Human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.
Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.
For when you see that the universe cannot be distinguished from how you act upon it, there is neither fate nor free will, self nor other. There is simply one all-inclusive Happening, in which your personal sensation of being alive occurs in just the same way as the river flowing and the stars shining far out in space. There is no question of submitting or accepting or going with it, for what happens in and as you is no different from what happens as it.
I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind... to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929)
I heed not that my earthly lot Hath - little of Earth in it - That years of love have been forgot In the hatred of a minute: - I mourn not that the desolate Are happier, sweet, than I, But that you sorrow for my fate Who am a passer by.
Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below?
We were created in order to live in Paradise, and Paradise was ordained to serve us.
What was ordained for us has been changed; it is not said
that this has also happened with what was ordained for Paradise.
fate is strange.. almost no one i know married the first love of their lives. but for those who did are always telling me that they missed soemthing important, that they didn’t experience all that they might have.." - by the river piedra i sat down and wept
What is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects. What is life but what a man is thinking of all day? This is his fate and his employer. Knowing is the measure of the man. By how much we know, so we are.