Rudolf Steiner

It is not so important that one should preach about universal brotherly love. It is best to speak of that as little as possible. Speaking in such phrases is like saying to the stove, "Dear stove, it is your duty to warm this room. Fulfill your duty!" So it is with teachings that are given through such phrases. The important thing is the means. The stove remains cold if I simply tell it that it should be warm. It gets warm when it has fuel. People also remain cold when they are admonished. But what is fuel for the modern man? The specific facts of spiritual teaching are fuel for man. One should not be so lazy as to remain content with "Universal brotherhood." People must be given fuel. Then brotherhood will arise of itself. As the plants stretch out their blossoms to the sun, so must we all look up to the sun of the spiritual life.

Rudolf Steiner, from pg. 188 of Egyptian Myths and Mysteries

Sufjan Stevens sings "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing"

Someone has chosen to match this song with a slide show of black and white animal photos. I prefer it without the visuals, to be honest, but the song is very nice, as is Sufjan's entire album of Christmas carols.

The Cloud of Unknowing

All who engage in this work of contemplation find that it has a good effect on the body as well as on the soul, for it makes them attractive in the eyes of all who see them. So much so that the ugliest person alive who becomes, by grace, a contemplative finds that he suddenly (and again by grace) is different, and that every good man he sees is glad and happy to have his friendship, and is spiritually refreshed, and helped nearer God by his company.

Therefore seek to get this gift by grace; for whoever really has it will be well able to control both himself and his possessions by virtue of it. It gives him discernment, when he needs it, to read people's needs and characters. It gives him the knack of being at home with everyone he talks to, habitual sinner or not, without sinning himself... to the astonishment of the onlooker, and with a magnetic effect on others, drawing them by grace to the same spiritual work that he practises.

Section 54, The Cloud of Unknowing

The Story of the Weeping Camel

This is the first ten minutes of the film.

Arvo Pärt

It is as though we are given a problem to solve, a number (ONE, for example), terribly complex when broken up into fractions. Finding a solution is a long process and requires intense concentration; but wisdom resides in reduction. If it is now conceivable that different fractions (epochs, lives) are united by a single solution (ONE), then that ONE is something more than the solution to a single fraction. It is the correct solution to all problems, to all fractions (epochs, lives) – and always has been.

Arvo Pärt, from pg. 65 of Arvo Pärt by Paul Hillier, 1997

The concept of tintinnabuli was born from a deeply rooted desire for an extremely reduced sound world which could not be measured, as it were, in kilometres, or even metres, but only in millimetres. According to my experience, the listener becomes increasingly sensitised in the process once he is drawn into this dimension. By the end the listening attention is utterly focused. At the point after the music has faded away it is particularly remarkable to hear your breath, your heartbeat, the lighting or the air conditioning system, for example.

Nora Pärt, from "An Interview with Arvo Pärt: Sources of Invention" by Geoff Smith, The Musical Times, 1999

Into Great Silence

Clip from the film Into Great Silence about the Grande Chartreuse monastery, head of the Carthusian order.

Gurdjieff Movements

Demonstration of Gurdjieff Movements at the end of Meetings with Remarkable Men.