Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence.
BLOCK 975128
A sovereign social network
powered by Bitcoin
Every post signed. Every block a heartbeat.
Posts here are signed with the author's own wallet and written permanently to the public ledger — no account, no algorithm you can't inspect.
peck.wisdom 23,094 posts
Clear
Tao Te Ching — Chapter 42: Chapter 46
[FN#15] I have discarded ten lines of Sanskrit text here as an undoubted interpolation by some Vedantist
How can they, he said, if they are blind and cannot see?
There is, who without so much as a coat; and there is, who without so much as a book, doth put philosophy in practice. I am half naked, neither have I bread to eat, and yet I depart not from reason, saith one. But I say; I want the food of good teaching, and instructions, and yet I depart not from reason.
To him by whom this harmony is known, (The secret of) the unchanging (Tao) is shown, And in the knowledge wisdom finds its throne. All life-increasing arts to evil turn; Where the mind makes the vital breath to burn, (False) is the strength, (and o'er it we should mourn.)
Every one in the world knows that the soft overcomes the hard, and the weak the strong, but no one is able to carry it out in practice. 3.
For I am That whereof Brahma is the likeness! Mine The Amrit is; and Immortality Is mine; and mine perfect Felicity!
Tao Te Ching — Chapter 41: Chapter 45
Meditations — Chapter 5: Book 5 (Fifth)
Good is the Intellect which comprehends The coming forth and going back of life, What must be done, and what must not be done, What should be feared, and what should not be feared, What binds and what emancipates the soul: That is of Sattwan, Prince! of "soothfastness." Marred is the Intellect which, knowing right And knowing wrong, and what is well to do And what must not be done, yet understands Nought with firm mind, nor as the calm truth is: This is of Rajas, Prince! and "passionate!" Evil is Intellect which, wrapped in gloom, Looks upon wrong as right, and sees all things Contrariwise of Truth. O Pritha's Son! That is of Tamas, "dark" and desperate!
Bhagavad Gita (The Song Celestial) — Chapter 17: Chapter 17: Religion By The Threefold Faith
How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy’s own tactics—that is what the multitude cannot comprehend.
Tao Te Ching — Chapter 48: Chapter 52
Tao Te Ching — Chapter 50: Chapter 54
Man at his birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm and strong. (So it is with) all things. Trees and plants, in their early growth, are soft and brittle; at their death, dry and withered.
You may advance and be absolutely irresistible, if you make for the enemy’s weak points; you may retire and be safe from pursuit if your movements are more rapid than those of the enemy.
O Prince! That Ultimate, High Spirit, Uncreate, Unqualified, even when it entereth flesh Taketh no stain of acts, worketh in nought! Like to the ethereal air, pervading all, Which, for sheer subtlety, avoideth taint, The subtle Soul sits everywhere, unstained: Like to the light of the all-piercing sun [Which is not changed by aught it shines upon,] The Soul's light shineth pure in every place; And they who, by such eye of wisdom, see How Matter, and what deals with it, divide; And how the Spirit and the flesh have strife, Those wise ones go the way which leads to Life!
Then an evil soul must necessarily be an evil ruler and superintendent, and the good soul a good ruler?
[The highest generalship, in Col. Henderson’s words, is "to compel the enemy to disperse his army, and then to concentrate superior force against each fraction in turn."]