Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
A civilization may be compared to a river. It has an origin (a spring, or family of springs), it has a run (self-made) and it has a destiny (an alluvium and then a sea).
Civilization worthy of the name originates in three springs: Reason (Logos), Exposition of Sacred Scripture (Ékthesi tis ierís grafís), and Work (Leitourgia). In Bharathia civilization, these springs are Jnana Yoga (Knowledge), Bhakti Yoga (Love) and Karma Yoga (Deeds), respectively. These springs — all giving the same cold, clean, nourishing water, all strong and heavy — start high then empty themselves (kenosis), gradually, gathering like to like, along the way they choose to fulfill their riverine destiny.
Civilization worthy of the name works out its own destiny, facing, overcoming, modifying or accommodating obstructions and other realities it encounters on its way to alluvium and a sea. The river of a civilization scours a pathway for itself, all fresh and washed and rinsed. It moves land and water. It purifies, it refines, it exposes creatures to sunlight and accepts their demise. It feeds and cleans the remains of creatures comprising countless individuals and species. It dissolves and it aggregates the mathematics and the chemistries of life. It builds memories and sweeps them away. It shelters and nourishes human activity both fundamental and exotic. It distributes creatures across geographies and nourishes them, giving them food and freedom of movement. All this and more stand out from three springs sourcing the river of a civilization: Reason, Exposition of Sacred Scripture and Work.
Civilization worthy of the name by its nature drives towards thriving prosperity from a wide, rich warmth of nutrients it generates, refines and delivers. These would be alluvial fields for foods to support scholarship, pedagogy, volunteer services — to include protective services — industries and commerce and manual skills. And yet more creatures large and small, fascinating and terrifying altogether.
Using this metaphor comparing civilizations to rivers, we can say that civilizations differ by the geography at their springs, the geographies of their runs — and creatures’ reactions to those runs and the waters in them — and the geographies at their alluvia and points of mergence with a sea. The water rising to generate a civilization is the same, or nearly so, from civilization to civilization, river to river, so to speak. But what happens to and because of the water and its run — that is, what happens to and because of civilization — at and beyond its origin is not the same from civilizations to civilization.
Combinations and permutations of three variables cause civilizations, like personalities, to differ one from another, often dramatically so (and here). These variables are: Reason, Exposition of Sacred Scripture and Work. The variables themselves are constant. Their combinations and permutations constantly change yet form patterns of deep, immutable differences between civilizations.
The geography around some springs causes the discharge of their burden to form a lake which later begins discharging its contents. The geography around some springs causes their discharge to form a stream right away and this becomes a river as it gathers water from other streams. Streams and rivers flow to and then through geological, atmospheric and zoological particularities, chemical and physical presences, handiwork of creatures and prodigies of terra firma and terra profunda. Finally, rivers discharge their burdens of inorganic and organic materials in a low plain, an alluvium, prior to and just after entering a sea.
Just so, a civilization descends from three springs — Reason, Exposition of Sacred Scripture and Work — through harrowing ecosystems interaction with which generates unique qualities that will interact originally and later enrich a usually placid alluvium before rejoining a sector of mother nature’s largest caravanserai: the sea. The descent of a civilization from its pristine sources through many conflicts, internal and external, to a rich but fleeting reward before and after dissolving into its proto-source, prepared for re-pristinization, even perhaps enhanced-pristinization, describes also the careers of its members.
Life occurs along the rivers, be they above ground or below ground, and not otherwise. Just so, civilization occurs where there is Reason, Exposition of Sacred Scripture and Work, be they promulgated or suppressed, and not otherwise.
Reason, Exposition of Sacred Scripture and Work are the three co-equal authors of civilization. Polluting, restricting or obstructing those authorities harms everything downstream from them. And everything is downstream from those three. Everything.
Update 1: Everyone experiences fear and anger, in themselves and in others. It is no sin to have those experiences. They belong to the writ of human-hood. But to act in fear or anger is demonic. That is a sin. Unless done for a very grand purpose only God can see the reasons for and a man must accomplish, on faith, without being able to justify it except upon seeing that its outcome is quiet, which should be the outcome of all action.
Update 2: “He has ended a CIA program in Syria to arm and train non-jihadist Syrian rebels fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad ….”
Oh dear, God help us! Paul, they are Moslem Brotherhood/AQ, Turkey-backed elements CIA/Power/Rice/HRC/The Fraud and John McCain and others in Congress have been supporting. Jihadists of the first water.
McCain met with them a while back in Syria. Pictures exist. Tulsi Gabbard was talking about this before she got spanked by her own party for going out of her lane in re Syria (her visit there, to highlight USA — specifically CIA — arming ISIS and other Salafi Jihad groups, of which there is a plethora, worldwide and in Syria).
DOD has been supporting Iraqi government/Kurdish forces against ISIS and Salafi Jihad altogether, CIA has been supporting Iran/Moslem Brotherhood/AQ forces nominally against ISIS but actually against Iraqi government and Kurds and for Turkey. CIA has been equipping and training (badly, by the way, as usual) Salafi Jihadis in Syria and some other places. So USA government has been split in twain, exactly as Gabbard said, arming/training friend and foe, though through separate agencies.
CIA got Libyan arms to Moslem Brotherhood and AQ elements in 2012, which means also to ISIS (they are all Salafi Jihadis), Stevens and others murdered during that transfer process.
POTUS Trump/Director Pompeo did exactly the right thing here. DOD has been right all along: foster Iraqi independence, sovereignty, and Kurdish national sentiments and war-fighting abilities. And so they have. CIA was mucking about as usual just really causing chaos and helping the wrong lot.
Trump/Pompeo stopped CIA — and State — from supporting the Salafi Jihad. And they had to to keep their side of the faith with the GCC, who also agreed to stop supporting Salafi Jihad (except Qatar, who continues doing so, apparently). AQ, ISIS, Moslem Brotherhood, Turkey and their many fronts are all elements of Salafi Jihad!
This is remedial primer stuff, why am I having to mention it?!? 16 years on!!!
Update 3: Young people and others today lack strength to bind their consciousness to truth, to facts.
Update 4: 1- Wean oneself off eating anything with a face or that could have a face if allowed to mature.
2- Wean oneself off straight cow’s milk and onto pre-digested cow’s milk, aka yoghurt, cheese.
3- Wean oneself off refined sugar.
4- Eat several times from a small plate rather than three times from a big plate.
5- Eat to ¾ full, or less.
6- Do not mix protein and starch at the same meal.
7- Eat two or three things only at a sitting, one being a liquid.
8- Eat when hungry, not by the clock, and then just small amounts at a time.
9- Eat for nourishment, not for fun.
Update 5: “In 1968, – Cardinal Francis J. Stafford recalls – something terrible happened in the Church. Within the priestly ministry, among friends, splits occurred everywhere, which would never ever again be repaired; those wounds continue to afflict the entire Church” (1968, l’anno della prova, in L’Osservatore Romano, 25th July 2008).
It should be noted that Monsignor Marengo does not propose to read Amoris laetitia along the lines of the hermeneutic of continuity. He does not deny the existence of a contradiction between the two documents: he admits that Amoris laetitia authorizes what Humanæ Vitæ prohibits. But he retains that every theological and doctrinal antithesis should be relativized and superseded in a synthesis which is able to reconcile opposites. The true dichotomy is that between the abstract and the concrete, between truth and life. What counts, for Monsignor Marengo, is to immerse oneself in pastoral praxis, without bending to “too abstract and artificially constructed theological ideals.”
It will be praxis and not doctrine that indicates the line of action. Behavior, in short, is born of behavior. And no behavior can be subject to abstract theological and moral valuations. “Models for life” do not exist, there is only the flow of life, which accepts everything, justifies everything, sanctifies everything. The principle of immanence, struck down by St. Pius X in the encyclical Pascendi (1907), has been re-proposed in an exemplary manner.
Update 6: A nation state maintains her sovereignty by being able to defeat, or by defeating, belligerents, or by having no belligerents eyeing her. In plain terms, that means by three vectors of force: diplomacy, finance, war-fighting. And in depth terms, that means by having full-spectrum armed forces able to succeed at their mission, which is to defend and protect their nation’s sovereignty.
Proximately, Eisenhower’s words were a slap at GOA MacArthur, who chaired Remington Rand for a while, evoking Leftist’s favorite portrayal of MacArthur as “the man on horseback” (reference the Bonus March, where Eisenhower also was, as one of MacArthur’s young aides). Ultimately, his words warned about graft at the nexus of politics (money, showboating), defense spending (essential but not to be wasteful) and business (innovation and profit). The nexus is necessary and unavoidable, but it is fraught with opportunity for scams.
Of course, so are other nexi, such as that of politics, education/media and big law. But equivalence is obvious and does not detract from the warning about graft between politicians, acquisition teams and manufacturing reps. In dollar amounts, graft now at the nexus of politics, education/media and big law — and other nexi involving politics — probably exceeds that at the nexus of politics, defense and industry.
The wrong at these nexi is not the nexi themselves, it is the graft that occurs inside them. Eisenhower could have been more specific about the danger he accurately saw. Union and Confederate commanders had to deal with exactly the same phenomenon involving themselves and their needs, on the one hand, and, on the other, vagaries and rapacities from politicians and sutlers.
Update 7: Saudi And The Brotherhood: From Friends To Foes
Al-Banna saw the Brotherhood as an all-encompassing movement that he famously described as a Salafiyya message, a Sunni way, a Sufi truth, a political organization, an athletic group, a cultural-educational union, an economic company and a social idea.
Update 8: A hangover is the wrath of grapes …
Update 9: Standard communist sadistic procedure: reduce everyone to groveling, relish viewing their dreary misery. The wall keeps victims inside for further hell-visiting upon them. Only secondarily does it protect against invasion from outside. Moving the wall forward to enclose new territory is done, if possible, to increase the number of persons subject to sadistic procedures inside the wall. This is communism, expected at NYT because expected of sadists.
Update 10: Lots of people would like to break NYT and its owners’ sententious spite for not their crowd. That will not and cannot happen. Their spite runs too deep for drills and has no agency for self-criticism. And Helen Keller they are not.
Update 11: Heraclitus:
Is a woman never more beautiful than when with her family.
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
In the beginning was the Creation of the Universe. This has made a lot of people angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Update 12: A kindly old geezer, with a cane, a wrinkled face, and a headful of white hair, goes to the White House. He speaks to the uniformed Secret Service agent at the gate, and insists that he must urgently speak to President Hillary Clinton. The Secret Service agent — who clearly did a stint in the Marine Corps — answers politely that, no, sir, there is no President Hillary Clinton; she lost the election. The President is Trump, Donald Trump. The old man says “thank you” and leaves.
But the next day the old man is back, insisting that he must see President Hillary Clinton. The Secret Service agent says, “Sir, I explained to you yesterday. THERE IS NO PRESIDENT HILLARY CLINTON. Mrs. Clinton lost; Mr. Trump won. He is the President. You got that, sir?” The old man thanks him and leaves.
The next day, sure enough, the old man is back, asking if he can please meet with President Hillary Clinton. The Secret Service agent, trying not to get annoyed, says, “Sir, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve already told you — there is no President Hillary Clinton! The President is Trump, President Donald J. Trump. Can you please try to remember that, sir?”
The old man replies, “Oh, I remember it just fine. But it brightens my whole day to hear you say it.”
The Secret Service agent is thunderstruck … and then he snaps the old man a crisp salute, and says, “See you tomorrow, sir.”
Update 13: Stability Is Not An Objective
Looters want stability. Builders want opportunity.
Update 14: The Saudi Connection: Wahhabism And Global Jihad
Update 15: Angela Merkel Reflects Fear and Loathing Amid EU Elites ….
Update 16: What are the learned theorists in North America and Europe planning to do about this global epidemic of mental illness?
Update 17: Michael Totten is getting it, gradually: Turkey Is Behaving Like An Enemy Now
Update 18: Tulsi Gabbard’s Stop Arming Terrorists Act: Its main aim, as Gabbard describes it, is to force the C.I.A. to stop aiding militants in Syria.
Update 10: The biggest roll up of them all, if true, and I suspect it is: MBS has ordered text criticism of the Haditha. I learned of this from a commenter, James Dill, at a post by Steven Hayward at Power Line. Hayward has been following the Saudi internal cleansing for Team PL. Here are comments others made and to which I responded chasing this subject at Steven’s post:
James Dill:
Exegesis in Sunni Islam?
According to the Saudi Minister of Culture and Information Awwad Bin Saleh al-Awwad, a council of senior scholars will be established for the complex and will consist of prominent Hadith scholars in the world. They will, the UAE’s National tells us: … look to “eliminate fake and extremist texts and any texts that contradict the teachings of Islam and justify the committing of crimes, murders and terrorist acts.”
Why is this potentially such a big deal? Because the texts that they’re talking about potentially assessing as fake and eliminating are among the Ahadith (hadith).
David R, Graham:
Thank you, I had not seen this. And yes, this IS a VERY BIG deal. (Sorry, heuristic considerations drove me to the caps.)
For years I have mentioned that text criticism (of the several standard types) of Islamic literature, including Koran — and if they do Hadith, they will get to Koran, as Zafar implies, because of the logic of the effort — is the only sure way to defeat the Salafi and Shia Jihads (hegemonic puritanisms, which all puritanisms are, e.g., SJWs/Progressives/Lefties here today). So, some Sauds grasp that fact as well. This is indeed good news.
Luther’s 95 Theses rested on and invited text criticism of key Christian literature, to include the Bible. Text criticism was their engine and the engine of the Reformation. So yeah, Hayward is right, the Arabs had their Enlightenment before they had its precursor, Reformation. An irony there is that Wahhab commenced the Salafi Jihad specifically to counter the several (by country) Enlightenments in the orbit of the Latin Church.
The Bush/Obama/Brennan/Clinton/McCain/Deep State/Globalist New World Order delenda est, thanks to text criticism.
Alan Saunders:
If only the British stood by their WWI allies the Hashemites.
David R. Graham:
Alan Saunders Indeed. Both Lawrence and Allenby argued for the Hashemites. The British FO (i.e., The East India Co., who needed coaling stations along the east and west coasts of Arabia), their suspected (and actual) traitor St. John Philby (Kim’s father) and the puritan stoner Woodrow Wilson flipped British/US policy to favor sheep stealer Ibn Saud, who had sat out the war, unlike Faisal the Hashemite, who fought the war and whom Lawrence and the British Army (Allenby) supported doing so.
It was a geo-political betrayal of the first water by Wilson and the British FO. Later, the American Charles Crane, representing Standard Oil, standardized US-Saudi relations by setting up ARAMCO after oil was discovered in eastern Arabia, al Saud lands and some not, but soon to be.
Hashemites left western Arabia, moved to Iraq and Jordan, but left in western Arabia the congeniality (Mutazilite Islam) with modernity MBS is now exploiting to draw tourism there. Basically, al Saud has decided to make an effort — historically, they shun labor, prefer theft and slaves — to become self-reliant.
Amit Rege:
I hope the new Saudi rulers stop their funding of mosques and charities across the world. This will defund the radicals all over the world.
Steve Hayward:
Precisely. I’ll be looking for information about that in the coming months. It’s very high risk for the crown prince: it was the Shah’s modernizations in Iran in the 1970s that helped fuel the fundamentalist revolutions against him.
David R. Graham:
Steve Hayward modernizations were land ownership changes, deep ones, forced. White Revolution. Impacted ayatollahs, who led the counter-attack. Difference now, I think, is Saudi clergy-police also want modern world (facts), having been convinced (battlefield, al-Sisi, Trump) Salafism is a losing bet.
So, yes, key indicator will be whether or not Saudi funding of Salafi mosques/clerics around the world scales down or not. I am very glad you are on this one, probably, IMO, the single most important generative engine currently functioning. And POTUS Trump approves it.
Stuff is going on to which we, or at least I, have no access. I get the feeling things officially talked about as in the future are things about which decisions are already made and executions in train.
The world is sated with analysts.
It is desperate for craftsmen.
And by world I do not mean voters.
I mean the dimension of spirit, geist, pneuma.
If you lie, cheat or steal,
you have no prestige in this world or the next.
If you tolerate those who lie, cheat or steal,
you are condemned in this world and the next.
Update 11: Gabbard’s Presidential Run Strikes Fear In DNC Heart
Update 13: Cynthia Farahat: Who Is Sisi Of Egypt? A Reformer.
Update 14: Tulsi’s Last Stand?
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
