Category: Spirituality

Your Enemies

Sensual passions are your first enemy.
Your second is called Discontent.
Your third is Hunger & Thirst.
Your fourth is called Craving.
Fifth is Sloth & Drowsiness.
Sixth is called Terror.
Your seventh is Uncertainty.
Hypocrisy & Stubbornness, your eighth.
Gains, Offerings, Fame, & Status wrongly gained,
and whoever would praise self
& disparage others.
That, Namuci, is your enemy,
the Dark One’s commando force.

A coward can’t defeat it,
but one having defeated it
gains bliss.

~ Gautama Buddha, translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

More Ayn Rand

aston_martin_one_77_images_001

“In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title.

Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach.

Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.”

~ Part Three / Chapter 7 This is John Galt Speaking

Ayn Rand

“The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. But to win it requires total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence, which is man, for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the morality of life and yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.”

~ Ayn Rand’s last public speech (New Orleans Nov 1981)

What do you give?

“You give little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?

And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?
There are those who give little of the much which they have- and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.

These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;

They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon earth.”

~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Gāyatrī Mantra

The Gāyatrī Mantra is a highly revered mantra, based on a Vedic Sanskrit verse from a hymn of the Rigveda (3.62.10), attributed to the rishi Viśvāmitra. The mantra is named for its vedic gāyatrī metre. As the verse invokes the deva Savitr, it is also called Sāvitrī. Its recitation is traditionally preceded by oṃ and the formula bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ, known as the mahāvyāhṛti (“great utterance”).

The Gayatri Mantra is repeated and cited very widely in vedic literature, and praised in several well-known classical Hindu texts such as Manusmṛti, Harivamsa, and the Bhagavad Gita. The mantra is an important part of the upanayanam ceremony for young males in Hinduism, and has long been recited by Brahmin males as part of their daily rituals. Modern Hindu reform movements spread the practice of the mantra to include women and all castes and its use is now very widespread.

Gayatri Mantra

Om Bhur Bhuvah Svaha
Tat Savitur Varenyam
Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi
Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayat

Translation

Om: Para Brahman
Bhur: The Physical plane
Bhuvah: The Astral plane
Svaha: The Celestial plane
Tat: Ultimate Reality
Savitur: The Source of All
Varenyam: Fit to be worshiped
Bhargo: The Spiritual effulgence
Devasya: Divine Reality
Dhimahi: We meditate
Dhiyo: Intellect
Yo: Which
Nah: Our
Prachodayat: Enlighten

General Translation

We meditate upon the spiritual effulgence of that adorable supreme divine reality
Who is the source of the physical, the astral and the heavenly spheres of existence.
May that supreme divine being enlighten our intellect, so that we may realise the supreme truth.

Avatar

In Hinduism, Avatar or Avatāra (Devanagari अवतार, Sanskrit for “descent” [viz., from heaven to earth]) refers to a deliberate descent of a deity from heaven to earth, and is mostly translated into English as “incarnation”, but more accurately as “appearance” or “manifestation”.

The term is most often associated with Vishnu, though it has also come to be associated with other deities. Varying lists of avatars of Vishnu appear in Hindu scriptures, including the ten (Daśāvatāra) of the Garuda Purana and the twenty-two avatars in the Bhagavata Purana, though the latter adds that the incarnations of Vishnu are innumerable. The avatars of Vishnu are a primary component of Vaishnavism. An early reference to avatar, and to avatar doctrine, is in the Bhagavad Gita.

In a 2007 interview with Time magazine, director James Cameron was asked about the meaning of the term “Avatar“, to which he replied, “It’s an incarnation of one of the Hindu gods taking a flesh form.” On the specific reason for the choice of blue as the Avatar’s skin color, Cameron said “I just like blue. It’s a good color … plus, there’s a connection to the Hindu deities, which I like conceptually.

What is a Journey?

Long version

Client: Louis Vuitton
Title: A Journey
Agency: Ogilvy, Paris
Creative: Christian Reuilly
Agency Producer: Laure Bayle

Production Company: Quad Productions, Paris
Director: Bruno Aveillan
Producer: Martin Coulais
DP: Philippe Lesourd
Cameraman: Bruno Aveillan

Post-Production: WIZZ Paris
Post-Producer: Manuel Beard
Editor: Fred Olszak
Flame Artist: Bruno Maillard
Special Effects/Processes: WIZZ, Paris
Music: Gustavo-Santaolalla

The Sound and the Fury

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

Endless knot

The endless knot or eternal knot (Sanskrit: Shrivatsa; Tibetan Dpal be’u) is a symbolic knot and one of the Eight Auspicious Symbols. It is an important cultural marker in places significantly influenced by Tibetan Buddhism such as Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva, Kalmykia, and Buryatia. It is also sometimes found in Chinese art and used in Chinese knots.

The endless knot has been described as “an ancient symbol representing the interweaving of the Spiritual path, the flowing of Time and Movement within That Which is Eternal. All existence, it says, is bound by time and change, yet ultimately rests serenely within the Divine and the Eternal.”