27 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/src/components/tag.astro:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | ---
2 | type Props = {
3 | tag: string;
4 | };
5 |
6 | const { tag } = Astro.props;
7 | ---
8 |
9 | {tag}
13 |
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/src/config.ts:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | export const SITE_FAVICON = "/favicon.png";
2 | export const SITE_LOGO = "/journal-logo.svg";
3 | export const SITE_TITLE = "Journal";
4 | export const SITE_DESCRIPTION =
5 | "Blog";
6 |
7 | export const MENUS = [
8 | {
9 | title: "Posts",
10 | link: "/posts",
11 | target: "_self",
12 | },
13 | {
14 | title: "Tags",
15 | link: "/tags",
16 | target: "_self",
17 | },
18 | {
19 | title: "Download",
20 | link: "https://new-ui.com/templates/journal",
21 | target: "_blank",
22 | }
23 | ];
24 |
25 | export const FOOTER_CONTENT = "Love Everyone";
26 |
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/src/content/blog/problem-of-self.mdx:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | ---
2 | title: "Questioning the Problem of Self"
3 | description: "Explore the dual nature of human existence, balancing individuality with universal connection. Through love and sacrifice, we find self-realization, mirroring the eternal cycle of renewal in life and nature."
4 | date: "2024-01-01"
5 | tags: ["Self", "Unity", "Love", "Awakening"]
6 | cover: "/covers/cover01.png"
7 | ---
8 |
9 | At one pole of my being I am one with stocks and stones. There I have to acknowledge the rule of *universal law*. That is where the foundation of my existence lies, deep down below. Its strength lies in its being held firm in the clasp of *comprehensive world*, and in the fullness of its community with all things.
10 |
11 | But at the other pole of my being I am separate from all. There I have broken through the cordon of *equality* and stand alone as an *individual*. I am absolutely *unique*, I am I, I am incomparable. The whole weight of the universe cannot crush out this *individuality* of mine. I maintain it in spite of the tremendous gravitation of all things. It is small in appearance but great in reality. For it holds its own against the forces that would rob it of its distinction and make it one with the dust.
12 |
13 | This is the *superstructure* of the self which rises from the indeterminate depth and darkness of its foundation into the open, proud of its isolation, proud of having given shape to a single individual idea of the architect’s which has no duplicate in the whole universe. If this individuality be demolished, then though no material be lost, not an atom destroyed, the *creative joy* which was crystallised therein is gone. We are absolutely bankrupt if we are deprived of this specialty, this individuality, which is the only thing we can call our own; and which, if lost, is also a loss to the whole world. It is most valuable because it is not universal. And therefore only through it can we gain the universe more truly than if we were lying within its breast unconscious of our distinctiveness. The *universal* is ever seeking its consummation in the *unique*. And the desire we have to keep our uniqueness intact is really the desire of the universe acting in us. It is our joy of the infinite in us that gives us our joy in ourselves.
14 |
15 | That this separateness of self is considered by man as his most precious possession is proved by the sufferings he undergoes and the sins he commits for its sake. But the consciousness of separation has come from the eating of the fruit of *knowledge*. It has led man to shame and crime and death; yet it is dearer to him than any paradise where the self lies, securely slumbering in perfect innocence in the womb of *mother nature*.
16 |
17 | It is a constant striving and suffering for us to maintain the separateness of this self of ours. And in fact it is this suffering which measures its value. One side of the value is *sacrifice*, which represents how much the cost has been. The other side of it is the *attainment*, which represents how much has been gained. If the self meant nothing to us but pain and sacrifice, it could have no value for us, and on no account would we willingly undergo such sacrifice. In such case there could be no doubt at all that the highest object of humanity would be the annihilation of self.
18 |
19 | >But if there is a corresponding gain, if it does not end in a void but in a fullness, then it is clear that its negative qualities, its very sufferings and sacrifices, make it all the more precious.
20 |
21 | That it is so has been proved by those who have realised the positive significance of self, and have accepted its responsibilities with eagerness and undergone sacrifices without flinching.
22 |
23 | With the foregoing introduction it will be easy for me to answer the question once asked by one of my audience as to whether the annihilation of self has not been held by India as the supreme goal of humanity?
24 |
25 | In the first place we must keep in mind the fact that man is never literal in the expression of his ideas, except in matters most trivial. Very often man’s words are not a language at all, but merely a vocal gesture of the dumb. They may indicate, but do not express his thoughts. The more vital his thoughts the more have his words to be explained by the context of his life. Those who seek to know his meaning by the aid of the dictionary only technically reach the house, for they are stopped by the outside wall and find no entrance to the hall. This is the reason why the teachings of our greatest prophets give rise to endless disputations when we try to understand them by following their words and not be realising them in our own lives. The men who are cursed with the gift of the literal mind are the unfortunate ones who are always busy with their nets and neglect the fishing.
26 |
27 | It is not only in *Buddhism* and the Indian religions, but in *Christianity* too, that the ideal of *selflessness* is preached with all fervour. In the last the symbol of *death* has been used for expressing the idea of man’s deliverance from the life which is not true. This is the same as *Nirvnāna*, the symbol of the extinction of the lamp.
28 |
29 | In the typical thought of India it is held that the true deliverance of man is the deliverance from *avidyā*, from ignorance. It is not in destroying anything that is positive and real, for that cannot be possible, but that which is negative, which obstructs our vision of truth. When this obstruction, which is ignorance, is removed, then only is the eyelid drawn up which is no loss to the eye.
30 |
31 | It is our ignorance which makes us think that our self, as self, is real, that it has its complete meaning in itself. When we take that wrong view of self then we try to live in such a manner as to make self the ultimate object of our life. Then we are doomed to disappointment like the man who tries to reach his destination by firmly clutching the dust of the road. Our self has no means of holding us, for its own nature is to pass on; and by clinging to this thread of self which is passing through the loom of life we cannot make it serve the purpose of the cloth into which it is being woven. When a man, with elaborate care, arranges for an enjoyment of the self, he lights a fire but has no dough to make his bread with; the fire flares up and consumes itself to extinction, like an unnatural beast that eats its own progeny and dies.
32 |
33 | In an unknown language the words are tyrannically prominent. They stop us but say nothing. To be rescued from this fetter of words we must rid ourselves of the avidyā, our ignorance, and then our mind will find its freedom in the inner idea. But it would be foolish to say that our ignorance of the language can be dispelled only by the destruction of the words. No, when the perfect knowledge comes, every word remains in its place, only they do not bind us to themselves, but let us pass through them and lead us to the idea which is emancipation.
34 |
35 | Thus it is only avidyā which makes the self our fetter by making us think that it is an end in itself, and by preventing our seeing that it contains the idea that transcends its limits. That is why the wise man comes and says, “Set yourselves free from the avidyā; know your true soul and be saved from the grasp of the self which imprisons you.”
36 |
37 | We gain our freedom when we attain our truest nature. The man who is an artist finds his artistic freedom when he finds his ideal of art. Then is he freed from laborious attempts at imitation, from the goadings of popular approbation. It is the function of *religion* not to destroy our nature but to fulfil it.
38 |
39 | The Sanskrit word *dharma* which is usually translated into English as religion has a deeper meaning in our language. Dharma is the innermost nature, the essence, the implicit truth, of all things. Dharma is the ultimate purpose that is working in our self. When any wrong is done we say that dharma is violated, meaning that the lie has been given to our true nature.
40 |
41 | But this dharma, which is the truth in us, is not apparent, because it is inherent. So much so, that it has been held that sinfulness is the nature of man, and only by the special grace of God can a particular person be saved. This is like saying that the nature of the seed is to remain enfolded within its shell, and it is only by some special miracle that it can be grown into a tree. But do we not know that the appearance of the seed contradicts its true nature? When you submit it to chemical analysis you may find in it carbon and proteid and a good many other things, but not the idea of a branching tree. Only when the tree begins to take shape do you come to see its dharma, and then you can affirm without doubt that the seed which has been wasted and allowed to rot in the ground has been thwarted in its dharma, in the fulfilment of its true nature. In the history of humanity we have known the living seed in us to sprout. We have seen the great purpose in us taking shape in the lives of our greatest men, and have felt certain that though there are numerous individual lives that seem ineffectual, still it is not their dharma to remain barren; but it is for them to burst their cover and transform themselves into a vigorous spiritual shoot, growing up into the air and light, and branching out in all directions.
42 |
43 | The freedom of the seed is in the attainment of its dharma, its nature and destiny of becoming a tree; it is the non-accomplishment which is its prison. The sacrifice by which a thing attains its fulfilment is not a sacrifice which ends in death; it is the casting-off of bonds which wins freedom.
44 |
45 | When we know the highest ideal of freedom which a man has, we know his dharma, the essence of his nature, the real meaning of his self. At first sight it seems that man counts that as freedom by which he gets unbounded opportunities of self gratification and self-aggrandisement. But surely this is not borne out by history. Our revelatory men have always been those who have lived the life of self-sacrifice. The higher nature in man always seeks for something which transcends itself and yet is its deepest truth; which claims all its sacrifice, yet makes this sacrifice its own recompense. This is man’s dharma, man’s religion, and man’s self is the vessel which is to carry this sacrifice to the altar.
46 |
47 | We can look at our self in its two different aspects. The self which displays itself, and the self which transcends itself and thereby reveals its own meaning. To display itself it tries to be big, to stand upon the pedestal of its accumulations, and to retain everything to itself. To reveal itself it gives up everything it has; thus becoming perfect like a flower that has blossomed out from the bud, pouring from its chalice of beauty all its sweetness.
48 |
49 | The lamp contains its oil, which it holds securely in its close grasp and guards from the least loss. Thus is it separate from all other objects around it and is miserly. But when lighted it finds its meaning at once; its relation with all things far and near is established, and it freely sacrifices its fund of oil to feed the flame.
50 |
51 | Such a lamp is our self. So long as it hoards its possessions it keeps itself dark, its conduct contradicts its true purpose. When it finds illumination it forgets itself in a moment, holds the light high, and serves it with everything it has; for therein is its revelation. This revelation is the freedom which Buddha preached. He asked the lamp to give up its oil. But purposeless giving up is a still darker poverty which he never could have meant. The lamp must give up its oil to the light and thus set free the purpose it has in its hoarding. This is emancipation. The path Buddha pointed out was not merely the practice of self- abnegation, but the widening of love. And therein lies the true meaning of Buddha’s preaching.
52 |
53 | When we find that the state of *Nirvāna* preached by Buddha is through love, then we know for certain that Nirvāna is the highest culmination of love. For love is an end unto itself. Everything else raises the question “Why?” in our mind, and we require a reason for it. But when we say, “I love,” then there is no room for the “why”; it is the final answer in itself.
54 |
55 | Doubtless, even selfishness impels one to give away. But the selfish man does it on compulsion. That is like plucking fruit when it is unripe; you have to tear it from the tree and bruise the branch. But when a man loves, giving becomes a matter of joy to him, like the tree’s surrender of the ripe fruit. All our belongings assume a weight by the ceaseless gravitation of our selfish desires; we cannot easily cast them away from us. They seem to belong to our very nature, to stick to us as a second skin, and we bleed as we detach them. But when we are possessed by love, its force acts in the opposite direction. The things that closely adhered to us lose their adhesion and weight, and we find that they are not of us. Far from being a loss to give them away, we find in that the fulfilment of our being.
56 |
57 | Thus we find in perfect love the freedom of our self. That only which is done for love is done freely, however much pain it may cause. Therefore working for love is freedom in action. This is the meaning of the teaching of disinterested work in the *Gīta*.
58 |
59 | The Gīta says action we must have, for only in action do we manifest our nature. But this manifestation is not perfect so long as our action is not free. In fact, our nature is obscured by work done by the compulsion of want or fear. The mother reveals herself in the service of her children, so our true freedom is not the freedom from action but freedom in action, which can only be attained in the work of love.
60 |
61 | God’s manifestation is in his work of creation and it is said in the *Upanishad*, Knowledge, power, and action are of his nature; they are not imposed upon him from outside. Therefore his work is his freedom, and in his creation he realises himself. The same thing is said elsewhere in other words: From joy does spring all this creation, by joy is it maintained, towards joy does it progress, and into joy does it enter. It means that God’s creation has not its source in any necessity; it comes from his fullness of joy; it is his love that creates, therefore in creation is his own revealment.
62 |
63 | The artist who has a joy in the fullness of his artistic idea objectifies it and thus gains it more fully by holding it afar. It is joy which detaches ourselves from us, and then gives it form in creations of love in order to make it more perfectly our own. Hence there must be this separation, not a separation of repulsion but a separation of love. Repulsion has only the one element, the element of severance. But love has two, the element of severance, which is only an appearance, and the element of union which is the ultimate truth. Just as when the father tosses his child up from his arms it has the appearance of rejection but its truth is quite the reverse.
64 |
65 | So we must know that the meaning of our self is not to be found in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless realisation of *yoga*, of union; not on the side of the canvas where it is blank, but on the side where the picture is being painted.
66 |
67 | This is the reason why the separateness of our self has been described by our philosophers as *māyā*, as an illusion, because the separateness does not exist by itself, it does not limit God’s infinity from outside. It is his own will that has imposed limits to itself, just as the chess-player restricts his will with regard to the moving of the chessmen. The player willingly enters into definite relations with each particular piece and realises the joy of his power by these very restrictions. It is not that he cannot move the chessmen just as he pleases, but if he does so then there can be no play. If God assumes his rôle of omnipotence, then his creation is at an end and his power loses all its meaning. For power to be a power must act within limits. God’s water must be water, his earth can never be other than earth. The law that has made them water and earth is his own law by which he has separated the play from the player, for therein the joy of the player consists.
68 |
69 | As by the limits of law nature is separated from God, so it is the limits of its egoism which separates the self from him. He has willingly set limits to his will, and has given us mastery over the little world of our own. It is like a father’s settling upon his son some allowance within the limit of which he is free to do what he likes. Though it remains a portion of the father’s own property, yet he frees it from the operation of his own will. The reason of it is that the will, which is love’s will and therefore free, can have its joy only in a union with another free will. The tyrant who must have slaves looks upon them as instruments of his purpose. It is the consciousness of his own necessity which makes him crush the will out of them, to make his self-interest absolutely secure. This self-interest cannot brook the least freedom in others, because it is not itself free. The tyrant is really dependent on his slaves, and therefore he tries to make them completely useful by making them subservient to his own will. But a lover must have two wills for the realisation of his love, because the consummation of love is in harmony, the harmony between freedom and freedom. So God’s love from which our self has taken form has made it separate from God; and it is God’s love which again establishes a reconciliation and unites God with our self through the separation. That is why our self has to go through endless renewals. For in its career of separateness it cannot go on for ever. Separateness is the finitude where it finds its barriers to come back again and again to its infinite source. Our self has ceaselessly to cast off its age, repeatedly shed its limits in oblivion and death, in order to realise its immortal youth. Its personality must merge in the universal time after time, in fact pass through it every moment, ever to refresh its individual life. It must follow the eternal rhythm and touch the fundamental unity at every step, and thus maintain its separation balanced in beauty and strength.
70 |
71 | The play of life and death we see everywhere—this transmutation of the old into the new. The day comes to us every morning, naked and white, fresh as a flower. But we know it is old. It is age itself. It is that very ancient day which took up the newborn earth in its arms, covered it with its white mantle of light, and sent it forth on its pilgrimage among the stars.
72 |
73 | Yet its feet are untired and its eyes undimmed. It carries the golden amulet of ageless eternity, at whose touch all wrinkles vanish from the forehead of creation. In the very core of the world’s heart stands immortal youth. Death and decay cast over its face momentary shadows and pass on; they leave no marks of their steps—and truth remains fresh and young.
74 |
75 | This old, old day of our earth is born again and again every morning. It comes back to the original refrain of its music. If its march were the march of an infinite straight line, if it had not the awful pause of its plunge in the abysmal darkness and its repeated rebirth in the life of the endless beginning, then it would gradually soil and bury truth with its dust and spread ceaseless aching over the earth under its heavy tread. Then every moment would leave its load of weariness behind, and decrepitude would reign supreme on its throne of eternal dirt.
76 |
77 | But every morning the day is reborn among the newly-blossomed flowers with the same message retold and the same assurance renewed that death eternally dies, that the waves of turmoil are on the surface, and that the sea of tranquillity is fathomless. The curtain of night is drawn aside and truth emerges without a speck of dust on its garment, without a furrow of age on its lineaments.
78 |
79 | We see that he who is before everything else is the same to-day. Every note of the song of creation comes fresh from his voice. The universe is not a mere echo, reverberating from sky to sky, like a homeless wanderer—the echo of an old song sung once for all in the dim beginning of things and then left orphaned. Every moment it comes from the heart of the master, it is breathed in his breath.
80 |
81 | And that is the reason why it overspreads the sky like a thought taking shape in a poem, and never has to break into pieces with the burden of its own accumulating weight. Hence the surprise of endless variations, the advent of the unaccountable, the ceaseless procession of individuals, each of whom is without a parallel in creation. As at the first so to the last, the beginning never ends—the world is ever old and ever new.
82 |
83 | It is for our self to know that it must be born anew every moment of its life. It must break through all illusions that encase it in their crust to make it appear old, burdening it with death.
84 |
85 | For life is immortal youthfulness, and it hates age that tries to clog its movements—age that belongs not to life in truth, but follows it as the shadow follows the lamp.
86 |
87 | Our life, like a river, strikes its banks not to find itself closed in by them, but to realise anew every moment that it has its unending opening towards the sea. It is a poem that strikes its metre at every step not to be silenced by its rigid regulations, but to give expression every moment to the inner freedom of its harmony.
88 |
89 | The boundary walls of our individuality thrust us back within our limits, on the one hand, and thus lead us, on the other, to the unlimited. Only when we try to make these limits infinite are we launched into an impossible contradiction and court miserable failure.
90 |
91 | This is the cause which leads to the great revolutions in human history. Whenever the part, spurning the whole, tries to run a separate course of its own, the great pull of the all gives it a violent wrench, stops it suddenly, and brings it to the dust. Whenever the individual tries to dam the ever-flowing current of the world-force and imprison it within the area of his particular use, it brings on disaster. However powerful a king may be, he cannot raise his standard or rebellion against the infinite source of strength, which is unity, and yet remain powerful.
92 |
93 | It has been said, By unrighteousness men prosper, gain what they desire, and triumph over their enemies, but at the end they are cut off at the root and suffer extinction. Our roots must go deep down into the universal if we would attain the greatness of personality.
94 |
95 | It is the end of our self to seek that union. It must bend its head low in love and meekness and take its stand where great and small all meet. It has to gain by its loss and rise by its surrender. His games would be a horror to the child if he could not come back to his mother, and our pride of personality will be a curse to us if we cannot give it up in love. We must know that it is only the revelation of the *Infinite* which is endlessly new and eternally beautiful in us, and which gives the only meaning to our self.
96 |
97 |
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/src/content/blog/realisation-of-beauty.mdx:
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1 | ---
2 | title: "The Realization of Beauty"
3 | description: "Explore the profound connection between beauty, truth, and joy, emphasizing how music embodies pure expression and unites us with the essence of existence."
4 | date: "2024-01-01"
5 | tags: ["Beauty", "Music", "Aesthetic", "Consciousness"]
6 | cover: "/covers/cover02.png"
7 | ---
8 |
9 | Things in which we do not take joy are either a burden upon our minds to be got rid of at any cost; or they are useful, and therefore in *temporary* and *partial* relation to us, becoming burdensome when their utility is lost; or they are like wandering vagabonds, loitering for a moment on the outskirts of our recognition, and then passing on. A thing is only completely our own when it is a thing of joy to us.
10 |
11 | The greater part of this world is to us as if it were nothing. But we cannot allow it to remain so, for thus it belittles our own self. The entire world is given to us, and all our powers have their final meaning in the faith that by their help we are to take possession of our *patrimony*.
12 |
13 | But what is the function of our sense of beauty in this process of the extension of our consciousness? Is it there to separate *truth* into strong lights and shadows, and bring it before us in its uncompromising distinction of *beauty* and *ugliness*? If that were so, then we would have had to admit that this sense of beauty creates a dissension in our universe and sets up a wall of hindrance across the highway of communication that leads from everything to all things.
14 |
15 | But that cannot be true. As long as our realisation is incomplete a division necessarily remains between things known and unknown, pleasant and unpleasant. But in spite of the dictum of some philosophers man does not accept any arbitrary and absolute limit to his knowable world. Every day his science is penetrating into the region formerly marked in his map as unexplored or inexplorable. Our sense of beauty is similarly engaged in ever pushing on its conquests. Truth is everywhere, therefore everything is the object of our knowledge. *Beauty* is omnipresent, therefore everything is capable of giving us *joy*.
16 |
17 | In the early days of his history man took everything as a phenomenon of life. His science of life began by creating a sharp distinction between life and non-life. But as it is proceeding farther and farther the line of demarcation between the animate and inanimate is growing more and more dim. In the beginning of our apprehension these sharp lines of contrast are helpful to us, but as our comprehension becomes clearer they gradually fade away.
18 |
19 | The Upanishads have said that all things are created and sustained by an infinite *joy*. To realise this principle of creation we have to start with a division—the division into the *beautiful* and the *non-beautiful*. Then the apprehension of *beauty* has to come to us with a vigorous blow to awaken our consciousness from its primitive lethargy, and it attains its object by the urgency of the contrast. Therefore our first acquaintance with *beauty* is in her dress of motley colours, that affects us with its stripes and feathers, nay, with its disfigurements. But as our acquaintance ripens, the apparent discords are resolved into modulations of rhythm. At first we detach *beauty* from its surroundings, we hold it apart from the rest, but at the end we realise its harmony with all. Then the music of *beauty* has no more need of exciting us with loud noise; it renounces violence, and appeals to our heart with the truth that it is *meekness* inherits the earth.
20 |
21 | In some stage of our growth, in some period of our history, we try to set up a special cult of *beauty*, and pare it down to a narrow circuit, so as to make it a matter of pride for a chosen few. Then it breeds in its votaries affections and exaggerations, as it did with the *Brahmins* in the time of the decadence of Indian civilisation, when the perception of the higher *truth* fell away and *superstitions* grew up unchecked.
22 |
23 | In the history of æsthetics there also comes an age of emancipation when the recognition of *beauty* in things great and small become easy, and when we see it more in the unassuming harmony of common objects than in things startling in their singularity. So much so, that we have to go through the stages of reaction when in the representation of *beauty* we try to avoid everything that is obviously pleasing and that has been crowned by the sanction of convention. We are then tempted in defiance to exaggerate the commonness of commonplace things, thereby making them aggressively uncommon. To restore harmony we create the discords which are a feature of all reactions. We already see in the present age the sign of this æsthetic reaction, which proves that man has at last come to know that it is only the narrowness of perception which sharply divides the field of his æsthetic consciousness into *ugliness* and *beauty*. When he has the power to see things detached from self-interest and from the insistent claims of the lust of the senses, then alone can he have the true vision of the *beauty* that is everywhere. Then only can he see that what is unpleasant to us is not necessarily unbeautiful, but has its *beauty* in *truth*.
24 |
25 | When we say that *beauty* is everywhere we do not mean that the word *ugliness* should be abolished from our language, just as it would be absurd to say that there is no such thing as *untruth*. *Untruth* there certainly is, not in the system of the universe, but in our power of comprehension, as its negative element. In the same manner there is *ugliness* in the distorted expression of *beauty* in our life and in our art which comes from our imperfect realisation of *Truth*. To a certain extent we can set our life against the law of *truth* which is in us and which is in all, and likewise we can give rise to *ugliness* by going counter to the eternal law of harmony which is everywhere.
26 |
27 | > Through our sense of truth we realise law in creation, and through our sense of beauty we realise harmony in the universe. When we recognise the law in nature we extend our mastery over physical forces and become powerful; when we recognise the law in our moral nature we attain mastery over self and become free.
28 |
29 | In like manner the more we comprehend the harmony in the physical world the more our life shares the gladness of creation, and our expression of beauty in art becomes more truly catholic. As we become conscious of the harmony in our soul, our apprehension of the blissfulness of the spirit of the world becomes universal, and the expression of beauty in our life moves in goodness and love towards the infinite. This is the ultimate object of our existence, that we must ever know that “beauty is truth, truth beauty”; we must realise the whole world in love, for love gives it birth, sustains it, and takes it back to its bosom.
30 |
31 | > We must have that perfect emancipation of heart which gives us the power to stand at the innermost centre of things and have the taste of that fullness of disinterested joy which belongs to Brahma.
32 |
33 | Music is the purest form of art, and therefore the most direct expression of *beauty*, with a form and spirit which is one and simple, and least encumbered with anything extraneous. We seem to feel that the manifestation of the infinite in the finite forms of creation is music itself, silent and visible. The evening sky, tirelessly repeating the starry constellations, seems like a child struck with wonder at the mystery of its own first utterance, lisping the same word over and over again, and listening to it in unceasing joy. When in the rainy night of July the darkness is thick upon the meadows and the pattering rain draws veil upon veil over the stillness of the slumbering earth, this monotony of the rain patter seems to be the darkness of sound itself. The gloom of the dim and dense line of trees, the thorny bushes scattered in the bare heath like floating heads of swimmers with bedraggled hair, the smell of the damp grass and the wet earth, the spire of the temple rising above the undefined mass of blackness grouped around the village huts—everything seems like notes rising from the heart of the night, mingling and losing themselves in the one sound of ceaseless rain filling the sky.
34 |
35 | Therefore the true poets, they who are seers, seek to express the universe in terms of *music*.
36 |
37 | They rarely use symbols of painting to express the unfolding of forms, the mingling of endless lines and colours that goes on every moment on the canvas of the blue sky.
38 |
39 | They have their reason. For the man who paints must have canvas, brush and colour-box. The first touch of his brush is very far from the complete idea. And then when the work is finished the artist is gone, the windowed picture stands alone, the incessant touches of love of the creative hand are withdrawn.
40 |
41 | But the singer has everything within him. The notes come out from his very life. They are not materials gathered from outside. His idea and his expression are brother and sister; very often they are born as twins. In *music* the heart reveals itself immediately; it suffers not from any barrier of alien material.
42 |
43 | Therefore though *music* has to wait for its completeness like any other art, yet at every step it gives out the *beauty* of the whole. As the material of expression even words are barriers, for their meaning has to be constructed by thought. But *music* never has to depend upon any obvious meaning; it expresses what no words can ever express.
44 |
45 | What is more, *music* and the musician are inseparable. When the singer departs, his singing dies with him; it is in eternal union with the life and joy of the master.
46 |
47 | This world-song is never for a moment separated from its singer. It is not fashioned from any outward material. It is his joy itself taking never-ending form. It is the great heart sending the tremor of its thrill over the sky.
48 |
49 | There is a perfection in each individual strain of this *music*, which is the revelation of completion in the incomplete. No one of its notes is final, yet each reflects the infinite.
50 |
51 | What does it matter if we fail to derive the exact meaning of this great harmony? Is it not like the hand meeting the string and drawing out at once all its tones at the touch? It is the language of *beauty*, the caress, that comes from the heart of the world straightway reaches our heart.
52 |
53 | Last night, in the silence which pervaded the darkness, I stood alone and heard the voice of the singer of eternal melodies. When I went to sleep I closed my eyes with this last thought in my mind, that even when I remain unconscious in slumber the dance of life will still go on in the hushed arena of my sleeping body, keeping step with the stars. The heart will throb, the blood will leap in the veins, and the millions of living atoms of my body will vibrate in tune with the note of the harp-string that thrills at the touch of the master.
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/src/content/config.ts:
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1 | import { defineCollection, z } from "astro:content";
2 |
3 | const blog = defineCollection({
4 | schema: z.object({
5 | title: z.string(),
6 | description: z.string(),
7 | date: z
8 | .string()
9 | .or(z.date())
10 | .transform((val) =>
11 | new Date(val).toLocaleDateString("en-US", {
12 | year: "numeric",
13 | month: "long",
14 | day: "numeric",
15 | }),
16 | ),
17 | tags: z.array(z.string()).optional(),
18 | cover: z.string().optional(),
19 | }),
20 | });
21 |
22 | export const collections = { blog };
23 |
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/src/env.d.ts:
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1 | ///
2 | ///
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/src/helpers/index.ts:
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1 | import { getCollection } from "astro:content";
2 |
3 | export const posts = (await getCollection("blog")).sort((a, b) =>
4 | new Date(a.data.date).valueOf() > new Date(b.data.date).valueOf() ? -1 : 1,
5 | );
6 |
7 | export const tags = Array.from(
8 | new Set(
9 | posts
10 | .map((post) => {
11 | if (post.data.tags && post.data.tags.length) {
12 | return post.data.tags;
13 | }
14 | return [];
15 | })
16 | .flat(),
17 | ),
18 | ).sort();
19 |
20 | export const years = Array.from(new Set(posts.map((post) => new Date(post.data.date).getFullYear().toString()))).sort();
21 |
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/src/pages/404.astro:
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1 | ---
2 | import Layout from "../components/layout.astro";
3 | ---
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | The page you're trying to access does not exist.