The Song of Bernadette

by 10k films on December 3rd, 2010

Opening panel from the film “The Song of Bernadette” (1943) Directed by Henry King (Watch full film here)

Change

by 10k films on December 3rd, 2010

“..[I]n the United States to a large degree, and in other Western countries, the basic elements of society have been so heavily fiscalized through contractual obligations that political change doesn’t seem to result in economic change, which in other words means that political change doesn’t result in change.” J.A.

The archetype of devotional homage

by 10k films on November 17th, 2010

‘… all devotional homage, all hero-worship worthy of the name, proceeds subjectively from the perfection which exists in every soul, even though, in the majority, it has been buried under the rubble of a fallen second nature. If the burial is too deep, the sense of values can be irremediably vitiated; but even a remote consciousness of the latent perfection is enough to serve as a basis for having ideals and to arouse in souls, at contact with actual perfection, the nostalgic recognition of a fulfillment which for themselves is also a possibility and a goal to be reached.’

The life of dreams

by 10k films on October 22nd, 2010

If you enter the life of dreams, O Soul, do not place your happiness in it, nor in the spectacle it exhibits to you, and do not suppose that it is real: else, when you wake, you will be a laughing-stock. The world of things that come to be and cease to be is a world of dreams. He who is asleep and dreaming (in the literal sense) in this world is in reality dreaming doubly; and when he wakes (in the literal sense), he is like a man who has been awakened from an ‘incidental’ sleep, but has given himself up again to his ‘natural’ sleep.

- Hermes

“When small people cast long shadows, the sun is setting.”

by 10k films on September 20th, 2010

Thanks M.W. and T.W.

Kiss the snake so that you may gain the treasure.

by 10k films on August 15th, 2010

I am amazed at the seeker of purity
Who when its time to be polished
Complains of rough handling.
Love is like a lawsuit:
To suffer harsh treatment is like the evidence;
…When you have no evidence the lawsuit is lost.
Don’t grieve when the judge demands your evidence;
Kiss the snake so that you may gain the treasure.
That harshness isn’t toward you,
But toward the harmful qualities in you.
When somebody beats a rug,
The blows are not against the rug,
But against the dust in it.

Rumi

On the way

by 10k films on April 17th, 2010

‘There’s a story I read somewhere, years ago, which illustrates the urgency of ‘ardent longing’: It is said that a certain Sheikh (Spiritual master) was walking by a canal with a young disciple who kept pestering him to be told when he could expect to “find God”. “What must I do Master?’ Tell me at once!” In his eagerness, he grew careless, stumbled and fell into the water. The Sheikh knelt down and held the youth’s head under water until he was more than half drowned, then dragged him out and said: “When your need to find God is as powerful as your need just now for a breath of air, then you will be on the way to what you seek.” - Charles Hassan le Gai Eaton

Contentions

by 10k films on April 11th, 2010

“Reality is a System. Kufr is not a malfunction in that System, it is the illusion that a malfunction exists.” – T.J.Winter, Contentions 15

Deschooling Society

by 10k films on March 17th, 2010

“Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby “schooled” to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is “schooled” to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavor are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question.”

- Deschooling Society - Ivan Illich/ Thanks to N.F. – ‘A Clean Glass‘ blog

한 (恨) – Han

by 10k films on February 28th, 2010

Han is a concept in Korean culture, attributed by some as a national cultural trait. Han denotes a collective feeling of oppression and isolation in the face of overwhelming odds. It connotes aspects of lament and unavenged injustice.

The Korean poet Ko Eun describes the trait as universal to the Korean experience: “We Koreans were born from the womb of Han and brought up in the womb of Han.” Han connotes both despair at recognition of past injustice and acceptance of such matters as part of the Korean experience.

“As I have already said, Han is an expression of the complex feeling which embraces both sadness and hope. The sadness stems from the effort by which we accept the original contradiction facing all living things, and hope comes from the will to overcome the contradiction. In the present, we accept it; in the future, we will overcome it. Life for all living things is full of contradictions. Where there is centrifugal force, there is also centripetal force. Where there is a beginning, there is also an end. Where space lasts for ever, time passes. And all who are born must die. Thus we become aware of existence, time, space and life itself. Finally, we have to admit the contradictory duality of life. It is very easy to resign ourselves to this contradiction, but we can think of it in another way. We can think of ourselves as actively conforming to the laws of the universe. This is the way in which Koreans strive to overcome the contradictions of life. When we are poor, we think of Han. We therefore work hard in order to buy lots of land. When we are ignorant, we are mindful of Han. We educate our children in order to deliver them from Han, that is why the passion for educating the young is so ardent in Korea. We cannot however completely deliver ourselves from Han in this world, because Han is also a hope for the future…”(Park Kyong-ni) Read more