It is a great wonderHow Almighty God in his magnificenceFavors our race with rank and scopeAnd the gift of wisdom; His sway is wide.Sometimes He allows the mind of a manOf distinguished birth to follow its bent,Grants him fulfillment and felicity on earth And forts to command in his own country.He permits him to lord it in many landsUntil the man in his unthinkingnessForgets that it will ever end for him.He indulges his desires; illness and old ageMean nothing to him; his mind is untroubledBy envy or malice or thought of enemiesWith their hate-honed swords. The whole worldConforms to his will, he is kept from the worstUntil an element of overweening Enters him and takes holdWhile the soul’s guard, its sentry, drowses,Grown too distracted. A killer stalks him,An archer who draws a deadly bow.And then the man is hit in the heart,The arrow flies beneath his defenses,The devious promptings of the demon start.His old possessions seem paltry to him now.He covets and resents; dishonors customAnd bestows no gold; and because of good things That the Heavenly powers gave him in the pastHe ignores the shape of things to come.Then finally the end arrivesWhen the body he was lent collapses and fallsPrey to its death; ancestral possessionsAnd the goods he hoarded and inherited by anotherWho lets them go with a liberal hand.“O flower of warriors, beware of that trap.Choose, dear Beowulf, the better part,Eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride. For a brief while your strength is in bloomBut it fades quickly; and soon there will followIllness or the sword to lay you low,Or a sudden fire or surge of waterOr jabbing blade or javelin from the airOr repellent age. Your piercing eyeWill dim and darken; and death will arrive,Dear warrior, to sweep you away.

“She fit her head under his chin, and he could feel her weight settle into him. He held her tight and words spilled out of him without prior composition. And this time he made no effort to clamp them off. He told her about the first time he had looked on the back of her neck as she sat in the church pew. Of the feeling that had never let go of him since. He talked to her of the great waste of years between then and now. A long time gone. And it was pointless, he said, to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell, Inman said, for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you are. All your grief hasn't changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You're left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on or not. But if you go on, it's knowing you carry your scars with you. Nevertheless, over all those wasted years, he had held in his mind the wish to kiss her on the back of her neck, and now he had done it. There was a redemption of some kind, he believed, in such complete fulfillment of a desire so long deferred.”

I shou'd not myself have thought [Cato] worth so much notice as I have here taken of him; but that the Men are weak enough in general, to suffer their sense to be led away captive, by such half-thinking retailers of sentences. Among whom, This in particular, was he worth the pains, might be easily proved to have been often grossly in the wrong in other matters as well as in the present case; and therefore, when he happens to be in the right, the merit of it is more to be imputed to blind chance than to his wisdom: Since the greatest fools, when active, may blunder into the right sometimes: And great talkers among many absurdities, must here and there drop a good saying, when they least design it. Of this stamp, are the generality of evidence brought against us. Men avers'd to the labour of thinking; who found reason a drudgery (...); who have gain'd all their reputation by a pretty gimness of expressions, which wou'd no more bear examination than their heads, their hearts, or their faces; and who (to mimic this sage) wou'd rather see common-sense in confusion, than a word misplaced in one of their sentences. Yet these are sages among the Men, and their sentences are so many divine oracles; whereas perhaps, had we lived in their own times, to have heard the many more foolish things they said than sensible ones, we shou'd have found them as oafish as the dupes who revere them. And tho' perhaps we might have been more surprized to hear such dotards talk sometimes rationally, than we now are, to read their sayings; we shou'd have had reason still to think them more fit to extort our admiration than deserve it. Care has been taken to hand down to us the best of their sentences, many of which nevertheless are weak enough: But had the same care been taken to register all their absurdities, how great a share of their present applause wou'd they have lost!

I know a charm that can cure pain and sickness, and lift the grief from the heart of the grieving.I know a charm that will heal with a touch.I know a charm that will turn aside the weapons of an enemy.I know another charm to free myself from all bonds and locks.A fifth charm: I can catch an arrow in flight and take no harm from it.A sixth: spells sent to hurt me will hurt only the sender.A seventh charm I know: I can quench a fire simply by looking at it.An eighth: if any man hates me, I can win his friendship.A ninth: I can sing the wind to sleep and calm a storm for long enough to bring a ship to shore.For a tenth charm, I learned to dispel witches, to spin them around in the skies so that they will never find their way back to their own doors again.An eleventh: if I sing it when a battle rages it can take warriors through the tumult unscathed and unhurt, and bring them safely back to their hearths and their homes.A twelfth charm I know: if I see a hanged man I can bring him down from the gallows to whisper to us all he remembers.A thirteenth: if I sprinkle water on a child’s head, that child will not fall in battle.A fourteenth: I know the names of all the gods. Every damned one of them.A fifteenth: I had a dream of power, of glory, and of wisdom, and I can make people believe in my dreams.A sixteenth charm I know: if I need love I can turn the mind and heart of any woman.A seventeenth, that no woman I want will ever want another.And I know an eighteenth charm, and that charm is the greatest of all, and that charm I can tell to no man, for a secret that no one know but you is the most powerful secret there can ever be.

Consider the capacity of the human body for pleasure. Sometimes, it is pleasant to eat, to drink, to see, to touch, to smell, to hear, to make love. The mouth. The eyes. The fingertips, The nose. The ears. The genitals. Our voluptific faculties (if you will forgive me the coinage) are not exclusively concentrated here. The whole body is susceptible to pleasure, but in places there are wells from which it may be drawn up in greater quantity. But not inexhaustibly. How long is it possible to know pleasure? Rich Romans ate to satiety, and then purged their overburdened bellies and ate again. But they could not eat for ever. A rose is sweet, but the nose becomes habituated to its scent. And what of the most intense pleasures, the personality-annihilating ecstasies of sex? I am no longer a young man; even if I chose to discard my celibacy I would surely have lost my stamina, re-erecting in half-hours where once it was minutes. And yet if youth were restored to me fully, and I engaged again in what was once my greatest delight – to be fellated at stool by nymphet with mouth still blood-heavy from the necessary precautions – what then? What if my supply of anodontic premenstruals were never-ending, what then? Surely, in time, I should sicken of it.“Even if I were a woman, and could string orgasm on orgasm like beads on a necklace, in time I should sicken of it. Do you think Messalina, in that competition of hers with a courtesan, knew pleasure as much on the first occasion as the last? Impossible.“Yet consider.“Consider pain.“Give me a cubic centimeter of your flesh and I could give you pain that would swallow you as the ocean swallows a grain of salt. And you would always be ripe for it, from before the time of your birth to the moment of your death, we are always in season for the embrace of pain. To experience pain requires no intelligence, no maturity, no wisdom, no slow working of the hormones in the moist midnight of our innards. We are always ripe for it. All life is ripe for it. Always.

Mainly, though, the Democratic Party has become the party of reaction. In reaction to a war that is ill conceived, we appear suspicious of all military action. In reaction to those who proclaim the market can cure all ills, we resist efforts to use market principles to tackle pressing problems. In reaction to religious overreach, we equate tolerance with secularism, and forfeit the moral language that would help infuse our policies with a larger meaning. We lose elections and hope for the courts to foil Republican plans. We lost the courts and wait for a White House scandal.And increasingly we feel the need to match the Republican right in stridency and hardball tactics. The accepted wisdom that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists these days goes like this: The Republican Party has been able to consistently win elections not by expanding its base but by vilifying Democrats, driving wedges into the electorate, energizing its right wing, and disciplining those who stray from the party line. If the Democrats ever want to get back into power, then they will have to take up the same approach....Ultimately, though, I believe any attempt by Democrats to pursue a more sharply partisan and ideological strategy misapprehends the moment we're in. I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. For it's precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodoxy and the sheer predictability of our current political debate, that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face as a country. It's what keeps us locked in "either/or" thinking: the notion that we can have only big government or no government; the assumption that we must either tolerate forty-six million without health insurance or embrace "socialized medicine". It is such doctrinaire thinking and stark partisanship that have turned Americans off of politics.

There is nothing quite like a real political whiz. Some adopt an inscrutable, almost somnolent demeanour and make you beg for their wisdom, while others come at you like a whirlwind. The effect in both cases is the same: even when you think they must be extracting certitude from guesses or cucumbers from sunbeams, you are captive, not only to the verbal artistry but to the weight of the movement, the sense that on these matters to which you are now privy the course of history depends, Politics being civil war by other means, it is fought with the same volumes of smoke and passion and ruthless brutality, and it leaves some of the same psychic wounds. All political environments - democratic, republican and monarchical - have this much in common: it is never more than a short walk in any direction to find someone who disagrees with the last person you spoke to, or who envies or disapproves or wants to thwart him, or who feels thwarted, threatened or misused by him.As our conversation in the Four Seasons concluded, my friend stubbed out the butt of his cigar. I still had three inches to smoke. I left with it and later that evening I met a consultant, also from the Democratic side, who tried to put me wise to the first man’s failings. To be frank, I was left not knowing whom to believe. The consultant told me that these days he thinks it impossible for the US political system to throw up people or parties of true character, vision or integrity. (A businessman from the Republican side once told me the same thing.) Rather, the system is now ideal for hacks, ‘yes men’ and fodder for lobbyists. Political thinking has become institutionalised and incapable of solving the country’s problems. The press has lost character in proportion to the politician, and accepts their values and arguments almost without question. He thought universal national service with a non-military option might be one way to spread the burden and rekindle a sense of shared responsibility.

Maybe someday I can find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but will lack the strength to lift it anymore. Then, I will think to empty the coin from the pot, but will lack the genius to carry out the said act. Later, I will be approached by someone who will ask me about the story of the pot of gold. I will attempt to explain the story to them in the best way that I can.The person might then ask me, “How much of it was true?” and to them I shall respond with a question.“How much do you have believed of it to be of truth and be not farce?” They will ponder over what has been asked of them. They will solemnly look first to the ground, and then to the sky, seeking the divine answer to disarm, or perhaps the answer to their own question. After much time spent rehearsing the question and answer in their head, they will have finally reached the answer.“Half—half of it I believe were true.” They will say to me with complete confidence, and then that confidence will subside assertively into a question. Feeling flustered and unsure of themselves, with their face representing melting wax, they will again look to me for an answer.“Half of it was true then,” I will reply to them with my assertiveness. Puzzled and dumbfounded, the person will ask me, “How was half of it true then?”I will reply to this person in a sincere attempt to gain their confidence and instill wisdom in them.“I cannot tell you what is right or wrong, only what I think is right or wrong. If you believe that half were true, then half were true. If you believe that all of it lies in truth, then all of it were divinely true. If you find that it is absurd and could not share any truth, then there be no truth in the matter. It is your perception that has brought you to your conclusion, not mine. For clearly, if you are thinking about what be true and what be not true, then I have done my job in giving you something to think about, but I cannot think or decide for you.

I come to call you Home.Those who resonate with my words and follow them internally, will find that place and know It's completeness, its joy and fullness.I have come to call you away from suffering, from fear and from a life of sorrow and into your own, divine Being.I did not come here to give you decorative stories, to excite your imagination, or sign you up for some long program but to show you how available Truth is, and to remind you that you are never separate from It.No person on this planet is apart from the Truth in the Heart and yet the world is so vast and varied in expression.The greatest good and greatest evil is here.In this forest of duality and complexity you must find your way Home.You must win your Self back. Wisdom and trust will be your compass.Many voices came to call us but we are here today because we are freshly called by the voice of God, Love, Truth.Do not come half way home, but fully home.I know the voice that called you is true and Truth and that where you are being called to is also Real.It is inside your own Heart.It is what gives me the strength to be here.I love to see the beings being set free from the hypnosis of conditioning; from fears, false projection and the grip of ego.And I know that to be liberated is not difficult.It requires only openness and the sincere desire to be free.I don't need to hear anything about your past.Your stories are of no interest to me.That is not how I know you.I know you only through your Heart.That is my true connection with you -the living power of God.It is That which I respond to in youand it is only This that I know.I can only keep reminding you of It by pointing you again and again to the obvious in yourself.Now you must respond to my pointing.This will complete this yoga of seeing.Find and be one with That which is imperishable.Be merged in the Absolute.Don't go to sleep.

Layer upon layer it comes, dense and rich within the texts, echo upon echo, allusion and resonance tumbling over one another, so that for those with ears to hear it becomes un-missable, a crescendo of questions to which in the end there can be only one answer. Why are you speaking like this? Are you the one who is to come? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? What sign can you show us? Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners? Where did this man get all this wisdom? How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Who are you? Why do you not follow the traditions? Do the authorities think he’s the Messiah? Can the Messiah come from Galilee? Why are you behaving unlawfully? Who then is this? Aren’t we right to say that you’re a Samaritan and have a demon? What do you say about him? By what right are you doing these things? Who is this Son of Man? Should we pay tribute to Caesar? And climactically: Are you the king of the Jews? What is truth? Where are you from? Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One? Then finally, too late for answers, but not too late for irony: Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us! If you’re the Messiah, why don’t you come down from that cross?…And Jesus had his own questions. Who do you say I am? Do you believe in the Son of Man? Can you drink the cup I’m going to drink? How do the scribes say that the Messiah is David’s son? Couldn’t you keep watch with me for a single hour? And finally and horribly: My God, my God, why did you abandon me? …The reason there were so many questions, in both directions, was that–as historians have concluded for many years now–Jesus fitted no ready-made categories