"BEFORE THE BEGINNING, I AM" by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

"For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death." - Gospel of Thomas

"I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end." - Kahlil Gibran

Proverbs 8:22-27 is exactly my Experience of 1973, as is Chapter IV of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Creation and Its Cause. 

Both are reproduced below from the original texts in which I first excitingly discovered them. 

It is this about which I have been writing for more than 47 years, seeking answers as to what it was that I saw take place before there was an "Existence." I saw it all begin exactly this way, then posed the first of the Eternal Questions: "Who am I?" It's kind of like that song: "I wonder. I wonder. I wonder. But do I really want to know?"


This painting, The Ancient of Days (1794) by William Blake (1757-1827), is his illustration of Proverbs 8:22-27. It represents "the first emanation of the true but hidden and nameless God."

PROVERBS 8:22-27 (New American Standard Bible)

22"The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way,
Before His works of old.
23"From everlasting, I was established,
From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.
24"When there were no depths I was brought forth,
When there were no springs abounding with water.
25"Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills I was brought forth;
26"While He had not yet made the earth and the fields,
Nor the first dust of the world.
27"When He established the heavens, I was there. . .


The Mighty Living One (Cosmic Person), Alone in the Void Before it Had All Begun



BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD

Chapter IV—The Creation and Its Cause

1. In the beginning, this universe was the self (Viraj) alone, in the shape of a person. He reflected and saw nothing else but His Self. He first said: "I am He." Therefore He came to be known by the name I (Aham). Hence, even now, when a person is addressed, he first says: "It is I," and then says whatever other names he may have. And because He, before (Purva) the whole group of aspirants, burnt (aushat) all evils, therefore He is called Purusha. He who knows this verily burns up him who wishes to be Viraj in advance of him.

2. He was afraid. Therefore people still are afraid when alone. He thought: "Since there is nothing else but Myself, what am I afraid of?" Thereupon His fears were gone; for what was there to fear? Assuredly, it is from a second entity that fear arises.

I LOVE YOU MOM by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

Today, while listening to Luciano Pavarotti singing "Ave Maria," I was overcome by a pure and loving Motherly presence that embraced my Spirit as though I were her Child. I was unable to stop the tears that came to my eyes, realizing how ungrateful I've been for all She has done for me since She first made Herself known to me 72 years ago (see VISION OF THE VIRGIN MARY).

Reflecting on the words of Albino Luciano, Pope John Paul I, "God is more your Mother than your Father," I am so deeply sorry that I have neglected, for so long, to tell Her the one thing that makes all mothers happiest to hear from their children: "I love you, Mom."

LUCIANO PAVAROTTI SINGS AVE MARIA


-

I REMEMBER MAMA by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

Several months ago, I asked my family and friends, members of the Army Security Agency Kagnew Station Guard Group, and those in my address book, to please take the time to put a few words down honoring their mothers, that first woman in their lives whom God chose for His highest calling, to bring them into this world. There are no words that thrill the heart of a mother more than to hear her child say, "I love you, Mom!" We best obey the Fifth Commandment by respecting our Fathers and by loving our Mothers.

Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"
---------------



MARGE HEYMAN ANTON by Jaci Anton

I KNOW LITTLE OF MY MOTHER, ONLY WHAT PEOPLE TELL ME. I LIKE TO THINK OF HER AS A FUN LOVING WOMAN, AND I THINK OF HER OFTEN WHEN I LOOK IN THE MIRROR OR WHEN IT STRIKES ME JUST TO SING OUT LOUD. I HEAR SHE LOVED MUSIC AND THAT I LOOK JUST LIKE HER. THOSE WHO KNEW HER SAY SHE HAD A GOOD SPIRIT AND THOSE WHO LOVED HER, AS MY FATHER DID, SAW HOW SPECIAL SHE WAS. DESPITE WHAT WAS ON THE SURFACE HE SAW HER HEART. I MISS MY MOTHER ALTHOUGH I KNOW LITTLE ABOUT HER. I WISH I HAD HAD MORE TIME WITH HER. I JUST KEEP HER IN MY HEART ALWAYS AND KNOW THAT SHE IS WATCHING MY EVERY STEP. ALWAYS LOVE THOSE CLOSE TO YOU NO MATTER WHAT.

------------------------

ANNA G. ANTON by Scott Anton

Happy Mothers Day, Mom. I wish I could be there for you on your special day. I'll be home soon.

Love, Scott

-----------

KATHRYN ROSE CREDO TULANE by Geraldine Tulane

No one realizes that there were, and probably still are, "causalities of war" involving the families of Merchant Marines who were killed by U-boat submarines during WWII. There was a desperate need for volunteer Merchant Marines to transport oil, troops, rations, equipment and whatever else was needed as the U.S. tried to help England before we entered the war and anticipated that we would probably enter it also eventually.

Many men of all ages responded to the "We Want You" signs showing Uncle Sam pointing a finger at whoever was looking at this sign. As time wore on many of these men were told that they were needed more urgently in the Merchant Marines. Dutifully, they signed on to these merchant ships. At some point. President Roosevelt promised these men that if these brave men were injured or killed, they would receive medical care and/or their families would be given death benefits should they be killed. It took a special kind of man to climb the ladders up onto those ships, knowing so many had been blown out of the water and having no weapons to fight with in many cases. One (or no more than 2) Coast Guard Cutters were assigned to patrol the entire eastern coastline from Maine down to Key West to pick up survivors of sunken merchant ships...not a good chance of survival for men either injured or floating in oil ridden seas. But they kept on signing up...talk about courage.

President Roosevelt died before the end of the war. When Truman stepped in and the war was ended, he decided that the Merchant Marines deserved nothing as they were not sworn in as the men in uniform were. The fact that there was never a major battle anywhere while fighting the Japanese and the Germans that did not involve unarmed merchant ships sailing right along with our armed forces men...Merchant Marines that were captured were also imprisoned along with our service men. None of this mattered to our government after it was all over and done with.

My mother was raised in Louisiana to be a mother and a wife. She found herself a young woman alone with a tiny child to support with no husband and no money and no hopes of acquiring a good job. When the war was over there was a campaign for the working women who had taken their husband places in the work force to quit their jobs so the returning service men would have jobs to care for their families.

She did the only work she knew....waitressing and sewing. I wound up in an all-girls Catholic boarding school for many years because my mother worked such grueling hours. I cannot go into just how rough it was for her living in Staten Island and how meagerly we lived. But she did not complain very much at all. She cried a lot and I was always aware of the deep sadness she carried within her.

Whenever we went to a parade in NYC, I always asked her, "Where are the Merchant Marines?" because she always told me what a hero my father was riding on a Standard Oil Tanker (now called Exxon) named the "SS W.L. Steed" so bravely until it was blown out of the water...getting into a life boat (we think) only to freeze to death on 2/2/1941 in a snowstorm with a NE wind blowing in his underwear.

In 1988 I wheeled my 77 yrs. old mother from one military base to another...trying to get the paperwork for the pension that was passed by Congress. For 3 months we drove from Delaware down into Virginia...Congress forgot to inform the bases that the handful of wives still left alive would be trying to get their commissary card and I.D. for medical care. Finally, we wound up back where we started out - at the VA office in Wash., D.C. and they completed all the paperwork for her.

We received a flag and a Certificate of Honorable Discharge from the U.S. Coast Guard, along with 5 medals my father had earned on that last night of his life. (Note: the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines refused to allow the Merchant Marines to be placed under their wings so that these belated pensions could finally begin to be paid (they were not retroactive, of course.) I found it ironic that it was the Coast Guard that patrolled the coastline during the war and then again, the Coast Guard who accepted the few Merchant Marines and/or widows for the sake of the pension paperwork.

At some point in my young childhood my mother became like my child. I tried to look after her and remind her when things needed to be done. I cared for her throughout my entire adult life and made sure she did not want for anything.

She didn't make much of a "dent" in the governments funds as she died at the age of 91. I held her in my arms as I laid alongside her in her hospital bed for 5 days and nights until she passed away on 9/7/2002.

But on the previous 7/4/2002, when I took her out to dinner and to see the movie, "The Perfect Storm"...she sat in her wheelchair in the handicapped section of the movie theater. She was so quiet I was wondering if she was comprehending what was going on in the movie as the Capt. of the Andrea Gail and one of his crew members were facing their imminent death while their boat sank; all of sudden she leaned over and whispered in my ear, "I guess that is what it was like for your father." We'll never know what it was like for him as the bodies in the life boats were so decomposed only a few of them were identified. I didn't know it at the time, but dementia was taking a hold on her, but she still remembered my father enough to try and piece something together, even if it wasn't "right on the nose". It was close enough for me and I had to try and hide my tears from her in that dark theater.

She maintained her wonderful sense of humor almost until the end of her life. Her favorite joke when someone asked her how she felt was, "With my hands....how do you feel?" She would laugh harder than everyone else at her own jokes. My family misses her so much...especially me...for it was truly a case of "You and Me Against the World". Not a day goes by that I don't think about her and wish she were still here.

FORGETTING, OUR GREAT SHAME; DENYING OUR GREAT SIN.

Geraldine Tulane, daughter of Kathryn Rose & Walter Austin Tulane

-------------------

MY MOTHER by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

For all of her life, my mother, born Elizabeth Grace Granit, called "Bessie" by her friends and family, never forgot Armistices Day, Saturday, November 11, 1933. That was the day that the United States Army Football Team from Fort Monmouth, NJ, would play the Long Branch West End Wildcats for the Jersey Shore Championship.

It was also the day that she and my father met for the first time and fell in love.

My mother had five brothers, who played on the undefeated, untied, Wildcats team: Francis, Jack, George, Eddie, and Thomas; five of Long Branch's toughest street-fighting Irish kids, the "Five Blocks of Granit."

My mother, her older sister Mary, and her lifelong friend, Edith Semolis, were the Cheerleaders for the Wildcats.

Many of the players on the Fort Monmouth team, including my father, Jim, were on TDY from West Point. My father was called "Jim Thorpe" by his teammates because of his athleticism and was the player the five brothers were determined to stop cold if they were to beat Army.

"Big Jim" put on one helluva show that day. He scored three touchdowns and made dozens of tackles to upset the Wildcats' unblemished record.

My Uncle Francis always jokingly blamed my mother for the Army win, "Ah, Jim was just showing off to impress Bessie."

"Big Jim" and "Bessie" married shortly, thereafter. My father, a career soldier, left the Army when his enlistment was up and entered civilian life during the darkest days of the Great Depression as a regular working family man.

My sister, Patti, was born on September 28, 1935; my birth followed on Easter Sunday, March 28, 1937. We lived in a kerosene space heated three-room garage apartment.

December 8, 1941, I was pushing the rocking chair in which my Uncle Eddie was sitting, in our living room, if it can really be called that when the news came over the radio about Pearl Harbor.

"Big Jim," always the Warrior, had no other choice he could live with than to re-enlist and join the fight for Freedom. They knew this would place a heavy burden on my mother while he was gone, but they were part of that Greatest Generation who never considered alternatives. A great evil had descended upon the world and it had to be defeated at all costs.

My mother was pregnant with her third child when my father left for the War. He was somewhere fighting overseas when my brother, Julius, named after my mother's father and nicknamed "Bootsy," was born on October 16, 1942. He had auburn hair and glowed like an angel.

One year later, on September 14, 1943, we were at Nana's house, my mother's mother, who was confined to a wheelchair. Bootsy began to experience great difficulty in breathing. I can still hear his sounds in my head to this day that accompanied the winds of a terrible storm raging outside. We had no telephone, and no automobile, which meant that my mother had to go out into the storm, on foot, to find help for her baby.

October 9, 1943, Bootsy, fighting for his life, struggled to stand up in his crib at Hazard's Hospital. He reached out to our mother, scratching her throat with his fingernails, pleading in desperation for help she could not give, then fell back and died, one week before his First Birthday, while my mother's heart shattered into a million pieces.

My father was brought home on emergency leave for Bootsy's funeral, the son he had never seen and more so because my mother was so traumatized and devastated over the loss of Bootsy she had to be hospitalized.

I don't know how she was able to come back from all this. Until the day he died, my father would remark how strong our mother was - what an exceptional woman she was. I believe he admired her emotional strength as much as he loved her.

February 11, 1945, my brother, and closest friend, Donnie, was born, the "spitting image" of our mother. God had given her a gift of love to help heal her heart.

Throughout most of our childhood years, especially the war years, my mother worked many long, hard hours to put food on the table for us. Looking back, she never missed a day's work, which meant that she walked that two miles to the Hollander Fur Factory, and back, every day, through wind and rain and snow.

Patti, Donnie, and I loved our mother dearly. She loved to sing and knew hundreds of songs that always filled our home with the music of her beautiful singing voice. The special song she always sang to me, when I was young, was "YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE." I, in turn, sang it to every one of my six sons, as well. Often times when I sing, I hear her voice within my voice.

There was a popular Black dance trio in the '50s called the Step Brothers. Patti, my mother, and I would imitate them in our kitchen, taking turns, dancing and clapping and laughing.

Everyone loved my mother. My cousin Tommy (Bumpsey), all of my friends, our neighbors, and people she worked with, just loved to be around her. She never once ever said a bad word about anyone. People trusted her to keep their darkest secrets and she never betrayed that trust.

All my life, whenever people would hear my name, they always made me feel as though I were something special, just because I was my mother's son, in the way they used to say: "Oh! You're Bessie's Boy!"

She had this wonderful way of being able to laugh at herself. Every so often Patti, Donnie, and I, when we're alone, will think of something our mother did or said, and just laugh out loud.

Life became truly wonderful for my mother and father in their senior retirement years. My father bought a Winnebago Chief RV and he and my mother toured America.

She took care of her father, Julius, until he died at age 96.

When my mother became sick, my sister Patti, a Registered Nurse, cared for her until her death at age 76.

My father, because he loved her so, always demanded that we treat our mother with love and respect and always reminded us not to forget her when it was her birthday, and to especially remember her on Mother's Day. He's not here to remind me now but every day I can't think of anything else except how happy and proud I am to be "Bessie's Boy."

ONCE I WAS A CONDUCTOR by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

Once I was a Conductor,
The man in charge of the Train;
Then I went to College,
'Cause folks thought I had a Brain.
I stayed 10 years to vet my Pension,
Before I walked out the Door,
But the Union failed to Mention,
That Pension would be no More.
You cannot leave the Union Cult,
As freely as you please,
They'll take it as an insult,
And try to bring you to your knees.

THE SALESMAN'S EPITAPH by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

THE SALESMAN'S EPITAPH
by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

I could not sing; I could not dance;
Yet I needed the cash that was in your pants.
Too unskilled to labor; too afraid to steal;
But how I needed your money for my very next meal.
Faced with life as a living Hell,
The choice was simple - Starve or Sell!
What had I to offer? What had I to give?
What was it you wanted so I may also live?
I studied the masters who trod my path before
And close attention paid that I too may learn the score.
I made you feel important and let you know you rate;
Then offered you something for nothing and watched you take the bait.
I recognized your achievements; applauded all that you have done.
I played the praising father to you a beaming son.
Yes I piped your tune and fulfilled your need
To be admired by peers who shared your greed.
Before talk of money, we formed a tight-knit bond.
I was sure you’d grant me a favor; how else could you respond?
From my list of choices offered you did the best you could;
Certifying your self-importance as I surely knew you would.
But lest you faltered and changed your mind,
The deal we made I had to bind.
We were only voices over the phone;
Each of us members of the Great Unknown.
I asked for your word and then your hand,
To seal our deal that was made in sand.
You could not have known you were saving a wreck.
Thanks for your faith in me. Thanks for the check!

"ADVICE POLONIUS FAILED TO GIVE LAERTES" by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

‘Twixt Thou and another assumest not
That Thou art the most learned of the lot.
If Thou believest Thou art smarter than he,
Then treadest Thy path very carefully.
Couldst be that Thou wert being outsmarted
Long before Thy chance meeting started.
If thinkest Thou he be smarter than Thee,
Guardest well this knowledge in secrecy.
Revealest not that which he not knoweth;
Thine advantage Thou needest not showeth.
Thou wilt be the smarter ‘twixt Thy twain.
Because ignorance of this shall be his bane.

The Way of the Warrior

When my son, Dan, was asked to write an essay, before his pre-enlistment interview, why he wanted to become an officer, he wrote:

"I want to live the Great Life, the life of a warrior in service to America and in service to those who, for whatever reason, cannot, should not, nor will not serve.

I want to earn the right to stand among the ranks of our nation's Greatest Men, both the living and the dead, most known only to God, and to share with them, what only a true warrior may experience, the feeling of filling every inch of my uniform with love and pride in America."

* The Spirit does not accept volunteers; the Spirit chooses who will be a Warrior.

* A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting.

* On the Path of Knowledge there are four natural enemies: Fear, Clarity, Power and Old Age.

* When the Knock of the Spirit sounds we follow or perish

* A path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy— it does not make a Warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.

* A rule of thumb for a Warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.

* A Warrior acts as if he knows what he is doing when in effect he knows nothing.

* A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.

* A Warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing to lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore he's clear and calm; judging him by his acts or by his words, one would never suspect that he has witnessed everything.

* A Warrior doesn't know remorse for anything he has done because to isolate one's acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil is to place an unwarranted importance on the self.

* A Warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A Warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions.

* A Warrior lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting.

* A Warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts for a Warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being alive.

* A Warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.

* A Warrior is never concerned about his fear.

* A Warrior seeks to act rather than talk.

* A Warrior takes responsibility for his acts, for the most trivial of acts. An average man acts out his thoughts, and never takes responsibility for what he does.

* A Warrior waits patiently, knowing that he is waiting, and knowing what he is waiting for. That is the warrior's way.

* A Warrior thinks of death when things become unclear. The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit.

* A Warrior-Hunter knows that his death is waiting, and the very act he is performing now may well be his last battle on earth. He calls it a battle because it is a struggle. Most people move from act to act without any struggle or thought. A Warrior-Hunter, on the contrary, assesses every act; and since he has intimate knowledge of his death, he proceeds judiciously, as if every act were his last battle. Only a fool would fail to notice the advantage a Warrior-Hunter has over his fellow men. A Warrior-Hunter gives his last battle its due respect. It's only natural that his last act on earth should be the best of himself. It's pleasurable that way. It dulls the edge of his fright.

* An average man is too concerned with liking people or with being liked himself. A Warrior likes, that's all. He likes whatever or whomever he wants, for the hell of it.

* Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a Warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a Warrior has to ask: 'Does this path have a heart?'

* Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm's length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a Warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he's about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, 'I haven't touched you yet.'

* Do you know at this very moment you are surrounded by eternity? And do you know that you can use that eternity if you so desire?

* Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a Warrior one needs to be light and fluid.

* For a Warrior, to be inaccessible means that he touches the world around him sparingly. And above all, he deliberately avoids exhausting himself and others. He doesn't use and squeeze people until they have shriveled to nothing, especially the people he loves.

* If a Warrior is to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.

* If his spirit is distorted he should simply fix it—purge it, make it perfect—because there is no other task in our entire lives which is more worthwhile…To seek the perfection of the Warrior's spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our humanity.

* Impeccability is nothing else but the proper use of energy.

* Inner silence works from the moment you begin to accrue it. What the old sorcerers were after was the final dramatic end result of reaching that individual threshold of silence. Some very talented practitioners need only a few minutes of silence to reach that coveted goal. Others, less talented, need long periods of silence, perhaps more than one hour of quietude before they reach the desired result. The desired result is what the old sorcerers called "stopping the world", the moment when everything around us ceases to be what it's always been. This is the moment when sorcerers return to the TRUE nature of man. The old sorcerers always called it "total freedom"

* Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the Warrior's indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.

* It doesn't matter how one was brought up. What determines the way one does anything is personal power.

* No person is important enough to make a Warrior angry.

* Nothing in this world is a gift. Whatever must be learned must be learned the hard way.

* Once a man worries, he clings to anything out of desperation; and once he clings he is bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whomever or whatever he is clinging to. A Warrior-Hunter, on the other hand, knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn't worry.

* Only as a Warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A Warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.

* Only the idea of death makes a Warrior sufficiently detached so that he is capable of abandoning himself to anything. He knows his death is stalking him and won't give him time to cling to anything so he tries, without craving, all of everything.

* Personal history must be constantly renewed by telling parents, relatives, and friends everything one does. On the other hand, for the Warrior who has no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with his acts. And above all, no one pins him down with their thoughts and their expectations.

* The basic difference between an ordinary man and a Warrior is that a Warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.

* The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a Warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified in doing so, believing that someone is always doing something to us. Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.

* The humbleness of a Warrior is not the humbleness of the beggar. The Warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesn't permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scrapes the floor for anyone he deems to be higher; but at the same time, he demands that someone lower than him scrape the floor for him.

* The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.

* The most effective way to live is as a Warrior. A Warrior may worry and think before making any decision, but once he makes it, he goes his way, free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting him. That's the Warrior's way.

* The self-confidence of the Warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The Warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the Warrior is hooked only to infinity.

* The spirit of a Warrior is not geared to indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning or losing. The spirit of a Warrior is geared only to struggle, and every struggle is a warrior's last battle on earth. Thus the outcome matters very little to him. In his last battle on earth, a Warrior lets his spirit flow free and clear. And as he wages his battle, knowing that his intent is impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs.

* The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.

* The Warrior: silent in his struggle, undetainable because he has nothing to lose, functional and efficacious because he has everything to gain.

* The world is incomprehensible. We won't ever understand it; we won't ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat the world as it is: a sheer mystery.

* There are lots of things a Warrior can do at a certain time which he couldn't do years before. Those things themselves did not change; what changed was his idea of himself.

* There is a flaw with words, they always force us to feel enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without enlightenment

* There's no emptiness in the life of a Warrior. Everything is filled to the brim.

* To achieve the mood of a Warrior is not a simple matter. It is a revolution. To regard the lion and the water rats and our fellow men as equals is a magnificent act of a warrior's spirit. It takes power to do that.

* To be a Warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a Warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.

* To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle.

* Warriors do not win victories by beating their heads against walls, but by overtaking the walls. Warriors jump over walls; they don't demolish them.

* We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.

* We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact, we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. A Warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his internal talk.

* When a man has fulfilled all four of these requisites— to be wide awake, to have fear, respect, and absolute assurance— there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions, his actions lose the blundering quality of the acts of a fool. If such a man fails or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.

* When a Warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become attainable.

* Whenever a Warrior decides to do something, he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them.

* An immortal being has all the time in the world for doubts and bewilderment and fears. A Warrior, on the other hand, cannot…because he knows for a fact that the totality of himself has but a little time on this earth.

* The things that people do cannot under any conditions be more important than the world.