quote · Words worth keeping
Every increase in objectivity takes us further from reality.
Every increase in objectivity takes us further from reality.
Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Nanavira Thera
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Date unknown
The voice behind the words.
More from Nanavira Thera ↗More to explore
01Undated
Listening to Beethoven also is sensuality, but when you have said 'sex' you have said all. A man who can give up sex can give up Beethoven.
↗Nanavira Thera / quote
02Undated
The relationship between these four attitudes—objectivity, immediacy, subjectivity, and reflexion—is worth consideration. At first sight it might seem that there is no difference between immediacy and subjectivity, or between objectivity and reflexion. Subjectivity and objectivity, certainly, are opposed; and so are immediacy and reflexion. But immediacy (which is naive acceptance of whatever is presented) is compatible with objectivity, as we see from Thomas Huxley's advice to the scientist: 'Sit down before fact as a little child'—; and reflexion is compatible with subjectivity (for subjectivity is 'being oneself', and reflexion, being 'self awareness', is within subjectivity). In emotional excitement objectivity and reflexion alike tend to vanish, and subjectivity then approximates to immediacy. It is this that gives subjectivity its bad name; for few people know of any subjectivity beyond emotional immediacy. Their escape from emotion is towards objectivity, in the form of distractions, rather than towards reflexion, which is the more difficult way of self control. Goethe once described the advice 'Know Thyself' (inscribed in the temple of Apollo at Delphi) as 'a singular requisition with which no man complies, or indeed ever will comply: man is by all his senses and efforts directed to externals—to the world about him'.
↗Nanavira Thera / quote
03Undated
But perhaps the most celebrated of these auto-incendiaries is Kalanos. You will remember, no doubt, that Kalanos (the Greek version of the Sanskrit Kalyāna) was an Indian ascetic—though not a Buddhist—who accompanied Alexander's army on its withdrawal from India. At a certain moment he announced that his time had come to die, and arranged for a funeral pyre to be constructed. He mounted the pyre, had it set alight, and, sitting cross-legged, remained motionless until his body was consumed by the flames. What an occasion! With the entire Greek army, and probably Alexander the Great himself, watching him; with each one of those hardened and undefeated veterans, themselves no stranger to pain and mutilations, wondering if he himself would be capable of such cold-blooded endurance: with the eyes of posterity upon him (his peculiar fame has come down for more than twenty centuries); and with the honour of Indian asceticism at stake (and Indian asceticism is India);—how could he fail? For a moment one could almost wish to have been Kalanos. And yet, from the point of view of Dhamma, all this is foolishness—a childish escapade.
↗Nanavira Thera / quote
04Undated
It is customary, in England at least, for Coroners' courts to give the verdict 'Suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed'. This insult automatically puts the victim in the wrong and reassures Society that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Have you ever noticed that Socialist governments have a particular horror of the individual's suicide? It is a direct criticism of their basic tenets.
↗Nanavira Thera / quote