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The highest stage in moral culture at which we can arrive, is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts.
--
volume I, chapter III: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals — continued", page 101

 

Charles Darwin

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The highest spirituality indeed moves in a free and wide air far above that lower stage of seeking which is governed by religious form and dogma; it does not easily bear their limitations and, even when it admits, it transcends them; it lives in an experience which to the formal religious mind is unintelligible. But man does not arrive immediately at that highest inner elevation and, if it were demanded from him at once, he would never arrive there. At first he needs lower supports and stages of ascent; he asks for some scaffolding of dogma, worship, image, sign, form, symbol, some indulgence and permission of mixed half-natural motive on which he can stand while he builds up in him the temple of the spirit. Only when the temple is completed, can the supports be removed, the scaffolding disappear. The religious culture which now goes by the name of Hinduism not only fulfilled this purpose, but, unlike certain credal religions, it knew its purpose. It gave itself no name, because it set itself no sectarian limits; it claimed no universal adhesion, asserted no sole infallible dogma, set up no single narrow path or gate of salvation; it was less a creed or cult than a continuously enlarging tradition of the Godward endeavour of the human spirit. An immense many-sided many-staged provision for a spiritual self-building and self-finding, it had some right to speak of itself by the only name it knew, the eternal religion, Sanâtana Dharma. It is only if we have a just and right appreciation of this sense and spirit of Indian religion that we can come to an understanding of the true sense and spirit of Indian culture.

 

Sri Aurobindo

 

I am not astonished that we receive so many enthusiastic responses to our Peace Banner. The past is filled with deplorable, sad and irreparable destructions. We see that not only in times of war but also during other errors, creations of human genius are destroyed. At the same time the elite of humanity understand that no evolution is possible without the cumulations of Culture. We understand how indescribably difficult are the ways of Culture. Hence the more carefully must we guard the paths which lead to it. It is our duty to create for the young generation traditions of Culture; where there is Culture, there is Peace; there is achievement; there is the right solution for the difficult social problems. Culture is the accumulation of highest Bliss, highest Beauty, highest Knowledge.

 

Nicholas Roerich

 

Learning to control your thoughts, instead of allowing your thoughts to control you, is probably the single greatest key to successful living. p.89

 

Kris Vallotton

 

I rarely feel the desire to reread a scene the day before the shooting. Sometimes I arrive at the place where the work is to be done and I do not even know what I am going to shoot. This is the system I prefer: to arrive at the moment when shooting is about to begin, absolutely unprepared, virgin. I often ask to be left alone on the spot for fifteen minutes or half an hour and I let me thoughts wander freely.

 

Michelangelo Antonioni

 

I turned my thoughts to a still more novel mode..to compose pictures on canvas similar to representations on the stage...my picture is my stage,and men and women my players exhibited in a 'dumb' show.

 

William Hogarth