He finally got it!

He finally got it!

There's a story of a disciple who told his guru that he was going to a far place to meditate and hopefully attain enlightenment.
So he sent the guru a note every six months to report the progress he was making.
The first report said, "Now I understand what it means to lose the self."
The guru tore up the note and threw it in the wastepaper basket.
After six months he got another report, which said, "Now I have attained sensitivity to all beings."
He tore it up. Then a third report said, "Now I understand the secret of the one and the many."
It too was torn up. And so it went on for years, until finally no reports came in.
After a time the guru became curious and one day there was a traveler going to that far place.
The guru said, "Why don't you find what happened to that fellow."
Finally, he got a note from his disciple.
It said, "What does it matter?"
And when the guru read that, he said, "He made it!
He made it! He finally got it! He got it!"

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Laughter

Laughter

Philip Roth: In your last book, though, something else is involved. In a little parable you compare the laughter of angels with the laughter of the devil.

The devil laughs because God's world seems senseless to him; the angels laugh with joy because everything in God's world has its meaning. 


Milan Kundera: Yes, man uses the same physiologic manifestations- laughter- to express two different metaphysical attitudes.

Someone's hat drops on a coffin in a freshly dug grave, the funeral loses its meaning and laughter is born.

Two lovers race through the meadow, holding hands, laughing. Their laughter has nothing to do with jokes or humor, it is the serious laughter of angels expressing their joy of being.

Both kinds of laughter belong among life's pleasures, but when it also denotes a dual apocalypse:

the enthusiastic laughter of angel-fanatics, who are so convinced of their world's significance that they are ready to hang anyone not sharing their joy.

And the other laughter, sounding from the opposite side, which proclaims that everything has become meaningless, that even funerals are ridiculous and group sex a mere comical pantomime.

Human life is bounded by two chasms: fanaticism on one side, absolute skepticism on the other.

The Most Original Book of the Season

Philip Roth interviews Milan Kundera (30/11/1980)

Belief

Belief

Protean, my heart henceforth assumes all forms: at once

Meadow of gazelles and cloister of the Christians monk

Temple of idols and the pilgrim's Kaaba

The Thora's tablets tantamount

To the Holy Koran's leaves

Religion of love, my allegiance

Wherever its caravans may lead

Just as love is my final faith

Ibn Arabi

Ibn 'Arabī (Arabic: ابن عربي‎) (July 28, 1165 – November 10, 1240) was an Andalusian [Moorish]] Sufi
mystic and philosopher. His full name was Abū 'Abdullāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-`Arabī ('أبو عبد الله محمد بن علي بن محمد بن عربي ).

Born in the Spanish township of Murcia on 17th of Ramaḍān 561 AH (27th or 28 July 1165 AD) with respectable family roots, this unique MOORISH mystic, Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-'Arabī is universally known as al-Shaykh al-Akbar (The Greatest Master OT DOCTORUS MAXIMUS in medieval europe). According to some other sources, his birthday was cited as 27th of Ramadan 560 (AH) or in other words August 7, 1165.

People identity

People identity

Most people are other people.
Their thoughts are someone else's opinions,
their lives a mimicry,
their passions a quotation.

De Profundis

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete; who, after writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the tragedy of his imprisonment and early death.

The Dream Contract

68

THE DREAM CONTRACT

Nasruddin was fast asleep at nine in the morning.

The sun was in the sky, the birds were singing in the trees and his breakfast was getting cold.

So his wife decided to wake him.

He woke up in a rage.

"Why did you wake me up just now?" he yelled.

"The sun has risen in the sky," said she,

"the birds are singing in the trees and your breakfast is getting cold."

"Breakfast be damned," he said,

"I was about to sign a contract worth a million grammes of gold!"

With that he closed his eyes to recapture his shattered dream and those million grammes of gold.

Now Nasruddin was cheating in that contract and his business partner was a tyrant.

If, on recapturing the dream, he stops his cheating, he will become a saint.

If he struggles to free the people from the oppression of the tyrant he will be a freedom fighter.

If, in the middle of it all,

he suddenly realizes he is dreaming,

he will become Awakened. Enlightened.

What kind of saint or freedom fighter are you if you are still asleep?

THE SONG OF THE BIRD

Anthony de Mello

Ignorance

Speaking to ignorant people

Once Nasreddin was invited to deliver a sermon.

When he got on the pulpit, he asked,

"Do you know what I am going to say?"

The audience replied "no",

so he announced,

"I have no desire to speak to people who don't even know what I will be talking about!"

And left.

The people felt embarrassed and called him back again the next day.

This time, when he asked the same question, the people replied "yes".

So Nasreddin said, "Well, since you already know what I am going to say, I won't waste any more of your time!" and left.

Now the people were really perplexed.

They decided to try one more time and once again invited the Mullah to speak the following week.

Once again he asked the same question –

"Do you know what I am going to say?"

Now the people were prepared and so half of them answered "yes" while the other half replied "no".

So Nasreddin said "Let the half who know what I am going to say, tell it to the half who don't," and left.



Climate

Weather

This is lovely climate.

I don't order the weather; it just happened.



Traveller; "What kind of weather are we going to have today?"

Shepherd: "The kind of weather I like."

"How do you know it will be the kind of weather you like?"

"Having found out, sir, that I cannot always get what I like, I have learnt always to like what I get.

So I am quite sure we will have the kind of weather I like."



Happiness and unhappiness are in the way we meet events, not in the nature of those events themselves.

PRAYER OF THE FROG PART 2

Anthony de Mello

To you and for you!

To you and for you!

If only you were aware… o moon

You, who are you…?

You…

You… are all humans!

Education

Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire

W.B.Yeats

(13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939)

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He was the first Irishman so honored. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).
Yeats was born and educated in Dublin but spent his childhood in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth, and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and those slow paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as to the Pre-Raphaelite poets. From 1900, Yeats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life. Over the years, Yeats adopted many different ideological positions, including, in the words of the critic Michael Valdez Moses, "those of [the] radical nationalist, classical liberal, reactionary
conservative and millenarian
nihilist".

Between friendship and solitude

Between solitude and friendship

It will never be my view that solitude is disturbed by the presence of a friend,

but that it is enriched.

If I had the choice of doing without one or the other,

I should prefer to be deprived of solitude rather than of my friend.

On the solitary life

Petrarch

Francesco Petrarca
(July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374)

Francesco Petrarca, known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest Renaissance humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism". In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio and, especially, Dante Alighieri. This would be later endorsed by the Accademia della Crusca. His sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. Petrarch was also known for being one of the first people to refer to the Dark Ages.

Bring Me the Flute and Sing!

Bring me the flute and sing

Bring me the flute and sing

for song is the secret of eternity...

And the wailing of the flute remains

even after the end of existence...

Have you taken the forest

rather than the palace

to be your home?

Have you climbed up the creeks and the rocks?

Have you bathed in perfume

and then dried yourself with sunlight?

Have you tasted the wine of the early morning

from goblets of ether?

Bring me the flute and sing

that is the secret of eternity...

And the wailing of the flute remains

even after the end of life...

Have you sat alone at dusk among the grapevines...

Among their clusters hanging like chandeliers of gold...?

Have you made the grass your night-time bed?

Have you wrapped yourself in the evening air

with the sky for a blanket?

So that you can allow the future to come

and let go of the past?

Bring me the flute and sing

so our hearts may be in balance...

And the wailing of the flute remains

even after the end of all sins...

Bring me the flute and sing

forget maladies and their cures…

For people are but lines of poetry

written, but with water.

Kahlil Gibran

(1883-1931)

Khalil Gibran (born Gubran Khalil Gubran bin Mikhā'īl bin Sa'ad; Arabic

جبران خليل

جبران بن ميخائيل بن سعد, January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) also known as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese American

artist, poet, and writer. Born in the town of Bsharri in modern-day Lebanon (then part of the Ottoman Mount Lebanon mutasarrifate), as a young man he emigrated with his family to the United States where he studied art and began his literary career. He is chiefly known for his 1923 book The Prophet, a series of philosophical essays written in English prose. An early example of Inspirational fiction, the book sold well despite a cool critical reception, and became extremely popular in the 1960s counterculture. Gibran is considered to be the third most widely read poet in history, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.

Who earns more?

19

Who earns more?

Did you hear about the lawyer who was presented with a plumber's bill?

He said to the plumber, "Hey, you're charging me two hundred dollars an hour.

I don't make that kind of money as a lawyer."

The plumber said, "I didn't make that kind of money when I was a lawyer either!"

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Self-Satisfaction

7

Self-Satisfaction

If I had a dollar for every time I did things that gave me a bad feeling,
I'd be a millionaire by now.


You know how it goes.
"Could I meet you tonight, Father?"
"Yes, come on in!"
I don't want to meet him and I hate meeting him.
I want to watch that TV show tonight, but how do I say no to him?
I don't have the guts to say no.
"Come on in," and I'm thinking,
"Oh God, I've got to put up with this pain."
It doesn't give me a good feeling to meet with him and it doesn't give me a good feeling to say no to him, so I choose the lesser of the two evils and I say, "O.K., come on in."
I'm going to be happy when this thing is over and I'll be able to take my smile off,
but I start the session with him: "How are you?"
"Wonderful," he says, and he goes on and on about how he loves that workshop,
and I'm thinking, "Oh God, when is he going to come to the point?"
Finally he comes to the point, and I metaphorically slam him against the wall and say, "Well, any fool could solve that kind of problem," and I send him out.
"Whew! Got rid of him," I say.
And the next morning at breakfast (because I'm feeling I was so rude)
I go up to him and say, "How's life?"
And he answers, "Pretty good."
And he adds, "You know, what you said to me last night was a real help.
Can I meet you today, after lunch?" Oh God!

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

On Fear and Love

Fearlessness

"What is love?"

"The total absence of fear," said the Master.

"What is it we fear?"

"Love," said the Master.

ONE MINUTE WISDOM

Anthony de Mello

Happiness

Happiness

A woman once told me that when she was a child her Jesuit cousin gave a retreat in the Jesuit church in Milwaukee.

He opened each conference with the words:

"The test of love is sacrifice, and the gauge of love is unselfishness."

That's marvelous!

I asked her, "Would you want me to love you at the cost of my happiness?"

"Yes," she answered.

Isn't that delightful? Wouldn't that be wonderful?

SHE would love me at the cost of HER happiness

and I would love her at the cost of MY happiness,

and so you've got two unhappy people,

but LONG LIVE LOVE!

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

One Minute Wisdom

One Minute Wisdom 

"Is there such a thing as One Minute Wisdom?"
"There certainly is," said the Master.
"But surely one minute is too brief?"
"It is fifty-nine seconds too long."


To his puzzled disciples the Master later said,
"How much time does it take to catch
sight of the moon?"
"Then why all these years of spiritual endeavor?"
"Opening one's eyes may take a lifetime.
Seeing is done in a flash."

ONE MINUTE WISDOM

Anthony de Mello

Simplicity

Simplicity

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.

Nothing is better than simplicity—nothing can make up for excess, or for the lack of definiteness.

Leaves of Grass (Preface)

Walt Whitman

Be my friend!

Be my friend!

How beautiful it would be if we remained friends!
Every woman needs a friend's hand
Needs to hear good words
Be my friend!
I need sometimes to walk with you in a park
To read together poems
I - as a woman - I am happy to hear you
Be my friend!
My hobbies are little
My interests are small
And all my ambition lies:
to walk for hours with you under the rain
When the melody makes me cry
And I'm in sorrow
So why are you interested only in my appearance
And don't look to my brain?
I am very much in need of a harbour of peace...
I am bored of love stories and news
Talk!
Why do you forget half of the words when you meet me?
Be my friend!
There is no diminution of masculinity
However, the men don't accept but the main role!

Suad al-Sabah

Poet, economist, publisher, activist in social change affecting women and children.

Suad Muhammad al-Sabah (also spelled Souad alSabah or Suʿad al-Sabah) was born in 1942 in Kuwait as a member of the ruling family. She graduated from the Faculty of Economics and Political Sciences at Cairo University in 1973. She obtained a doctorate in economics from Sari Guilford University in the United Kingdom in 1981. She later returned to Kuwait and established the Suad alSabah Publishing and Distribution House. She has published several books of poetry and established a literary prize that carries her name. She also has written hundreds of economic and political essays as well as popular articles in several Arabic local and international newspapers and magazines. Her poetry has been translated into many languages, including English.
Al-Sabah is the director of Kuwait Stock Exchange and a member of the Higher Council for Education, the executive committee of the World Muslim Women Organization for South East Asia, and the board of trustees and the executive committee of the Arab Intellect Forum. She is also a founding member of the Arab Cultural Establishment, the executive committee of the Arab Human Rights Organization, and the Arab Council for Childhood and Development. Her poetry has captured the attention of popular artists as well as university researchers in many countries. Her literary publications include Wamdatt Bakira (Early blinks) and Lahathat min Umri (Moments of my life, 1961). Her scientific works in English include Development Planning in an Oil Economy and the Role of the Woman (1983) and Kuwait: Anatomy of a Crisis Economy (1984).

Concurrence

Competition

That award was a result of competition, which can be cruel if it is built on hatred of oneself and of others.
People get a good feeling on the basis of somebody getting a bad feeling; you win over somebody else.


Isn't that terrible? Taken for granted in a lunatic asylum!

There's an American doctor who wrote about the effect of competition on his life.
He went to medical school in Switzerland and there was a fairly large contingent of Americans at that school.
He said some of the students went into shock when they realized that there were no grades, there were no awards, there was no dean's list, no first or second in the class at the school.
You either passed or you didn't.
He said, "Some of us just couldn't take it. We became almost paranoid. We thought there must be some kind of trick here."
So some of them went to another school.
Those who survived suddenly discovered a strange thing they had never noticed at American universities: students, brilliant ones, helping others to pass, sharing notes.
His son goes to medical school in the United States and he tells him that, in the lab, people often tamper with the microscope so that it'll take the next student three or four minutes to readjust it.

They have to succeed, they have to be perfect.
And he tells a lovely little story which he says is factual, but it could also serve as a beautiful parable.

There was a little town in America where people gathered in the evening to make music.
They had a saxophonist, a drummer, and a violinist, mostly old people.
They got together for the company and for the sheer joy of making music, though they didn't do it very well.
So they were enjoying themselves, having a great time, until one day they decided to get a new conductor who had a lot of ambition and drive.
The new conductor told them, "Hey, folks, we have to have a concert, we have to prepare a concert for the town."
Then he gradually got rid of some people who didn't play too well, hired a few professional musicians, got an orchestra into shape, and they all got their names in the newspapers.
Wasn't that wonderful?
So they decided to move to the big city and play there:
But some of the old people had tears in their eyes.
They said, "It was so wonderful in the old days when we did things badly and enjoyed them."
So cruelty came into their lives, but nobody recognized it as cruelty.

See how lunatic people have become!

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Eschatology

Eschatology

Of the great Zen Master Rinzai
it was said that each night the last thing he did before he went to bed was let out a great big belly laugh that resounded through the corridors and was heard in every building of the monastery grounds.
And the first thing he did when he woke at dawn was burst into peals of laughter so loud they woke up every monk no matter how deep his slumber.
His disciples asked him repeatedly to tell them why he laughed but he wouldn't.
And when he died he carried the secret of his laughter with him to the grave.


The Master was in an expansive mood so his disciples sought to learn from him the stages he had passed through in his quest for the divine.
"God first led me by the hand," he said, "into the Land of Action and there I dwelt for several years.
Then He returned and led me to the Land of Sorrows; there I lived until my heart was purged of every inordinate attachment.
That is when I found myself in the Land of Love whose burning flames consumed whatever was left in me of self.
This brought me to the Land of Silence where the mysteries of life and death were bared before my wondering eyes."
"Was that the final stage of your quest?" they asked.
"No." The Master said,
"One day God said.
Today I shall take you to the innermost sanctuary of the Temple, to the heart of God himself.'
And I was led to the Land of Laughter."

THE PRAYER OF THE FROG 1

Anthony de Mello

LOVE SONG

LOVE SONG

Thy face is like a moon that shines on earth,

Like a thick night thy clustering tresses be;

Apples of paradise thy temples are,

And thy deep eyes were lent thee by the sea.

Thou hast arched brows and dark, dark eyes, my love;

Peerless art thou among earth's countless girls.

Thine eyelashes are arrows to my heart;

Thy mouth is a moist tulip, full of pearls.

NAHABED KOUTCHAK

He was an Armenian poet, who lived in the latter part of the 15th century.

Although he wrote only love songs, he is revered as a saint, and his grave near Van is a place of pilgrimage.

The real sick

Who is the sick?

Imagine a patient who goes to a doctor and tells him what he is suffering from.

The doctor says, "Very well, I've understood your symptoms.

Do you know what I will do?

I will prescribe a medicine for your neighbor!"

The patient replies, "Thank you very much, doctor, that makes me feel much better."



Isn't that absurd?

But that's what we all do.

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Transformation

The sheep-lion

There's a famous story about the lion who came upon a flock of sheep and to his amazement found a lion among the sheep.

It was a lion who had been brought up by the sheep ever since he was a cub.

It would bleat like a sheep and run around like a sheep.

The lion went straight for him, and when the sheep lion stood in front of the real one, he trembled in every limb.

And the lion said to him, "What are you doing among the sheep?"

And the sheep-lion said, "I am a sheep."

And the lion said, "Oh no, you're not.

You're coming with me."

So he took the sheep-lion to a pool and said, "Look!"

And when the sheep-lion looked at his reflection in the water, he let out a mighty roar, and in that moment he was transformed.

He was never the same again.

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

ELMAR SALMANN

THE THEOLOGY OF ELMAR SALMANN

BIOGRAPHY

Elmar Salmann, born May 12 1948 in Hagen (Germany), has studied philosophy, literature and theology at Paderborn, Vienna and Münster. He became a Benedictine Monk of the Abbey of Gerleve (Westphalia) in 1973.
Since 1981 he is professor of philosophy and systematic theology at the Pontifical University St. Anselm (Rome), at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome) and at the Hochschule für Philosophie (München).
He Deals with poetry and theology, Judaism and Christian faith, modernity and Christianity. And participates in many forums and discussions, even outside the ecclesiastical circles, including The Normale di Pisa, which is a study group on ethics and advertising sponsored by Mediaset.
Salmann is a Christian thinker, modern theologian; lecturer and writer… his major studies focus on the relationship between human experience and symbolism, Christianity and modern culture, mysticism and philosophy, theory of Grace and psychology: Through a comparison between philosophers (Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Levinas... ), theologians (Thomas Aquinas, Rahner, de Lubac, Barth, von Balthasar, Drewermann, Jüngel...), without renouncing the grace of poets (Caproni, Montale, Sbarbaro, Borges, Pessoa…).
Salmann makes a brilliant evocative statement, able to touch many aspects, but to dissolve few knots. Christianity is presented as the religion of the broken body and it is made an excursus into the Scripture and Tradition to highlight this aspect. Some hints focus also on the body's ambiguity and some attempts to integrate, into theology, the body's reality, which remains more mysterious than of the spirit.
Salmann's theology is an attempt to verify the possibility of a style of life and thought inspired by Christianity, yet without the abandonment to be Men of our time. In other words: the central "mysteries" of Christianity may still emerge as fertile grounds of culture in a society such as this, in which the claim to live and think according to the criteria of the Christian faith seems unthinkable or cannot be proposed? This question is still of avail today and in all countries of the world, at a time when economic globalization seems to be the new religion of humanity. Salmann launches his challenge to a lifestyle that is proper to the Christian and at the same time humanly valid, and shows how theology is meant to build culture. Faith: the relationship between Man and God, studied in gestures, in symbols, in language that are used to express the unending pursuit of truth by man, and the offer of salvation that God never tires of offering to Man.

PUBLICATIONS

Anna Katharina Emmerick - ihre mystische Existenz aus nachmoderner Sicht. 2007. (collaboration with: von Clemens Engling, Günter Scholz, Nicole Priesching, Carl Möller, Wolfgang Frühwald).
Contro Severino. Incanto e incubo del credere. Casale M. 1996.
Cur Deus Homo: Atti Del Congresso Anselmiano Internazionale Roma, 21-23 Maggio 1998. (collaboration with: Paul Gilbert, Helmut Karl Kohlenberger).
Der geteilte Logos: Zum offenen Prozess von neuzeitlichem Denken und Theologie. Roma 1992.
Die Vernunft Ins Gebet Nehmen: Philosophisch-Theologische Betrachtungen. 2000. (collaboration with Joachim Hake).
Emmerick und Brentano: Dokumentation eines Symposiums der Bischöflichen Kommission "Anna-Katharina Emmerick". 1983. (collaboration with: von Wolfgang Frühwald, Peter Hünermann, Winfried Woesler, Bernd Wacker, Renate Moering, Hubert Larcher, Basilius Senger, Clemens Engling, Heinrich Schleiner).
Filosofia E Mistica: Itinerari Di Un Progetto Di Ricerca. Roma 1997. (collaboration with: Aniceto Molinaro).
La teologia è un romanzo. Milano 2000.
La Teologia mistico-sapienziale di Anselm Stolz. Roma 1988. (collaboration with: Gerardo J Bekes, Benedetto Calati, Anselmo Lipari).
L'Attualità filosofica di Anselmo d'Aosta. Roma 1990. (collaboration with: von Carlo Huber, Aniceto Molinari).
Le ragioni della fede. Come credere oggi. 1997. (collaboration with: Colzani Gianni; Giustiniani Pasquale).
Le ragioni della fede. Come credere oggi. Milano 1997.
Mysterium Christi: Symbolgegenwart und theologische Bedeutung. Festschrift für Basil Studer. Roma 1996. (collaboration with: Magnus Löhrer).
Neuzeit und Offenbarung. Studien zur trinitarischen Analogik des Christentums. Roma 1986.
Passi e passaggi nel Cristianesimo. 2009.
Patrimonium Fidei: Traditionsgeschichtliches Verstehen Am Ende? Festschrift Für Magnus Löhrer Und Pius Ramon Tragan. Roma 1997 (collaboration with: Magnus Löhrer, Pius-Ramon Tragan, Marinella Perroni).
Presenza di spirito. Il cristianesimo come gesto e pensiero. Padova 2000.
Scienza e spiritualità. Affinità elettive. 2009.
Wir sehen jetzt im Spiegel rätselhaft: Otto von Simson zum Gedächtnis. 1996. (collaboration with: von Reiner Hausherr, Wieland Schmied, Gottfried Boehm).
Zwischenzeit: Postmoderne Gedanken zum Christsein heute. 2004.

The FUNDAMENTAL PERSPECTIVES OF SALMANN'S THEOLOGY

1. The Faith can't be comprehended anymore by itself. It needs at the end of modern times a reinterpretation of the Christian mystery 'from outside' that reconstitutes its laws, its physiognomy and saves the best of tradition and today's intelligence: theology as school of restoration and rescuing.
2. Each idea is developed in a dual perspective, that of fundamental theology that explores the path to plausibility of a mystery for the reason, it captures the outside light; and the dogmatic view that shows the intrinsic light, the aesthetics of the nexus between the mysteries and the logic of kenotic revelation. Theo-logy is the interlacement between the auto-exploration of experience of life, the reason and the revelation. 
3. Such theology needs several starts: trying to reconcile the transcendental style (Rahner), Trinitarian-kenotic (Balthasar), the ontological-classical view (Greeks), and the historic-dramatic (the Jews); history as the exegesis of the spirit (Hegel) and concrete-eidetic glance (Goethe).Basically, one always is wondering: what is happening? What is phenomenologically true in this context? And how a given phenomenon is interdependent with others, namely with its large field (structuralism)?: Theology is a school of watching. 
4. All is gravitating about an ontological Trinitarian with strong pneumatological emphasis. It seeks to highlight the formal and dramatic nexus between Trinity, Incarnation, Cross, Creation, structural ontology of the Christ's Body, mystical and psychological interiority of man. 
5. Salmann does not 'administer' a scientific closed system, but stimulates the scholar/student/reader that she/he will find, in own language, a harmony between culture and faith, the kind of personal intelligence and the world of mystery. Hence the method of his examination: everyone can and must prepare a paper/perspective which concerning the matter in question. 
6. Such theology of 'wisdom' implies some formal laws:

6.1. No phenomenon is completed by itself, comprehended by itself, but it results in itself para-doxical, polar, a part of an elliptical field, and a dialectic of closeness and detachment from others. Everything is rediscovered in view of its opposite: the grace through the abyss of sin, guilt has its measure only in the grace... First and last barycentre: the mystery of the Trinity, extreme unity and extreme diversity of Persons; and Christology: the same person is constituted by the mean of two primordial relationships. For this we need an exquisite touch that does not separate nor confuses the phenomenon, but distinguishes, differentiates and unites them at the same time. The Law of Chalcedon marks the ontology and theological epistemology. So Salmann moves his theology in spiral, he closes to the centre, which is in itself polar, from different complementary angles.
6.2. Each phenomenon is epiphanic and symbolic, opening for the presence of an entire world, and the presence of the divine absence, a point of transition for the Pascha of the Logos. God appears in everything, thinker... which the presence of non-aliud, and in this totally other. Hence the relativity, the lightness and specific weight/burden, the originality and the transparency of every being. Everything may be a sacrament which is inspired, where my freedom emerges. The sacred history, the Bible is the paradigmatic case for this process, which he tries to extend and trace in the history of the spirit, of the Church.
6.3. Nothing is fixed; everything may only be understood in a path of permanent transformation towards/on love, the primordial image, the space that includes us, all is a process of transfiguration. The theology endeavours to follow this process to make it plausible, and to understand the love that comprehends us.

THE OPEN SIDE OF HUMANITY - THE CREASES OF THE INFINITY

CULTURAL ENGINES OF ELMAR SALMANN'S THEOLOGY

Some categories to give a physiognomy at the intersection between finite and infinite, human existence and a possible acknowledgment of/with the divine or with some reasons that the Christian mystery in this way might appear – precisely as a reason:

1. Luxuriant, mythological, magical - the sinister charm of metamorphosis: STEFANO D'ARRIGO (Horcynus Orca) - on the trails of HERMAN MELVILLE, GESUALDO BUFALINO(Kalendas Graecas, especially the poem beginning of 'Curriculum' and the description of the birth; The Night's Lies). It takes into account the fascination of The Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter, the novels of GABRIEL GARCÍA MARQUEZ, the personage 'baroque-polifrenic' of FERNANDO PESSOA, of CEES NOOTEBOOM (Lost Paradise, angels! All Souls Day). 
2. Skeptical-laconic-aporical: agnostic agonic poems of EUGENIO MONTALE (All the poems, Mondadori 1984, 827-876); GIORGIO CAPRONI and FERNANDO PESSOA (e.g. Una sola moltitudine 11 79 ff). 
3. Skeptical-political-documentary-essay: The life as a suffered essay, open..., LEONARDO SCIASCIA (Black on Black, Crossword, In Partibus Infidelium...); CLAUDIO MAGRIS (Danube, Utopia and Disenchantment, Microcosms, The Dramas); GESUALDO BUFALINO (Bluff of Words). 
4. Apocalyptic: The world in the dim light of Judgement, ELSA MORANTE (History, Aracoeli); SALVATORE SATTA (The Mystery of The Process; The Day of Judgment). It remains
   immeasurable the background of FRIEDRICH DÜRRENMATT. The question of theodicy emerges in touching way in: GIOVANNI D'ALESSANDRO (If A Pitiful God). 
5. Phenomenological-biographical dryness with a opening to an another piety: LALLA ROMANO (In Extreme Seas; The Man Who Spoke Alone; A Dream of The North); GIUSEPPE PONTIGGIA (The Great Night, Born Twice, First Person and his essays...); the mytho-biographical musical's sequence of poetic collections of GIUSEPPE UNGARETTI, LUIGI DALLAPICCOLA, UMBERTO SABA (e.g. the poem The goat). 
6. Melancholic, looking from below, doubtful-delirious: NATALIA GINZBURG (Never
   Must You Ask Me, on believing and not believe in God; The Little Virtues, Family Sayings), and the poems of CAMILLO SBARBARO (Shavings, Scampoli...). 
7. Metaphysical, boundless, enigmatic: The novels of GIUSEPPE. O. LONGO (The acrobat, The
   hierarchy of Ackermann, On few footprints on the snow: Eros-death-math, Central-Europe); and the background of FRANZ KAFKA, and of DINO BUZZATI; the grim and
   incontrovertible side of the right according to SALVATORE SATTA. 
8. Gnostic-agnostic: ROBERTO CALASSO (The Ruin of Kasch, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony); MASSIMO CACCIARI (The Necessary Angel; Icons of The Law; By Steinhof). 
9. Prophetic-anguished, mystagogic: MARIO LUZI (The Book of Hypatia, For the Baptism of Our Fragments); DAVID MARIA TUROLDO and his poems (The Last Songs), MICHELE RANCHETTI and his poems (Verbal, The Musical Mind) and his essays (The Last Priests, Different Writings).

The Christianity appears as a motive, contested and contextualised perspective; and as a mine, prick and ferment, which needs to be read over again at against the light and in the wrong way- that serves Christianity to read over again the world at against the light. The reality appears as a trace of a past god, and faithful as dowser, the landscape of mystery, as mine, discovery, which can enrich the interpretation and management of life.

THEOLOGICAL ENGINES OF THE CHRISTOLOGY OF ELMAR SALMANN

Preamble
Salmann looks and sees Christ as figure and event, and as a reflective-projected representative of the reconciliation between love and freedom, finite and
infinite. The (kenotic) absolute and historic project. Only in this soteriological context his figure can be individuated. Salmann tries to reconstruct the physiognomy of Christ through different "lenses" of modern Christology.

1. Christ, who are you towards God?
Christ in the logic of Epiphany: the figure of Christ as alienating exposition of the Blessed, and the freedom of man as a gift of love (Balthasar).

2. Christ, who are you towards humans?
Christ in the prophetic human logic: the logic of his existence: Christ as a model of a liberated and liberating freedom (Boff, Schillebeeckx, Küng).

3. Who are you in yourself? You who can do everything!Christ with a transcendental ontological logic, and the laws of reconciliation between nature and person, infinite and finite in the intrinsic structure of the mystery of the person of the Logos: Logic of the Incarnation. Theological issues: Virginity… (Thomas of Aquino, Rahner).

4. Christ, who are you to us?Christ with historical-universal logic. The eschatological meaning of the Christological event, and the history as process of liberation and harmonization, logic of the resurrection (Forte, Pannenberg, Teilhard de Chardin).

5. Logic of the crossChrist in dramatic-transformer logic: the conflictual crisis between God and humans, freedom and love and a starting point of redemption in the mystery of the offspring (Balthasar, Moltmann).

6. Logic of missionChrist with a pneumatic universal logic: as a pot and inspiration of the Spirit and representative of the Alliance (Kasper, Mühlen, Hegel).

Summary
Structural Principles of Christianity: Salmann tries to reconstruct theology and Christology, through a process of reconstruction. He does not hesitate to use any form of arts (musicians, painters, poets...) to understand the mystery, so does not feel ashamed to go to seek help or any form of culture!
He starts at the same moment, as in theology, from culture and cult, philosophy and theology, the human data and the data of revelation... mixes everything but in distinguishing, and distinguishes all but uniting... to be able then to create a mosaic, a picture, a brilliant, bright, crisp, clear, tidy… vision!

Theology

29

Theology

Many, many years ago, back in the middle Ages, the Pope was urged by his advisors to banish the Jews from Rome.
It was unseemly; they said that these people should be living unmolested in the very centre of Catholicism.
An edict of eviction was drawn up and promulgated much to the dismay of the Jews who knew that wherever else they went they could only expect worse treatment than was meted out to them in Rome.
So they pleaded with the Pope to reconsider the edict.
The Pope, a fair-minded man, offered them a sporting proposition:
Let the Jews appoint someone to debate with him in pantomime. If their spokesman won the Jews might stay.
The Jews met to consider this proposal.
To turn it down was to be evicted from Rome.
To accept it was to court certain defeat, for who could win a debate in which the Pope was both participant and judge?
Still, there was nothing for it but to accept.
Only, it was impossible to find someone to volunteer for the task of debating with the Pope.
The burden of having the fate of the Jews on his shoulders was more than anyone man could bear.
Now when the synagogue janitor heard what was going on he came before the Chief Rabbi
and volunteered to represent his people in the debate.
"The janitor?" said the other rabbis when they heard of this.
"Impossible!"
"Well," said the chief Rabbi, "None of us is willing. It is either the janitor or no debate."
Thus for lack of anyone else the janitor was appointed to debate with the Pope.
When the great day arrived, the Pope sat on a throne in St Peter's square surrounded by his cardinals, facing a large crowd of bishops, priests and faithful.
Presently the little Jewish delegation arrived in their black robes and flowing beards, with the janitor in their midst.
The Pope turned to face the janitor and the debate began.
The Pope solemnly raised one finger and traced it across the heavens.
The janitor promptly pointed with emphasis towards the ground.
The Pope seemed somewhat taken aback.
Even more solemnly he raised one finger again and kept it firmly before the Janitor's face.
The janitor thereupon lifted three fingers and held them just as firmly before the Pope who seemed astonished by the gesture.
Then the Pope thrust his hand into his robes and pulled out an apple.
Whereupon the janitor thrust his hand into his paper bag and pulled out a flat piece of matzo.
At this the Pope explained in a loud voice, "The Jewish representative has won the debate.
The edict of eviction is hereby revoked."
The Jewish leaders promptly surrounded the janitor and led him away.
The cardinals clustered around the Pope in astonishment.
"What happened, your Holiness?" then asked.
"It was impossible for us to follow the rapid thrust and parry of the debate."
The Pope wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, "That man is a brilliant theologian, a master in debate.
I began by sweeping my hand across the sky to indicate that the whole universe belongs to God.
He thrust his finger downward to remind me that there is a place called Hell where the devil reigns supreme.
I then raised one finger to signify that God is one.
Imagine my shock when he raised three fingers to indicate that this one God manifests Himself equally in three persons, thereby subscribing to our own doctrine of the Trinity!
Knowing that it was impossible to get the better of this theological genius I finally shifted the debate to another area.
I pulled out an apple to indicate that according to some new-fangled ideas the earth is round.
He instantly produced a flat piece of unleavened bread to remind me that, according to the Bible, the earth is flat.
So there was nothing to do but concede the victory to him."
By now the Jews had arrived at their synagogue.
"What happened they asked the janitor in bewilderment?
The janitor was indignant.
"It was all a lot of rubbish," he said.
"Look. First the Pope moves his hand like he is telling all the Jews to get out of Rome.
So I pointed downwards to make it clear to him that we were not going to budge.
So he points a finger to me threateningly as if to say.
Don't get fresh with me.
So I point three fingers to tell him he was thrice as fresh with us when he arbitrarily ordered us out of Rome.
The next thing, I see him taking out his lunch.
So I took out mine."

THE PRAYER OF THE FROG 1

Anthony de Mello

Time

Time

I clasp the stem of time

My head a fiery tower

What, then, is this blood

Ever rooted in the sand?

Flaming instants nullify our words

My soul's forgotten its passion's

Purpose, forgotten its heritage

Hidden in house of forms

Forgotten what the rain recounts

What the trees ink inscribes

What cleaves me from myself?

Might I be more than one?

My history, my ruination?

My promised land, my pyre?

Might I be several?

Each interrogating the other?

Who are you and where from?

In this be madness

Then let madness edify

Let madness be my guide

Adonis

Ali Ahmad Said Asbar (Arabic: علي أحمد سعيد إسبر‎; transliterated: alî ahmadi sa'îdi asbar or Ali Ahmad Sa'id) born January 1930, also known by the pseudonym Adonis or Adunis (Arabic: أدونيس), is a Syrian poet and essayist who has made his career largely in Lebanon and France. He has written more than twenty books in his native Arabic.
Adonis is a pioneer of modern Arabic poetry. He is often seen as a rebel, an iconoclast who follows his own rules. "Arabic poetry is not the monolith this dominant critical view suggests, but is pluralistic, sometimes to the point of self-contradiction."
Adonis was considered to be a candidate for the 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature, but the awards went to British playwright Harold Pinter, Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, British novelist Doris Lessing and French novelist J.M.G. Le Clezio.
In 2007 he was awarded the Bjørnson Prize.

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Labels-identities (4)

A little girl who says to a little boy,

"Are you a Presbyterian?"

And he says, "No, we belong to another abomination!"

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

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Labels-identities (3)

I remember hearing about a man who asks his friend,

"Are you planning to vote Republican?"

The friend says, "No, I'm planning to vote Democratic.

My father was a Democrat, my grandfather was a Democrat, and my great-grandfather was a Democrat."

The man says, "That is crazy logic.

I mean, if your father was a horse thief, and your grandfather was a horse thief, and your great-grandfather was a horse thief, what would you be?"

"Ah," the friend answered, "then I'd be a Republican."

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

The danger of Religion

The danger of Religion

The danger of what religion can do is very nicely brought out in a story told by Cardinal Martini, the Archbishop of Milan.


The story has to do with an Italian couple that's getting married.

They have an arrangement with the parish priest to have a little reception in the parish courtyard outside the church.

But it rained, and they couldn't have the reception, so they said to the priest,

"Would it be all right if we had the celebration in the church?"

Now Father wasn't one bit happy about having a reception in the church, but they said,

"We will eat a little cake, sing a little song, drink a little wine, and then go home."

So Father was persuaded.

But being good life-loving Italians they drank a little wine, sang a little song,

then drank a little more wine, and sang some more songs,

and within a half hour there was a great celebration going on in the church.

And everybody was having a great time, lots of fun and frolic.

But Father was all tense, pacing up and down in the sacristy, all upset about the noise they were making.

The assistant pastor comes in and says, "I see you are quite tense."

"Of course, I'm tense.

Listen to all the noise they are making, and in the House of God! for heaven's sake!"

"Well, Father, they really had no place to go."

"I know that! But do they have to make all that racket?"

"Well, we mustn't forget, must we, Father, that Jesus himself was once present at a wedding!"

Father says, "I know Jesus Christ was present at a wedding banquet,

YOU don't have to tell me Jesus Christ was present at a wedding banquet!

But they didn't have the Blessed Sacrament there!!!"


You know there are times like that when the Blessed Sacrament becomes more important than Jesus Christ.
When worship becomes more important than love, when the Church becomes more important than life.
When God becomes more important than the neighbor.
And so it goes on.
That's the danger.

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

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Labels-identities (2)

Paddy was walking down the street in Belfast

and he discovers a gun pressing against the back of his head and a voice says,

"Are you Catholic or Protestant?"

Well, Paddy has to do some pretty fast thinking.

He says, "I'm a Jew."

And he hears a voice say,

"I've got to be the luckiest Arab in the whole of Belfast."

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Like water

Like water

The heart is like water

Passions agitate its surface

Rippling water in water

Creature-like, an utterance

Commingles both the good and bad

Like time, human beings body forth

As much of darkness as of light

Just as day illuminates before the night

So an extinguished star begets

Another brilliance

Similar to our vanished forbears

So we, similarly, must disappear

Time alone ensures its own endurance

As plainly as you can plainly see

Strangers in their native land are

Ardent practitioners of good

Whose intimates sever ties and turn

Frequentation to a widening gulf

Remember, should you have sealed

Friendship in the throes of poverty

Should prosperity arrive, remember

Al Ma'arri

Al-Ma'arri (full name in Arabic: أبو العلاء أحمد بن عبد الله بن سليمان التنوخي المعري, Abu al-'Alā Ahmad ibn 'Abd Allāh ibn Sulaimān al-Tanūkhī al-Ma'arri, December 26, 973–May 10 or May 21, 1057) was a blind Arab philosopher, poet and writer. He was a controversial rationalist of his time, he attacked the dogmas of religion, and rejected the claim that Islam possessed any monopoly on truth.

Abu 'Ali al-Muhassin al-Tanukhi (Tanukhi) was born in Syria and lost his sight at the age of four due to smallpox. He hailed from the city of Ma'arra (المعرة) in Syria from which his name derives. He then went on to study in Aleppo, Antioch, and other Syrian towns pursuing a career as a freethinker, philosopher and poet before returning his native town of Ma'arrat al-Numan, where he lived the rest of his life, practicing asceticism and vegetarianism.

He briefly travelled to the center of Baghdad where he drew a great following of both male and female disciples to listen to his lectures on poetry, grammar and rationalism. One of the recurring themes of his philosophy was the rights of reason against the claims of custom, tradition and authority.

Although an advocate of social justice and action, Al-Ma'arri suggested that women should not bear children in order to save future generations from the pains of life.

Al Ma'arri was exerting a notable influence on Dante's "The Divine Comedy". His collection of poems "Unnecessary Necessity" charts the tragic dimension of human experience.

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Labels-identities (1)

There was a man who went to the priest and said,

"Father, I want you to say a Mass for my dog."

The priest was indignant.

"What do you mean, say a Mass for your dog?"

"It's my pet dog," said the man.

"I loved that dog and I'd like you to offer a Mass for him."

The priest said, "We don't offer Masses for dogs here.

You might try the denomination down the street.

Ask them if they might have a service for you."

As the man was leaving, he said to the priest,

"Too bad. I really loved that dog.

I was planning to offer a million-dollar stipend for the Mass."

And the priest said,

"Wait a minute, you never told me your dog was Catholic."

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Between yesterday and tomorrow

Between yesterday and tomorrow

Keep yourself from worries and sorrows

Seize with all your might

This fleeting life

Yesterday is already far

Tomorrow not yet arrived

Be happy for a moment

This moment is your life

Fill the bountiful cup

Life is disgrace

Drunkenness is grace.

Omar Khayyam

***

Omar Khayyam

(May 18, 1048 - December 4, 1122)

Was a Persian polymath: mathematician, philosopher, astronomer and above all poet.

As a poet, he is the most famous poet of the East in the West through various adaptations of his rather small number of quatrains (rubaiyaas) in Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

He has also become established as one of the major mathematicians and astronomers of the medieval period. Recognized as the author of the most important treatise on algebra before modern times as reflected in his Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra giving a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. He also contributed to calendar reform and may have proposed a heliocentric theory well before Copernicus.

His significance as a philosopher and teacher, and his few remaining philosophical works have not received the same attention as have his scientific or poetic writings. Zamakhshari referred to him as "the philosopher of the world". Many sources have also testified that he taught for decades the philosophy of Ibn Sina in Nayshapur where Khayyam lived most of his life, breathed his last, and was buried and where his mausoleum remains today a masterpiece of Iranian architecture visited by many people every yea.