteous that revive the
worlds, and then flies, soaring through 70,000 worlds, until it ascends to Atik,
the Sefira Keter. And all that exists in Atik is concealed, Supernal wisdom
— Zohar

After leaving Sukkoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. 21 By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people. — Exodus

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,[c] your whole body will be full of light.” — Mathew

everywhere
the aroma of God
begins to arrive
(Rumi)

And with it all the city starts to live
As a place where one can believe in moving
To a particular name and be there, and then
It’s more action falling back refreshed into death.
We can survive the storms, wearing us
Like rainbow hats … (John Ashbery)

Your personal body is a part in which the whole is wonderfully reflected. But you have also a universal body. You cannot even say that you do not know it, because you see and experience it all the time. Only you call it ‘the world’ and are afraid of it. (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

Science wants to know nothing of no-thing. But even so it is nonetheless certain that, when it attempts to
talk about its own essence [Wesen],*96 it calls on no-thing for help. It claims for its own what it has
rejected. What sort of conflicted*97 essence unveils itself here?
Reflection on our present life [augenblickliche Existenz] as one determined by science finds us in the
midst of a conflict. In the dispute a question has already presented itself. The question merely needs to
be articulated. How do things stand with no-thing?
(Heidegger)

In yoga the term samadhi refers to some kind of trance and there are various kinds of samadhi. But the samadhi I speak of is different. It is sahaja samadhi. From here you have samadhana [steadiness] and you remain calm and composed even while you are active. You realize that you are moved by the deeper real Self within. You have no worries, no anxieties, no cares, for you come to realize that there is nothing belonging to you. You know that everything is done by something with which you are in conscious union.
(Sri Ramana Maharshi)

2020 (#96) Malaguzzi , Exodus , The Zohar , Rumi , Bhagavad Gita, John Ashbery , Sri Ramana Maharshi , John , Meister Eckhart , Jung , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Montessori , Derrida

We need to produce
situations in which children learn by themselves, in
which children can take advantage of their own
knowledge and resources autonomously, and in
which we guarantee the intervention of the adult as
little as possible. We don’t want to teach children
something that they can learn by themselves. We
don’t want to give them thoughts that they can come
up with by themselves. What we want to do is
activate within children the desire and will and great
pleasure that comes from being the authors of their
own learning. — Malaguzzi

So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand. — Exodus

Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Aba rejoiced, wept, and said, “You sit on the
donkey, and we shall drive it.” He replied to them, “Have I not told you that
it is the command of the King that I act as I do, until the other donkey driver
appears” (this hints at the Mashiach, who, as it is said, will appear poor and
riding a donkey). They said to him, “You have not even told us your name!
Where do you dwell?” He told them, “My dwelling place is wonderful
and very precious to me. It is a tower that soars in the air, grand and unique.
Only two live in this tower: the Creator and I. That is the place, in which
I dwell. And I am exiled from there in order to drive the donkeys.” Rabbi
Elazar and Rabbi Aba looked at him, and his words were unclear to them, for
they tasted sweeter than manna and honey. They said to him, “Perhaps you
will tell us the name of your father, so that we could kiss the earth at his feet?” He responded, “What for? It is not my habit to boast of the Torah.”
— Zohar

Jesus sat humbly on the back of an ass, my child!
How could a zephyr ride an ass?
Spirit, find your way, in seeking lowness like a stream.
Reason, tread the path of selflessness into eternity.
Remember God so much that you are forgotten.
Let the caller and the called disappear;
be lost in the Call.
(Rumi)

Then, from amidst the Pandava army, seated in a glorious chariot drawn by white horses, Madhav and Arjun blew their Divine conch shells.
Hrishikesh blew his conch shell, called Panchajanya, and Arjun blew the Devadutta. Bheem, the voracious eater and performer of herculean tasks, blew his mighty conch, called Paundra.
(Bhagavad Gita)

This cloud imagines us and all that our story
Was ever going to be, and we catch up
To ourselves, but they are the selves of others.
(John Ashbery)

The ‘I’-thought is the ego and that is lost. The real ‘I’ is
‘I am that I am’. The doctrine of the Trinity was explained: God the Father is
equivalent to Ishwara, God the Son to the Guru, and God the
Holy Ghost to the Atman. Isvaro gururatmeti murti bheda vibhagine
vyomavad vyapta dehaya dakshinamurtaye namah, means that God
appears to His devotee in the form of a Guru (Son of God) and
points out to him the immanence of the Holy Spirit.
That is to say, that God is Spirit, that this Spirit is immanent
everywhere and that the Self must be realised, which is the same
as realising God. (Sri Ramana Maharshi)

I have told you this while I’m still with you. 26 However, the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything. He will remind you of everything that I have ever told you. (John 14:25-26)

The Father and the Son have one Will, and that Will is the Holy Spirit, Who gives Himself to the soul so that the Divine Nature permeates the powers of the soul so that it can only do God-like works.

(Meister Eckhart)

——————————

From the Father comes the son, and common to both is the living activity of the Holy Ghost … As he is the third term common to Father and Son, he puts an end to the duality, to the ‘doubt’ in the Son. (Jung)

Attachment destroys courage. The giver is always ready to give. The taker is absent. Freedom means letting go. People just do not care to let go everything. They do not know that the finite is the price of the infinite, as death is the price of immortality. Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go everything. The giving up is the first step. But the real giving up is in realising that there is nothing to give up, for nothing is your own.
— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The children chose
those objects which aided their construction of themselves.
In the beginning there were many toys, but the children
did not use them. There were many types of objects
for teaching colour, the children chose only one type :
the colour tablets which we now use. This happened
in all countries alike. Also with the size of the objects
and the intensity of colour the choice of the children was
taken as the determining factor. (Montessori)

The configurative unity of these significations-the power of speech, the
creation of being and life, the sun (which is also, as we shall see, the eye),
rhe self-concealment-is conjugated in what could be called the history of
the egg or the egg of history. The world came out of an egg. More precisely,
the living creator of the life of the world came out of an egg: the sun, then,
was at first carried in an eggshell. Which explains a number of AmmonRa’s
characteristics: he is also a bird, a falcon (“I am the great falcon,
harched from his egg”). But in his capacity as origin of everything,
Ammon-Ra is also the origin of the egg. He is designated sometimes as the
bird-sun born from the primal egg, sometimes as the originary bird, carrier
of the first egg
(Derrida)

2020 (#95) : Malaguzzi , Exodus , The Zohar , Exodus , Mathew , Deleuze , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , The Zohar , Tao Te Ching , Derrida , Mathew , Meister Eckhart , Nietzsche

We need to define the role of the adult, not as a
transmitter but as a creator of relationships —
relationships not only between people but also
between things, between thoughts, with the environment.
— Malaguzzi

21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. — Exodus

Onto these Heavens and their hosts were created in
MA, as it is said, ‘When I behold the Heavens, the works of Your hands,’ and it
is said, ‘MA, how glorious Your name is throughout all the earth, which You set
Above the Heavens, it ascends in name.’ That is why it created Light for Light,
clothed this into this, and elevated in the Supernal Name, this the Creator
created in the beginning. This is the Supernal Creator, for MA is not such and
was not created.” — Zohar

During that long period, the king of Egypt died. — Exodus

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. — Mathew

Zarathustra”s two animals, the eagle and the serpent. Interpreted from
the point of view of the eternal return the eagle is like the great cycle,
the cosmic period, and the serpent is like the individual destiny
inserted into this great period. But this precise interpretation is
nevertheless insufficient, because it presupposes the eternal return
and says nothing about the preconstituent elements from which it
derives. The eagle flies in wide circles, a serpent wound round its
neck, “not like a prey but like a friend”. We see
here the necessity for the proudest affirmation to be accompanied,
paralleled, by a second affirmation which takes it as its object.
— Deleuze

When the words are spoken, there is silence. When the relative is over, the absolute remains. The silence before the words were spoken, is it different from the silence that comes after? The silence is one and without it the words could not have been heard. It is always there — at the back of the words. Shift your attention from words to silence and you will hear it.
— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Thus, “the Heavens declare the work of His hands.” These are the friends
who have united in the bride (Malchut) by studying the Torah on the night
of the holiday of Shavuot. They are all participants of the covenant with her,
and are called “the work of His hands.” And she praises and notes each and
every one of them. What is Heaven, firmament? It is the firmament, where
the sun, the moon, the stars, and the zodiac are located. This firmament is
called the Book of Remembrance, and it declares and records them, so they
shall become the sons of His palace, and He will fulfill all their desires.
— Zohar

Form that includes all forms, image without an image, subtle, beyond all conception. (Tao Te Ching)
——————————
challenged toward its upmost possibility of being (ahead of itself)
(Derrida)

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect — Mathew

The peace, freedom and blessedness of all souls consist in their abiding in God’s will. Towards this union with God for which it is created the soul strives perpetually.
(Meister Eckhart)

testing it with a foot, like a good dancer; to always feel kissed with a ray of sunlight and happiness
(Nietzsche)

2020 (#94) Malaguzzi , Genesis , The Zohar , Exodus , Mathew , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Montessori , Deleuze , Emerson , Nietzsche

We have to understand that children are moving
and working with many ideas, but their most important task is to build relationships with friends. They
are trying to understand what friendship is. Children
grow in many directions together, but a child is
always in search of relationships. Children get to
know each other through all their senses. Touching
the hair of another child is very important. Smell is
important. This is a way children are able to understand the identity of themselves and the identity of
others. — Malaguzzi

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. — Genesis

He engraved inside a concealed, sacred candle an image of a concealed
image of the holy of holies. A profound structure emerged from the depth of
that thought, and it is called MI – who, which is the inception of the structure
both standing and not standing, which is hidden deep inside the name.
–Zohar

Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.– Exodus

Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
— Mathew

By being with yourself, the ‘I am’; by watching yourself in your daily life with alert interest, with the intention to understand rather than to judge, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge, because it is there, you encourage the deep to come to the surface and enrich your life and consciousness with its captive energies. This is the great work of awareness; it removes obstacles and releases energies by understanding the nature of life and mind. Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.
(Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

To know, to love and to serve is preached in all
religions, but it is the child who is the constructor of our
spirituality ; he has revealed that nature has a plan for
our behaviour or character, a careful plan determined in
age and functioning and needing freedom and intense
activity following life’s own laws. Repetition of the
exercise is followed in intellectual as well as physical
exercises ; and it is not physics or botany or cleaning
one’s shoes that is achieved merely, but the will and the
elements of the spirit are built. The adult can make use
of that will which the child builds up, so the child is the
spiritual builder of us all. Discoveries we make, when
adults, often fall on our own heads (as actually in the
recent war) because we have forgotten the soul the child
has built or, more often, prevented him from building it
normally. (Montessori)

“An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.” — Exodus

It is not
called, but only MI – who. He desired to reveal Himself and to be called this
name, so He clothed Himself in a precious, radiant garment and created ELEH,
and ELEH ascended in name. These letters combined with these, and the name
Elokim was completed. — Zohar

What is affirmation in all its power? Nietzsche does not do away with
the concept of being. He proposes a new conception of being. Affirmation is being. Being is not the object of affirmation, any more than
it is an element which would present itself, which would give itself
over to affirmation. Affirmation is not the power of being, on the
contrary. Affirmation itself is being, being is solely affirmation in all
its power. — Deleuze

“Supreme Mind finds itself related to all its works and will travel a royal road to particular knowledges and powers. In ascending to this primary and aboriginal sentiment we have come from our remote station on the circumference instantaneously to the center of the world, where, as in the closet of God, we see causes, and anticipate the universe, which is but a slow effect.”
(Emerson)

—————————————————————————–

There is one question left over. Art also brings to light a lot that is ugly,
hard, and questionable about life—doesn’t it seem to spoil life in this
way?—And in fact, there have been philosophers who gave it this meaning: “liberation from the will” is what Schopenhauer taught as the entire
aim of art, and “creating a mood of resignation” is what he honored as the
great utility of tragedy.—
But this—as I already indicated—is a pessimist’s perspective and the
“evil eye”: one has to appeal to the artists themselves. What do tragic artists communicate about themselves? Isn’t it precisely a condition of fearlessness in the face of the frightening and questionable things that they show
us?—This condition itself is something desirable; whoever knows it honors it with the highest honors. He communicates it, he has to communicate it, as long as he is an artist, a genius at communication. Bravery and
freedom of feeling in the face of a powerful enemy, a sublime catastrophe,
a horrifying problem—this victorious condition is what tragic artists
select, what they ennoble. — Nietzsche

2020 (#93) : Malaguzzi , Exodus , The Zohar , Mathew , Mundaka Upanishad , Deleuze , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

We have to let children be with children. Children
learn a lot from other children, and adults learn
from children being with children. Children love to
learn among themselves, and they learn things that
it would never be possible to learn from interactions
with an adult. The interaction between children is a
very fertile and a very rich relationship. If it is left to
ferment without adult interference and without that
excessive assistance that we sometimes give, then
it’s more advantageous to the child. We don’t want
to protect something that doesn’t need to be protected– Malaguzzi

She named him Moses,[b] saying, “I drew him out of the water.”
— Exodus

He told me: “Rabbi, there was one thing concealed before the Creator,
which He revealed to the Supernal Assembly, and it is this. When the concealed
of all the concealed desired to reveal Himself, He first made one single point,
and this point ascended and became a Thought. With it, He drew all the forms
and with it engraved all the images.” — Zohar

Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy. — Mathew

‘His phases return to their source, his senses to their gods, his personal self and all his actions to the impersonal imperishable Self/Atman.
(Mundaka Upanishad Book 3)

Universal and singular, changless and particular, infinite and finite
-what are these? Nothing but symptoms. What is this particular, this
single, this infinite? And what is this universal, this changeless, this
infinite? The former is subject, but which subject, which forces? The
latter is predicate or object, but what will is it “object” of?
— Deleuze

It is not the person that is doing sadhana. The person is in unrest and resistance to the very end. It is the witness that works on the person, on the totality of its illusions, past, present and future.
— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj