Western Science

Western Mystics, Poets and Religions

And they allowed Apollonius to ask questions;
and he asked them of what they thought the cosmos was composed;
but they replied:

"Of elements."

"Are there then four" he asked.

"Not four," said Iarchas, "but five."

"And how can there be a fifth," said Apollonius,
"alongside of water and air and earth and fire ?"

"There is the ether", replied the other,
"which we must regard as the stuff of which gods are made;
for just as all mortal creatures inhale tbe air,
so do immortal and divine natures inhale the ether."

Apollonius again asked which was the first of the elements,
and Iarchas answered:

"All are simultaneous, for a living creature is not born bit by bit."

"Am I," said Apollonius, "to regard
the universe as a living creature?"

"Yes," said the other, "if you have a sound knowledge of it,
for it engenders all living things."

- The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Philostratus, 220AD.

Eastern Mystics, Poets and Religions

"When the Yogi has full power over his body
composed of the elements of earth, water, fire, air, and ether,
then he obtains a new body of spiritual fire
which is beyond illness, old age, and death".

- Krishna Yajur Veda, Svetasvatara Upanishad 2.12, The Poems of Tukaram (p.88)

Global Terrestrial Nativity

"It is the story of all life that is holy and is good to tell
and of us two-leggeds sharing in it with the four leggeds
and the wings of the air and all green things,
for these are the children of one mother
and their father is one Spirit"

- Black Elk, Sioux Elder

"We come from our mother’s breath."
("bingyadyan ngallu nudjarn jungarung")
Yuin language,
via Bruce Pascoe in "Dark Emu"

Surfing and other Resources

"Where but the moment before was only the wide desolation
and invincible roar, is now a man, erect, full-statured,
not-struggling frantically in that wild movement,
not buried and crushed and buffetted by those mighty monsters,
but standing above them all, calm and superb,
poised on the giddy summit, his feet buried in the churning foam,
the salt smoke rising to his knees,
and all the rest of him in the free air and flashing sunlight,
and he is flying through the air, flying forward,
flying fast as the surge on which he stands.
He is a Mercury -- a brown Mercury. His heels are winged,
and in them is the swiftness of the sea..."

-- Jack London, Hawaii, 1907

Original Writings ...

"Just as the outer world of man has in it the terrestrial and the cosmic,
So too the inner world of man has its terrestrial and cosmic environments.
Outwardly, the earth and sun and moon are bound in journey;
Inwardly, the heart and soul and mind are bound in journey.
Outer sunshine and the Inner Spirit - these provide life to the realms.
The metaphysics of life hides in the midst of natural simplicity.

--- mountainman (Sierra Nevada, central Spain, 1978)

Information Technology Management & Relational Database Systems ...

"Demonstration and refutation
together with their fallacies
are useful in arguing with others;

and perception and inference
together with their fallacies
are useful for self-understanding"

--- Dignaga (India, about 550AD)