- “Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.”

― Søren Kierkegaard

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” — Albert Einstein

- '' Instead of adopting Plato's teachings, Americans have allowed a depraved junta to seize control of the four most powerful brainwashing technologies in modern history: education, television, popular music, and movies. Through the insidious use of these instruments, American young people are programmed to value greed, egomania, money, power, fame, and cleverness in unscrupulousness, and are conditioned to crave and embody violence, ignorance, and anarchy.

"The average person in the US watches about four hours of television each day. Over the course of a year, we see roughly twenty five thousand commercials, many of them produced by the world's highest-paid cognitive psychologists. And these heavily produced advertisements are not merely for products, but for a lifestyle based on a consumer mind-set. What they're doing, day in and day out, twenty-five thousand times a year, is hypnotizing us into seeing ourselves as consumers who want to be entertained rather than as citizens who want to be informed and engaged. We need to take back the airwaves as a sphere of mature conversation and dialogue about our common future."

- Chéputroki Sarieu

• DESCARTES:

'' The evil demon, sometimes referred to as the evil genius, is a concept in Cartesian philosophy. In his 1641 Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes hypothesized the existence of an evil demon, a personification who is "as clever and deceitful as he is powerful, who has directed his entire effort to misleading me." The evil demon presents a complete illusion of an external world, including other minds, to Descartes' senses, where in fact there is no such external world in existence. The evil genius also presents to Descartes' senses a complete illusion of his own body, including all bodily sensations, when in fact Descartes has no body. Most Cartesian scholars opine that the evil demon is also omnipotent, and thus capable of altering mathematics and the fundamentals of logic. ''

- Descartes, possiblement un OG non-dualiste? :

The rationalist stops at the sensory data. The intellect is also a sense organ, and its information is as sensory as any. Descartes has the data, but he cannot interpret the data. In the upaniShadic language, he finds 'the footprints' but does not follow them to trace the 'animal'

That is to say, Descartes reaches up to 'aham', but does not move to hear the atma that is announcing itself.

Q: How does the atma announce itself? And why do I not know it as atma even when it is announcing itself, and so unceasingly as you say?

A: It does announce itself as atma, but we hear it as aham. Here is another paradox. The atma is said to be untouched and unreachable by the senses, but the senses are the only footprints that lead to it. I see, therefore I am. I hear, therefore I am. I think, therefore I am. The 'I' functions in all these activities and it is through these functions of the senses that we perceive the Self.

• JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU:

Toute méchanceté vient de faiblesse ; l'enfant est méchant que parce qu'il est faible ; rendez-le fort, il sera bon.

onscience ! conscience ! instinct divin, immortelle et céleste voix; guide assuré d'un être ignorant et borné, mais intelligent et libre; juge infaillible du bien et du mal, qui rends l'homme semblable à Dieu, c'est toi qui fais l'excellence de sa nature et la moralité de ses actions; sans toi je ne sens rien en moi qui m'élève au-dessus des bêtes, que le triste privilège de m'égarer d'erreurs en erreurs à l'aide d'un entendement sans règle et d'une raison sans principe.

• Marcel Proust

Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind. Marcel Proust