
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago
Source: The Hiding Place
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago
The Right to Be Lazy (1883), H. Kerr, trans. (1907), pp. 11-12
“All the Traps of Earth” (pp. 190-191); closing words.
Short Fiction, Skirmish (1977)
Context: Perhaps all that had happened had been no more than the working out of human destiny. If the human race could not attain directly the paranormal power he held, this instinct of the mind, then they would gain it indirectly through the agency of one of their creations. Perhaps this, after all, unknown to Man himself, had been the prime purpose of the robots.
He turned and walked slowly down the length of village street, his back turned to the ship and the roaring of the captain, walked contentedly into this new world he'd found, into this world that he would make — not for himself, nor for robotic glory, but for a better Mankind and a happier.
Less than an hour before he'd congratulated himself on escaping all the traps of Earth, all the snares of Man. Not knowing that the greatest trap of all, the final and the fatal trap, lay on this present planet.
But that was wrong, he told himself. The trap had not been on this world at all, nor any other world. It had been inside himself.
He walked serenely down the wagon-rutted track in the soft, golden afternoon of a matchless autumn day, with the dog trotting at his heels.
Somewhere, just down the street, the sick baby lay crying in its crib.
§ III
1910s, At the Feet of the Master (1911)
Source: Give Me Liberty! (1998), Ch. 7 : The New Slave Master, p. 89
“the human mind… perhaps the most powerful weapon. second only to the "GUN"”
[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/813966376327086080]
Tweets by year, 2016
Only the final bold section is connected to Laozi (see Ch. 17 of Tao Te Ching above). The origin of the added first section is unclear.
Misattributed
Variant: A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
Context: "Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. With the best leaders when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, "We have done this ourselves."
“When she had done her work, she would go over to the chimney corner, and sit among the cinders.”
Tales of Mother Goose, 1727, "Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper"