[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature


View post   
View page  Next     

File: 65 KB, 657x1000, review of contemporary fiction summer 1993 young writers issue vollmann wallace daitch.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22783185 No.22783185 [Reply] [Original]

Any idea where I may be able to access picrel (among other issues) without having to shell out an exorbitant amount of money for it? Much appreciated.
Also, Vollmann/Wallace general.



File: 3.50 MB, 2638x1630, literature.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22783172 No.22783172 [Reply] [Original]

Here is the literature that supports this fundamental truth:

>> No.22783174
File: 359 KB, 751x960, F.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22783174

>>22783172
I also have a few videos to support my findings. Just ask me nicely I shall provide them to you.



File: 106 KB, 694x1000, IMG_0798.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22783148 No.22783148 [Reply] [Original]

Does anyone want to do a group read of this book with me in the coming weeks? I am going to reread it. It’s a horror book about a circus coming to town and it causes the people to act crazy and rebel and destroy the town they are in. Many consider it a metaphor for the social unrest in the eastern bloc at the time it was written (1989- the year east Germany fell).



File: 26 KB, 680x680, 316.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22783113 No.22783113 [Reply] [Original]

WTF IS A "LINGUISTIC PROBLEM"?????

>> No.22783117

>>22783113
context?



File: 1.69 MB, 2524x2048, BAP.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22783086 No.22783086 [Reply] [Original]

>this is by far the most important author of our time
grim

>> No.22783186

>>22783086
>No paragraphs
Completely fucking unreadable.



File: 136 KB, 800x333, 1701464466360873.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22783023 No.22783023 [Reply] [Original]

>> No.22783027

>>22783023
great minds do all three simultaneously.

>> No.22783053

tiny minds generalize. wait, shit

>> No.22783069
File: 915 KB, 2002x1011, 2023-10-18_01.40.32.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22783069

Notice how they always turn the topic from the subject to me...

>> No.22783141

>>22783023
Brilliant minds discuss the ball game from last night



File: 62 KB, 640x487, 1700420519327539.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782968 No.22782968 [Reply] [Original]

The only decent arguments I've seen are about
>poverty being decreased
Because Pinker kind of misrepresents the stats. People from the 3rd world aren't being raised from poverty, they're being dragged out of being self-sufficient into wage cucks that can afford an iphone, but need to pay for the lumber from the woods they own(ed). All this while their environment is being unsustainably exploited.
>drop in crime
Is there a single non-schizo angle you can take to make this a bad thing?
>freedom of movement
>access to information
>life expectancy and scientific advancement
Now, I know there's a million non-materialists that think these are all garbage, but that's not going to convince anyone that isn't down that rabbit hole. While my normal friends can be convinced that our diets are horrific, any questioning of our freedom is shut down and I don't have the brain power to really argue against it.
I can, theoretically fly anywhere right now. Tomorrow, basically, but most people aren't reasonably able to go anywhere, either due to personal finances, or being tied down to a job. Why shouldn't I just sit by and enjoy the fruits of my ancestors?
Also, spare me the predictions. Clearly nobody really cares if the world explodes after they die.

>> No.22783057
File: 138 KB, 926x657, file-20210324-21-1n7zubv.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22783057

The degree of personal freedom that exists in a society is determined more by the economic and technological structure of the society than by its laws or its form of government. Most of the Indian nations of New England were monarchies, and many of the cities of the Italian Renaissance were controlled by dictators. But in reading about these societies one gets the impression that they allowed far more personal freedom than our society does.
In part this was because they lacked efficient mechanisms for enforcing the ruler’s will: There were no modern, well-organised police forces, no rapid long-distance communications, no surveillance cameras, no dossiers of information about the lives of average citizens. Hence it was relatively easy to evade control.

-Theodore J. Kaczynski, Industrial Society and Its Future

>> No.22783095

>>22782968
Plenty atheist materialists totally believe the world can explode in our lifetime, mainly due to AI or synthetic biology.

>> No.22783098

>>22782968
>>22783095
Also, you might like Curtis Yarvin.



File: 251 KB, 800x1085, Nietzsche.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782927 No.22782927 [Reply] [Original]

>> No.22782990

>>22782927
Read Gay Science, then read Genealogy of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil, then read Twilight of Idols and Antichrist



File: 122 KB, 452x819, GARaZNcW8AAZDBV.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782902 No.22782902 [Reply] [Original]

This is literally all you need to read to be civilized.

14 replies omitted. Click Reply to view.
>> No.22783129

>>22782902
>any i’ve missed?

LMAO

>> No.22783132

>>22782909
I hate libertarians more than liberals. Or at least just as much

>> No.22783140

>>22782902
>trying to create a list of cultural canon
>can't think of any better better econ books than Sowell and Kiyosaki
So sad.

>> No.22783155

>>22782902
>fiction
Everything apart from Brothers Karamazov on that list is utter dog shite and pure tripe.
>"philosophy" / self-"improvement"
Not even ONE redeeming choice. All garbage.
>Classics
Nicomachean Ethics and City of God are good. Everything else in there is veritable dog shit.

>everything else
Yeah, nice bait.

>> No.22783158

>>22783155
The Gulag Archipelago is amazing too but otherwise youre right.



File: 50 KB, 600x518, 19789999.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782883 No.22782883 [Reply] [Original]

In your own words, what does "pretentious" mean?

13 replies omitted. Click Reply to view.
>> No.22782997

Someone called OP pretentious irl

>> No.22783003

>>22782883
Putting on an air of knowledge that one hasn't earned.

In debate, pretentiousness is most commonly evoked upon seeing someone who has an objectively refuted/refutable position that is presented, usually smugly, as a hard-earned and inevitable conclusion. In art, pretentiousness is generally someone who wants to direct attention towards their own role as an artist rather than the merit of their art itself.

>> No.22783004

>>22783003
This. This guy. Pretentious faggot.

>> No.22783018

>>22783004
>Wanting definitions for things is pretentious

>> No.22783030

>>22783018
Are you calling OP a pretentious faggot?



File: 290 KB, 1000x1277, IMG_0791.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782853 No.22782853 [Reply] [Original]

The Holy Terrors as a book is a reversal of the Oedipus story. Most of its major themes are shared in common with the Sophocles’ play but the themes are broadly worn with pride by the characters of the book rather than hidden away under neurotic pangs and self banishment to Thebes.

>fate

The theme of fate is heavily pushed in this book. Nothing is by chance and material conditions play no part on their own. Paul being struck with the snowball, his moms death, Michaels death and his Ill fated suicide are all up to fate. They were all bound to happen regardless of anyone’s actions. Much like Oedipus, Elisabeth attempts to control fate by marrying Agatha to Gerard and yet the reverse happens in the same condition. Elisabeth seals her own fate and eventual suicide in her attempt to overcome it. Man has no control over his environment and what is written for him to undergo. This is like a Greek tragedy in how it unfolds.

>Freudian sexuality
Agatha is loved by Paul for her close physical resemblance to the boy he had a crush on in school who hated him. In fact, his attempt at showing his love to her is like an attempt to get one over the former bully by winning the love of his female look alike. The faces of all the actors and politicians in the newspaper clips Paul saves all resemble Dargelos. This shows he is still hung up over his first love for the entire span of his short love. Agatha is just an extension of Dargelos.

The way Dargelos bullied Paul (who enjoyed it) is also apparent in the way Paul and his sister bully Gerard and Agatha. In this novel, scorn and hatred seem to dray one closer instead of love. Not only is Agatha the physical embodiment of Dargelos but Paul’s treatment of her is the psychological projection of how Dargelos treated him- with nothing except contempt.


>culpability

The characters are all described in childish terms even though they are far beyond childhood years. They are all nearly 20 and yet caught in a state of near adolescence. Things such as marriage and life goals do not mean much to the main siblings as they don’t treat them rationally with the seriousness they deserve.

The story is about a pair of siblings who are far too close and who cause problems through their inability to take responsibility for their own actions and to act like adults. Their childish games devolve and only cause them further seclusion until it is too late. I see what Cocteau was doing with this novel. He was making an updated Oedipus for the modern age except it was one in reverse where instead of trying to overtake fate by avoiding the oracle’s curse the main characters seek to control their own Freudian desires in a more tense way where they own up to them on the inside instead of attempting to bury them. It’s like a reverse Oedipus where Oedipus tries to control fate by bedding his mom but then somehow undoes the curse by attempting to control fate by overcoming it and owning up to it.

>> No.22782978

>>22782853
Does this have anything to do with Metal Gear Solid?

>> No.22782992

>>22782978
I have never played it but after looking it up online the character or whatever is named after this book.



File: 5 KB, 220x268, 220px-Thomas_Hobbes_by_John_Michael_Wright.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782833 No.22782833 [Reply] [Original]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/hobmeth/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/hobmoral.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Thomas_Hobbes
What does /lit think of Hobbes philosophy ? Correct in human nature ? .

>> No.22782838

Why are you making these weird link threads?

>> No.22782857

>>22782833
The notion that we are individually selfish, but that collective associations in some way tame our base instinct through self interest reminds me of the view of moderns like Freud or Huxley who similarly conceived of human nature as selfish/egotistical and as civilization as something that overlays and tames the more base, primal impulses
One criticism that can be lodged against hia view is the same criticism that can be lodged against other social contract theorists, that people are naturally born into social arrangements so perhaps the social arrangement could better be understood as something organic or natural rather than the asocial individual being the state of nature

>> No.22782866

>>22782838
It's called a megathread

>> No.22783104

>>22782866
does Hobbes really need a mega thread? why not just a thread about Leviathan? i doubt anyone here has read any of his other books or translations anyway.



File: 32 KB, 450x629, images.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782818 No.22782818 [Reply] [Original]

What books would you make your child read growing up? What books do you consider to be essential for someone to read before college age?

12 replies omitted. Click Reply to view.
>> No.22782904

>>22782818
First they will read Herodotus, then they will read Thucydides alongside Plutarch's Greek lives. Then Xenophon, then more Plutarch with the works on Alexander by Arrian and Rufus then Diodorus Siculus with relevant Plutarch lives. Next is early Livy up until the second Punic War where we will go to Polybius alongside Livy with some Cornelius Nepos to spice it up. After that we finish with Livy and move onto Appian's works, Velleius Paterculus, Sallust then Cicero, Caesar more Appian, then to some Suetonius, Cassius Dio's early books, Josephus, then Tacitus. Next we move on to more Cassius Dio, Historia Augusta and Herodian. After this we will be reading Ammianus, Eusebius, Marcellinus Comes, Zosimus and finally end on Procopius.

>> No.22782931

Minimum reading list for my son:
>Homer
>Herodotus
>Plato
>Aristotle
>Holy Bible
>Augustine
>Aquinas
>Shakespeare
>Tolkien
>Lewis
>Rothbard
If he's not a tard
>Dostoevsky
>Orwell
>Rand
>Church Fathers
>Chesterton

>> No.22782970

>>22782818
>Where's Wally?
Helps develop concentration and understanding little nuggets of narrative and characterization, told only through visual means.
>Le Petit Prince
Short, sweet and an important exercise in empathy and bittersweet emotional depth.
>The Hobbit
Warm, friendly, at times appropriately tense and frightening, but above all, a beautiful fairytale to stimulate and widen the imagination.

>> No.22782994

>>22782970
sane

>> No.22783085

>>22782931
>Rothbard
I wish I read Rothbard when I was in high school, it was a time of great confusion for me because I was brainwashed by the state religion and could not navigate my way around it.



File: 891 B, 1280x768, Flag_of_Germany.svg.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782808 No.22782808 [Reply] [Original]

What are the best book resources for learning German?

And moreso, what methods do you recommend?
Like absorption through constant listening and reading even if I understand 10% of it, or try to memorize words, sentences, etc.
I'm open to and already basically trying everything and its working well, I just would prefer to optimize my time.

3 replies omitted. Click Reply to view.
>> No.22782960

>>22782930
ein moment

>> No.22782964

>>22782930
>>22782960
sorry, the one I use is actually called
'B1_Workliste_DTZ_Goethe'
you'll find that easily.

>> No.22782966

>>22782964
Wortliste*

>> No.22782987

>>22782964
thank you!

>> No.22783014

>>22782987
viel Glück und viel Spass



File: 139 KB, 323x290, 84156161531.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782801 No.22782801 [Reply] [Original]

What does /lit/ think of Lady of the Library
Is she /ourgirl/?

10 replies omitted. Click Reply to view.
>> No.22782847
File: 34 KB, 1143x246, 84946468464.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782847

>>22782801
/ourgirl/

>> No.22782850

>>22782834
lmao

>> No.22782858

>>22782847
we're so back

>> No.22782860
File: 69 KB, 735x734, womyn.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782860

>> No.22782864
File: 22 KB, 705x202, 4986453465453.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782864

>>22782860
Pretty much



File: 50 KB, 456x673, images (9).jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782797 No.22782797 [Reply] [Original]

Can you help me?
>Did Alexander marry his own daughter?
>Is he of the Defarge family?
>Is his servant Ernest Defarge of his own family?
>How was the letter read if it was burned by the Marquis?
>In “Much influence around him, has that Doctor?” murmured Madame Defarge, smiling to The Vengeance. “Save him now, my Doctor, save him!”", who is The Vengeance and "he", and what was the Doctor (Alexander) supposed to do to save "him"?
I only read this chapter alone as a tale, so please bear with me.

>> No.22782837

>>22782797
Do your own homework little man

>> No.22782842

>>22782837
It's not a homework, I just can't understand these points and don't wanna read the whole book just to understand it.



File: 121 KB, 980x551, 1701501200229702.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782789 No.22782789 [Reply] [Original]

based mods

>> No.22782814
File: 948 KB, 500x373, Original.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782814

>>22782789
>We created a culture of lying and act suprised when the law was not based of the truth.

Didnt yoy guys read Crime and Punishment or Gulag Archipelago, or whatever?...I didnt because I already knew that shit in elementary school.

>> No.22782830

>>22782814
Everyone move over boy genius coming through

>> No.22782848
File: 44 KB, 558x549, images - 2023-12-02T170800.089.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782848

>>22782830
>Everyone move over
No one needs to when youre flying in the stratosphere.

>> No.22782981

>>22782814
Back to /sci/, retard.

>> No.22783007
File: 68 KB, 500x272, 2022-10-05_04.30.49.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22783007

>>22782981
Why would I lecture college kids struggling with their homework?
Youre not smart...stop LARPing (LYING).

>>22782753
Get an education...THEN challenge the Master.



File: 207 KB, 435x557, Machiavelli.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782772 No.22782772 [Reply] [Original]

Discuss him and your thoughts on him and controversies .
My opinion is that he was a republican , he was not a lover of authoritarians .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli
https://www.iep.utm.edu/machiave/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/machiavelli/

>> No.22783073

which books of his have you read?



File: 98 KB, 259x194, image_2023-12-01_225908003.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782748 No.22782748 [Reply] [Original]

Can never really get into it, it feels like you get little kernels of good writing and then you get some shit like "The meep morp delta failed to honor the 3334th century treatise with the glorp schorps so now..." and I lose all interest.

2 replies omitted. Click Reply to view.
>> No.22782769

Scifi and fantasy are for children

>> No.22782776

>>22782760
I mean because you're unaware of the genre. Read Hard Reading by Tom Shippey. It's about this difficulty in reading science fiction which he says is a "high-information" genre, and its use of ideas from sciences like anthropology.

>> No.22782784

>>22782776
Alot of science fiction just uses science as a stand in for magic so you just end up with wizards with guns at the end of the day, scifi should have died with pulp magazines.

>> No.22782805

as if bad exposition isn't a problem in every genre

>> No.22783074

>>22782784
Pulp magazines should never have died and then you wouldn't get filtered by made up words like some octogenarian with calcified brain.



File: 33 KB, 500x500, 3-gunas-sattva-rajas-tamas.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
22782741 No.22782741 [Reply] [Original]

Of what race are you?
>Thus, among trainees engaging in Mantra who have the best faculties, those who do not desire the desire realm attributes of a Knowledge Woman [either meditated or actual] are taught meditation on the Great Seal [indivisibility of method and wisdom not involving a consort of any type]. Among those who desire the desire realm attributes of a Knowledge Woman, it is asserted that those who do not desire an external Knowledge Woman [an actual consort] are permitted meditation on a Wisdom Seal [a meditated consort], and those who desire an external Knowledge Woman are permitted both Pledge Seals and Action Seals [fully qualified and not fully qualified actual consorts]. Therefore, it would be contradictory to assert this system of this master [Tripiṭakamāla] as one’s own and to assert [as is right] that the chief trainees of Highest Yoga must have great desire for the desire realm attributes of an external Knowledge Woman.

>Although the middling [among those with the best] faculties have turned away from enjoying ordinary objects, they have not forsaken conceptions of desire and so forth. They are not able to enter the ocean of ultimate wisdom, and for them meditation on a Wisdom Seal [a meditated consort] is set forth. Jñānakīrti’s Abridged Explanation of All the Word explains that they meditate on the five lineages of Ones-Gone-Thus and their Knowledge Women,the goddesses Lochanā and so forth. With regard to the way that suchness is entered through meditating on deities, when the mind itself is fixed firmly on a deity’s body, it appears as the deity, and there is no external object, whereby one comes to understand the teaching not to adhere to the three spheres of an object of meditation, meditating, and meditator. One then abides as an exalted [divine] body free from conceptions of external objects and of apprehended-object and apprehending-subject. Also, one understands through a guru’s quintessential instructions that these bodies do not inherently exist because of being one or many. Then, one understands that all phenomena likewise do not inherently exist. In consideration of this [process of meditation], limitless deity meditations are set forth.

>Although the least among those with supreme faculties like nondual wisdom, they have not abandoned the desires of the desire realm; from approaching a desirable object their minds are distracted and do not enter into meditative stabilization. They are allowed Pledge Seals [actual consorts] that possess the attributes of Knowledge Women explained elsewhere [in tantras, such as qualities of form, beauty, age, lineage, excellent training in mantras and tantras, and maintenance of the tantric pledges].

- The Great exposition of Secret Mantra Vol #1

>> No.22782743

>>22782741
Western hylic tantric coomers BTFO, physical consort practice is viewed as necessary for those with the lowest faculties.
Evola said it aswell, the "Divya" is one who has no need for an external woman, as he has the woman internally, he belongs to the godly race and is more freed from the desire realm, and therefore his nature is more tranquil to begin with. This threefold classification of suitable tantric practice I believe corresponds to the the three temperaments (pashubhava, virabhava, divyabhava) which I will copy some quote about next. Divyachads mog pashucels (as contemplatives) who need flesh and blood women and all the stress of the desire realm to stabilize nondual wisdom, Shankaracharya and other mahamudra contemplative divyachads and are the elite of the elite divyachads, or even of the elite race of men on earth.

>[In Mantra, practices are set forth in accordance with trainees’ faculties as follows:] About that, the best among those with the best faculties—who are not involved in the faults of desire and so forth, have little conceptuality, are great in compassion, and are making effort at nondual suchness—are taught the Great Seal, the entity of the wisdom of selflessness of one taste with great compassion, also called “method (maya/shakti) and wisdom (brahman/shiva)

>> No.22782745

>>22782743
>The Tantras speak of three temperaments, dispositions, characters (bhava), or classes of men, namely, the pashu-bhava (animal), vira-bhava (heroic), and divya-bhava (deva-like or divine). These divisions are based on various modifications of the guna (v. ante) as they manifest in man (jiva). It has been pointed out that the analogous Gnostic classification of men as material, psychical, and spiritual, correspond to the three guna of the Sankhya-darshana. In the pashu the rajo-guna operates chiefy on tamas, producing such dark characteristics as error (bhranti), drowsiness (tandra), and sloth (alasya). It is however, an error to suppose that the pashu is as such a bad man; on the contrary, a jiva of this class may prove superior to a jiva of the next. If the former, who is greatly bound by matter, lacks enlightenment, the latter may abuse the greater freedom he has won. There are also numerous kinds of pashu, some more some less tamasik than others. Some there are at the lowest end of the scale, which marks the first advance upon the higher forms of animal life. Others approach and gradually merge into the vira class. The term pashu comes from the root pash, "to bind." The pashu is, in fact, the man who is bound by the bonds (pasha), of which the Kularnava Tantra enurnerates eight, namely, pity (daya), ignorance and delusion (moha), fear (bhaya), shame (lajja), disgust (ghrina), family (kula), custom (shila), and caste (varna). Other enumerations are given of the afflictions which, according to some, are sixty-two, but all such larger divisions are merely elaborations of the simpler enumerations. The pashu is also the worldly man, in ignorance and bondage, as opposed to the yogi and the tattva-jnani. Three divisions of pashsu are also spoken of, namely, sakala, who are bound by the three pasha, called anu (want of knowledge or erroneous knowledge of the self), bheda (the division also induced by maya of the one self into many), and karma (action and its product. These are the three impurities (mala) called anava-mala, maya-mala, and Karma-mala. Pratayakala are those bound by the first and last, and Vijnana-kevala are those bound by anava-mala only. He who frees himself of the remaining impurity of anu becomes Shiva Himself. The Devi bears the pasha, and is the cause of them, but She, too, is pashupasha-vimochini, Liberatrix of the pashu from his bondage.

>> No.22782751

>>22782745
>What has been stated gives the root notion of the term pashu. Men of this class are also described in Tantra by exterior traits, which are manifestations of the interior disposition. So the Kubjika Tantra says: "Those who belong to pashu-bhava are simply pashu. A pashu does not touch a yantra, nor make japa of mantra at night. He entertains doubt about sacrifices and Tantra; regards a mantra as being merely letters only. He lacks faith in the guru, and thinks that the image is but a block of stone. He distinguishes one Deva from another, and worships without flesh and fish. He is always bathing, owing to his ignorance, and talks ill of others. Such an one is called pashu, and he is the worst kind of man." Similarly the Nitya Tantra describes the pashu as, "He who does not worship at night, nor in the evening, nor in the latter part of the day; who avoids sexual intercourse, except on the fifth day after the appearance of the courses (ritu-kalang vina devi ramanang parivarjayet); who do not eat meat, etc., even on the five auspicious days (parvvana)"; in short, those who, following Vedachara, Vaishnavachara, and Shaivachara, are bound by the Vaidik rules which govern all pashus.

>In the case of vira-bhava, rajas more largely works on sattva, yet also largely (though in lessening degrees, until the highest stage of divya-bhava is reached) works independently towards the production of acts in which sorrow inheres. There are several classes of vira.

>The third, or highest, class of man is he of the divya-bhava (of which, again, there are several degrees, some but a stage in advance of the highest form of vira-bhava, others completely realizing the deva-nature), in which rajas operate on sattva-guna to the confirmed preponderance of the latter.

>The Nitya Tantra says that of the bhava the divya is the best, the vira the next best, and the pashu the lowest; and that devata-bhava must be awakened through vira-bhava. The Pichchhila Tantra says that the only difference between the vira and divya men is that the former are very uddhata, by which is probably meant excitable, through the greater prevalence of the independent working of the rajo-guna in them than in the calmer sattvik temperament. It is obvious that such statements must not be read with legal accuracy. There may be, in fact, a considerable difference between a low type of vira and the highest type of divya, though it seems to be true that this quality of uddhata which is referred to is the cause of such differences, whether great or small.

- "Mahanirvana Tantra (Tantra of the Great Liberation)", by Translated by Arthur Avalon (Sir John Woodroffe)

Very interesting to note about the similarity between the Divya and the Vira,

>> No.22782762

>>22782751
on that note

I am quite certain I was born a Vira but have had a second birth as a Divya through tantric initiation. Most people around me are clearly of the pashu temperament, think of the average person in western society who has many relationships (we seem to think this a good thing), and is always uneasy and clingy, their life is full of coping mechanisms and habits, etc. Most people on this board as pashucels,

it is by birth, it doesnt matter how spiritualized an ego one develops, so long as you are not a divya you cannot stabilize nondual wisdom through contemplation of intellectual spiritual texts like the shankaracharya bhasya

Divyachads are true brahmins, and the only way renunciation works without going insane is if one is a Divya and his desire for things of this world is totally sublimated. and he is therefore tranquil.

>> No.22782779

>>22782751
>The Kubjika Tantra describes the marks of the divya as he "who daily does ablutions, sandhya; and wearing clean cloth, the tripundara mark in ashes, or red sandal, and ornaments of rudraksha beads, performs japa and archchana. He gives charity daily also. His faith is strong in Veda, Shastra, guru, and Deva. He worships the Pitri and Deva, and performs all the daily rites. He has a great knowledge of mantra. He avoids all food, except that which his guru offers him, and all cruelty and other bad actions, regarding both friend and foe as one and the same. He himself ever speaks the truth, and avoids the company of those who decry the Devata. He worships thrice daily, and meditates upon his guru daily, and, as a Bhairava, worships Parameshvari with divya-bhava. All Devas he regards as beneficial. He bows down at the feet of women, regarding them as his guru (strinang pada-talang drishtva guru-vad bhavayet sada). He worships the Devi at night, and makes japa at night with his mouth full of pan, and makes obeisance to the kula vriksha. He offers everything to the Supreme Devi. He regards this universe as pervaded by stri (shakti), and as Devata. Shiva is in all men, and the whole brahmanda is pervaded by Shiva-Shakti. He ever strives for the attainment and maintenance of devata-bhava, and is himself of the nature of a Devata.

>Here, again, the Tantra only seeks to give a general picture, the details of which are not applicable to all men of the divya-bhava class. The passage shows that it, or portions of it, refer to the ritual divya, for some of the practices there referred to would not be performed by the avadkuta, who is above all ritual acts, though he would also share (possibly in intenser degree) the beliefs of divya men of all classes, that he and all else are but manifestations of the universe-pervading Supreme Shakti.