title:The Awakening ver.1.0e
by Taro Kimura
1995


FAHRENHEIT 451
BY RAY BRADBURY

Books were only one type of receptacle where
we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget.
There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only
in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the
universe together into one garment for us.

"You can't guarantee things like that ! After all, when
we had all the books we needed, we still insisted on
finding the highest cliff to jump off. But we do need a
breather. We do need knowledge. And perhaps in a
thousand years we might pick smaller cliffs to jump off.
The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are.
They're Caesar's praetorian guard, whispering as the
parade roars down the avenue, "Remember, Caesar, thou
art mortal." Most of us can't rush around, talking to
everyone, know all the cities of the world, but the only way
the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of
them is in a book. Don't ask for guarantees. And don't
look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or
library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at
least die knowing you were headed for shore."


UTOPIA OF A TIRED MAN
BY JORGE LUIS BORGES
TRANSLATED BY NORMAN THOMAS DI GIOVANNI

"Having reached a hundred, the individual no longer
stands in need of live or friendship. Evils and involuntary
death are not threat to him. He practices one of the arts
or philosophy or mathematics or he plays a game of solitary
chess. When he wants to, he kills himself. Man is
master of his life. He is also master of his death!"
"Is this a quotation?" I asked.
"Of course. Quotations are all we have now. Language
is a system of quotation."


TALE OF POWER
BY CARLOS CASTANEDA

"Genaro's love is the world," he said. "He was just
now embracing this enormous earth but since he's so
little all he can do is swim in it. But the earth knows that
Genaro loves it and it bestows on him its care. That's
why Genaro's life is filled to the brim and his state,
wherever he'll be, will be plentiful. Genaro roams on
the paths of his love and, wherever he is, he is com-
plete."
Don Juan squatted in front of us. He caressed the
ground gently.
"This is the predilection of two warriors," he said.
"This earth, this world. For a warrior there can be no
greater love."
Don Genaro stood up and squatted next to don
Juan for a moment while both of them peered fixedly at
us, then they sat in unison, cross-legged.
"Only if one loves this earth with unbending passion
can one release one's sadness," don Juan said. "A war-
rior is always joyful because his love is unalterable and
his beloved, the earth, embraces him and bestows upon
him inconceivable gifts. The sadness belongs only to
those who hate the very thing that gives shelter to their
beings."
Don Juan again caressed the ground with tenderness.
"This lovely being, which is alive to its last recesses
and understands every feeling, soothed me, it cured me
of my pains, and finally when I had fully understood
my love for it, it taught me freedom."
He paused. The silence around us was frightening.
The wind hissed softly and then I heard the distant
barking of a lone dog.
"Listen to that barking," don Juan went on. "That
is the way my beloved earth is helping me now to bring
this last point to you. That barking is the saddest thing
one can hear."
We were quiet for a moment. The barking of that
lone dog was so sad and the stillness around us so in-
tense that I experienced a numbing anguish. It made me
think of my own life, my sadness, my not knowing
where to go, what to do.
"That dog's barking is the nocturnal voice of a man,"
don Juan said. "It comes from a house in that valley to-
wards the south. A man is shouting through his dog,
since they are companion slaves for life, his sadness, his
boredom. He's begging his death to come and release
him from the dull and dreary chains of his life."
Don Juan's words had caught a most disturbing line
in me. I felt he was speaking directly to me.
"That barking, and the loneliness it creates, speaks
of the feelings of men," he went on. "Men for whom
an entire life was like one Sunday afternoon, an after-
noon which was not altogether miserable, but rather hot
and dull and uncomfortable. They sweated and fussed a
great deal. They didn't know where to go, or what to
do. That afternoon left them only with the memory of
petty annoyances and tedium, and then suddenly it was
over; it was already night."
He recounted a story I had once told him about a
seventy-two-year-old man who complained that his life
had been so short that it seemed to him that it was only
the day before that he was a boy. The man had said to
me, "I remember the pajamas I used to wear when I
was ten years old. It seems that only one day has
passed. Where did the time go?"
"The antidote that kills that poison is here," don
Juan said, caressing the ground. "The sorcerers' ex-
planation cannot at all liberate the spirit. Look at you
two. You have gotten to the sorcerers' explanation, but
it doesn't make any difference that you know it. You're
more alone that ever, because without an unwavering
love for the being that gives you shelter, aloneness is
loneliness.
"Only the love for this splendorous being can give
freedom to a warrior's spirit; and freedom is joy, ef-
ficiency, and abandon in the face of any odds. That is
the last lesson. It is always left for the very last mo-
ment, for the moment of ultimate solitude when a man
faces his death and his aloneness. Only then does it
make sense."


WE
BY YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
TRANSLATED BY BERNARD GUILBERT GUERNEY

And I consider it my duty to discover them,; if only as the author of
these records, to say nothing of the fact that the unknown is, in
general, inimical to man, and homosapiens is man in the fullest
sense of that phrase only when his grammar has absolutely no
question marks but exclamation points, commas and full stops
exclusively.


THE EMPTY BOAT
BY OSHO

Once somebody said to Walt Whitman, one of the greatest poets
ever born, "Whitman, you go on contradicting yourself. One day you
say one thing, another day you say just the opposite."
Walt Whitman laughed and said, "I am vast. I contain all the contra-
dictions."


EMILE
BY JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
TRANSLATED BY BARBARA FOXLEY

He says little, for he is not anxious to attract attention; for the
same reason he only says what is to the point; who could induce
him to speak otherwise? Emile is too well informed to be a chatter-
box. A great flow of words comes either from a pretentious spirit,
of which I shall speak presently, or from the value laid upon trifles
which we foolishly think to be as important in the eyes of others
as in our own. He who knows enough of things to value them at
their true worth never says too much; for he can also judge of the
attention bestowed on him and the interest aroused by what he says.
People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who
know much say little. It is plain that an ignorant person thinks
everything he does know important, and he tells it to everybody.
But a well-educated man is not so ready to display his learning;
he would have too much to say, and he sees that there is much more
to be said, so he holds his peace.


UPANISHAD
TRANSLATED BY F. MAX MULLER

EIGHTH KHANDA
There were once three men, well-versed in
udgitha, Silaka Salavatya, Kaikitayana Dalbhya,
and Pravahana Gaivali. They said: 'We are well-
versed in udgitha. Let us have a discussion on
udgitha.'
They all agreed and sat down. Then Prava-
hana Gaivali said : 'Sirs, do you both speak first,
for I wish to hear what two Brahmanas have to
say.'
Then Silaka Salavatya said to Kaikitayana
Dalbhya : 'Let me ask you.'
'Ask,' he replied.
'What is the origin of the Saman?' 'Tone
(svara),' he replied.
'What is the origin of tone?' 'Breath,' he
replied.
'What is the origin of breath?' 'Food,' he
replied.
'What is the origin of food?' 'Water,' he
replied.
'What is the origin of water?' 'That world
(heaven),' he replied.
'And what is the origin of that world?'-
He replied : 'Let no man carry the Saman
beyond the world of svarga (heaven). We place
(recognise) the Saman in the world of svarga, for
the Saman is extolled as svarga (heaven).'
Then said Silaka Salavatya to Kaikitayana
Dalbhya : 'O Dalbhya, thy Saman is not firmly
established. And if any one were to say, Your
head shall fall off (if you be wrong), surely your
head would now fall.'
'Well then, let me know this from you, Sir,'
said Dalbhya.
'Know it,' replied Silaka Salavatya.
'What is the origin of that world (heaven)?'
'This world,' he replied.
'And what is the origin of this world?'-
He replied : 'Let no man carry the Saman be-
yond this world as its rest. We place the Saman
in this world as its rest, for the Saman is extolled
as rest.'
Then said Pravahana Gaivali to Silaka Sala-
vatya : 'Your Saman (the earth), O Salavatya, has
an end. And if any one were to say, Your head
shall fall off (if you be wrong), surely your head
would now fall.'
'Well then, let me know this from you, Sir,' said
Salavatya.
'Know it,' replied Gaivali.