YOGA FOR BETTER HEALTH: YOGA PRANAYAMA BASICS

2014-11 Yoga for Better Health: Yoga Pranayama Basics

Yoga is the Science of Right Living; with Right Understanding [Rhythm], Right Speech [Satya] and Right Action [Dharma].

Yoga has eight limbs [Ashta-anga] -- Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dhyana and Samadhi.

Yoga is union; union of the individual self with the universal Self; communion of the human soul with the Divinity within.

The root of the word yoga is yuj, meaning -- unite, yoke, extend, lengthen, regulate,constrain, and  concentrate.  

The aim of Yoga is liberation from pleasure and pain and attainment of perennial peace and pure, unalloyed  joy.

Prana is the universal vital energy which permeates all beings. Vigour, power, vitality, life-breath, spirit are all forms of prana.

Pranayama is the conscious control of Prana through breath. Breath is made slower, smoother, deeper and rhythmic.

Prana [life energy]  + ayama [control /extension] => Pranayama [control of Prana through breath].
Pranayama is the fourth limb of Ashta-anga [8-limbed] Yoga.

The eight limbs, according to Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, are:
1. Yama [universal moral commandments:  non-violence, truth, non-stealing, continence and non-coveting]
2. Niyama [individuals' rules of conduct : purity, contentment, austerity, scriptural study, dedication to God]
3. Asana [steady, comfortable postures for meditation]
4. Pranayama [regulating Prana or life energy through breath]
5. Pratyahara [withdrawal of the mind from the senses.]
6. Dharana [Concentration]
7. Dhyana [Meditation] and
8. Samadhi.[ultimate Self-Realization]

On a practical level, yoga is a means of balancing and harmonizing the body, mind and emotions. This is done through the practice of asana, pranayama, mudra, bandha, shatkarma and meditation.

The third limb of yoga, asana [posture] brings steadiness, health and lightness of limb. A steady and pleasant posture produces mental equilibrium and prevents fickleness of mind. By practicing them one develops agility, balance, endurance and great vitality.

Asanas have been evolved to exercise every muscle, nerve and gland in the body. They keep the body free from disease. They reduce fatigue and soothe the nerves. But their real importance lies in the way they train and discipline the mind.

The practitioner frees himself from physical disabilities and mental distractions by practising asanas. He surrenders his actions and their fruits to the Lord in the service of the world. 

He realises that his life and all its activities are part of the divine action in nature, manifesting and operating in the form of man. In the beating of his pulse and the rhythm of his respiration, he recognises the flow of the seasons and the throbbing of universal life.

His body is a temple which houses the Divinity. He feels that to neglect or to deny the needs of the body and to think of it as something not divine, is to neglect and deny the universal life of which it is a part. The needs of the body are the needs of the divine spirit which lives through the body. 

In nature's heritage to man are the three characteristics (gunas), namely, illumination (sattva), action (rajas) and inertia (tamas). Set on the wheel of time, like a pot on the potter's wheel, man is moulded and remoulded in accordance with the predominating order of these three fundamental intermingling characteristics.

Man is endowed with mind (manas), intellect (buddhi) and ego (aharhkara ), collectively known as consciousness (chitta), which is a source of thinking, understanding and acting. As the wheel of life turns, consciousness experiences the five miseries of ignorance, selfishness, attachment, aversion and love of life. These in turn leave the chitta in five different states which may be dull, wavering, partially stable, one-pointed attention and controlled. 

Patanjali evolved eight stages on the path of realisation. Chitta in a state of dullness is purified through yama, niyama and asana through which the mind is spurred to activity. Asana and Pranayama bring the wavering mind to a state of some stability. The disciplines of pranayama and Pratyahara make the chitta attentive and focus its energy. It is then restrained in this state by dhyana and samadhi. 

Thus, Yoga leads the practitioner [sadhaka] from ignorance to knowledge, from darkness to light and from death to immonality.

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pdf Book: BKS Iyengar - Illustrated Light on Yoga [Click here]

pdf Book: BKS Iyengar - Light on Pranayama [Click here]

pdf Book: BKS Iyengar - Light on Patanjali's Yoga Sutra [Click here]

pdf Book: BSY Niranjanananda - Prana and Pranayama [Click here]

pdf Book: BSY Satyananda - Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha [Click here]

pdf Book: BSY Muktibhodananda - Hatha Yoga Pradipika  [Click here]

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EASTER STORY: THE RICH FAMILY IN THE CHURCH !

2014-10  Easter Story:  The Rich Family in the Church !

Old Easter Story with a Timeless Message

The Rich Family in Church 

 by Eddie Ogan

The following story is about one godly mother, who helped her children learn the true meaning of riches.

"Easter 1946. I was 14, little sister Ocy 12, and sister Darlene 16. We lived at home and the four of us knew what it was to do without. Dad died five years before, leaving Mom with seven kids and no money. My older sisters and brothers had left home. A month before Easter the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially.

At home, we discussed what we could do. We would buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. If we kept our lights off we'd save on the electric bill. We made things and sold them and did odd jobs around the neighbors. That month was one of the best of our lives. We counted the money and at night we'd sit in the dark talking about the poor family enjoying the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so figured that the offering would surely be large.

Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We had never had so much money we had $70 for the sacrificial offering. We could hardly wait to get to church! We sat in church proudly and I felt rich. When the offering was taken, Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids a $20.

As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. That afternoon the minister came to our door with an envelope. We asked what it was, without a word mother opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. Three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills. Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling rich to feeling like poor white trash. We had a happy life and felt sorry for anyone less fortunate. We didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor. That day I found out we were. The minister brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn't like being poor and felt so ashamed--I didn't want to go back to church.

We sat in silence for a time and we went to bed. All that week, no one talked much. Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We'd never known we were poor. We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. At church a missionary speaker talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun dried bricks, but needed money to buy roofs. $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope and put it in the offering.

The minister announced it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church." We had given $87 of that "little over $100." We were the rich family in the church! Hadn't the missionary said so? From that day on I've never been poor again. I've always remembered how rich I am because I have Jesus!"

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This Amazing Love - Emile Laudeman: YouTube Video [Click here]


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EASTER STORY: EDITH BURNS - DO YOU BELIEVE IN EASTER?

2014-09  Easter Story: Edith Burns - Do you believe in Easter?

This tale of Edith Burns and Easter appeared in the 2007 book Tears in My Heart by James Collins, where it was credited to a Rev. E. Manzouras. However, the tale appears to have been based on an older [and longer] story by Russell Kelfer, "The Story of Edith Easter". 

BELIEVE IN EASTER

The Story of Edith Burns

Happy Easter! 

Edith Burns was a wonderful Christian who lived in San Antonio, Texas. She was the patient of a doctor by the name of Will Phillips. Dr. Phillips was a gentle doctor who saw patients as people. His favorite patient was Edith Burns. 

One morning he went to his office with a heavy heart and it was because of Edith Burns. When he walked into that waiting room, there sat Edith with her big black Bible in her lap earnestly talking to a young mother sitting beside her. 

Edith Burns had a habit of introducing herself in this way: "Hello, my name is Edith Burns. Do you believe in Easter?" 

Then she would explain the meaning of Easter, and many times people would be saved.

Dr. Phillips walked into that office and there he saw the head nurse, Beverly . Beverly had first met Edith when she was taking her blood pressure. 

Edith began by saying, "My name is Edith Burns. Do you believe in Easter?" 

Beverly said, "Why yes I do."  Edith said, "Well, what do you believe about Easter?" 

Beverly said, "Well, it's all about egg hunts, going to church, and dressing up." 

Edith kept pressing her about the real meaning of Easter, and finally led her to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. 

After being called back in the doctor's office, Edith sat down and when she took a look at the doctor she said, "Dr. Will, why are you so sad? Are you reading your Bible? Are you praying?" 

Dr. Phillips said gently, "Edith, "Your lab report came back and it says you have cancer, and Edith, you're not going to live very long." 

Edith said, "Why Will Phillips, shame on you. Why are you so sad? Do you think God makes mistakes? 

You have just told me I'm going to see my precious Lord Jesus, my husband, and my friends. You have just told me that I am going to celebrate Easter forever, and here you are having difficulty giving me my ticket!" 

Dr. Phillips thought to himself, "What a magnificent woman this Edith Burns is!" 

Edith continued coming to Dr. Phillips. Christmas came and the office was closed through January 3rd. 

On the day the office opened, Edith did not show up. Later that afternoon, Edith called Dr. Phillips and said she would have to be moving her story to the hospital and said, "Will, I'm very near home, so would you make sure that they put women in here next to me in my room who need to know about Easter." 

Well, they did just that and women began to come in and share that room with Edith. Many women were saved. Everybody on that floor from staff to patients were so excited about Edith, that they started calling her Edith Easter; that is everyone except Phyllis Cross, the head nurse. 

Phyllis made it plain that she wanted nothing to do with Edith because she was a "religious nut". She had been a nurse in an army hospital. She had seen it all and heard it all. She was the original G.I. Jane. She had been married three times, she was hard, cold, and did everything by the book. 

One morning the two nurses who were to attend to Edith were sick. Edith had the flu and Phyllis Cross had to go in and give her a shot. When she walked in, Edith had a big smile on her face and said, "Phyllis, God loves you and I love you, and I have been praying for you." Phyllis Cross said, "Well, you can quit praying for me, it won't work. I'm not interested." 

Edith said, "Well, I will pray and I have asked God not to let me go home until you come into the family." 

Phyllis Cross said, "Then you will never die because that will never happen," and curtly walked out of the room. 

Every day Phyllis Cross would walk into the room and Edith would say, "God loves you Phyllis and I love you, and I'm praying for you." 

One day Phyllis Cross said she was literally drawn to Edith's room like a magnet would draw iron. She sat down on the bed and Edith said, "I'm so glad you have come, because God told me that today is your special day." 

Phyllis Cross said, "Edith, you have asked everybody here the question, 'Do you believe in Easter?' but you have never asked me." 

Edith said, "Phyllis, I wanted to many times, but God told me to wait until you asked, and now that you have asked." 

Edith Burns took her Bible and shared with Phyllis Cross the Easter Story of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

Edith said, "Phyllis, do you believe in Easter? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is alive and that He wants to live in your heart?" 

Phyllis Cross said, "Oh I want to believe that with all of my heart, and I do want Jesus in my life." 

Right there, Phyllis Cross prayed and invited Jesus Christ into her heart. For the first time Phyllis Cross did not walk out of a hospital room, she was carried out on the wings of angels. 

Two days later, Phyllis Cross came in and Edith said, "Do you know what day it is?" Phyllis Cross said, "Why Edith, it's Good Friday." 

Edith said, "Oh, no, for you every day is Easter. Happy Easter Phyllis!" 

Two days later, on Easter Sunday, Phyllis Cross came into work, did some of her duties and then went down to the flower shop and got some Easter lilies because she wanted to go up to see Edith and give her some Easter lilies and wish her a Happy Easter. 

When she walked into Edith's room, Edith was in bed. That big black Bible was on her lap. Her hands were in that Bible. There was a sweet smile on her face. 

When Phyllis Cross went to pick up Edith's hand, she realized Edith was dead. 

Her left hand was on John 14: "In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also." 

Her right hand was on Revelation 21:4, "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, there shall be no more death nor sorrow, nor crying; and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." 

Phyllis Cross took one look at that dead body, and then lifted her face toward heaven, and with tears streaming down her cheeks, said, "Happy Easter, Edith - Happy Easter!" 

Phyllis Cross left Edith's body, walked out of the room, and over to a table where two student nurses were sitting. She said, "My name is Phyllis Cross. Do you believe in Easter?" 

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Russell Kelfer: The Story of Edith Easter [Original] [Click here]

Russell Kelfer's Edith Easter: Vimeo [Click here]

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EMERSON: MOUNTAIN AND THE SQUIRREL FABLE

2014-08  Emerson: Mountain and the Squirrel Fable

Mountain and the Squirrel

A poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson which truly showcases the problem of complexes in human beings. The poem depicts a mountain carrying forests on its back but cannot crack a nut. And a squirrel that can crack a nut but cannot carry forests on its back. So none is superior or inferior in this world. All creatures serve as spokes in the wheel of life. God acts as the hub holding everything together. The poem:

The Mountain And The Squirrel       by  Ralph Waldo Emerson

The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter
“Little prig.”
Bun replied,
“You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together
To make up a year
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry:
I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track.
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut."

Compare this with a similar idea expressed by the Tamil Poetess Auvaiyar [13P18]:

Look at the weaver bird's wondrous nest, 
The beautiful lac or the ancient white ant's hill;
The hive of the honey bee or the spider's web;
No mortal man can imitate these.
Let no one, therefore, vaunt his skill
Because he can do this or that.
There is none but in something excels.

[வான் குருவியின் கூடு வல்லரக்குத் தொல் கறையான் 
தேன் சிலம்பி யாவர்க்கும் செய்யரிதால்  யாம் பெரிதும் 
வல்லோமே என்று வலிமை சொல வேண்டாம் காண்
எல்லோர்க்கும் ஒவ்வொன்று எளிது.] 

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Emerson: Mountain and the Squirrel Fable YouTube Video [Click here]

Emerson: Mountain and the Squirrel Fable Video [Click here]
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EMERSON: FATHER IN HEAVEN WE THANK THEE

2014-07  Emerson: Father in Heaven We Thank Thee

Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882] was an American essayist, poet and philosopher, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.  Emerson is also well known as a mentor and friend of fellow Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau.

His first two collections of essays – Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series, published respectively in 1841 and 1844 – represent the core of his thinking, and include such well-known essays as Nature, Self-Reliance, The Over-soul,  Compensation,  and Experience. 

I repeatedly read aloud Emerson's poem Father We Thank Thee to nurture an attitude of Gratitude. Whoever does this with religious regularity is bound to be immensely benefited.

Father in Heaven We Thank Thee
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

For flowers that bloom about our feet,
For tender grass so fresh, so sweet,
For the song of bird and hum of bee,
For all things fair we hear or see,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

For blue of stream and blue of sky,
For pleasant shade of branches high,
For fragrant air and cooling breeze,
For beauty of the blooming trees,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

For mother-love and father-care,
For brothers strong and sisters fair, 
For love at home and school each day,
For guidance lest we go astray,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

For this new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

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Father in Heaven We Thank Thee: YouTube Video [Click here] 

Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson [Click here]

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CHARLES LAMB: DREAM CHILDREN

2014-06  Charles Lamb: Dream Children

The great master of the personal or familiar essay is "Gentle Charles" Lamb [1775-1834]. 

Born of a father who worked in the Inner Temple, one of the Inns of Court in London, he grew up in an atmosphere favorable to the love of books and literary people. 

At the age of seven he was sent to Christ's Hospital School, where the severity of the treatment only accentuated the gentleness of the boy and early made him known among his fellows as an exceedingly likable youth.

There he made friends of boys who later became known in the literary world, particularly Coleridge and Leigh Hunt. In November, 1789, when he was but fourteen, he was taken out of school and, soon after, went to work in a private office, the next year leaving to enter the South Sea House, importers, where his brother John worked. Finally in 1792 he entered the employ of the East India House as bookkeeper and remained in their employ for thirty-three years.

In the winter of 1795, disappointment over love of Ann Simmons drove him temporarily insane and laid the basis of his unbounded sympathy for and devotion to his sister Mary, who later, in a fit of insanity, killed her mother. His sacrifice of himself and all that he might have wished for himself, in order to nurse Mary through her recurring insanity, has earned him the admiration of generations.

His home and favorite coffee-houses were frequented by much of the best literary talent; his conversation and repartee became important in the literary life of the period. Slight of stature, dressed rather shabbily in outmoded clothes, given to punning in his humorous stammering, Lamb presented a figure closely associated with his literary work. Hazlitt called Lamb the best of indoor company.

In 1820 the famous Essays of Elia appeared in the London Magazine, essays partly biographical, in which Lamb appeared as James Elia. It is upon these essays mainly that his fame rests. In 1834 he stumbled and fell and, lacking strength enough to recover from the blow, "sank into death placidly as into sleep". His grave is now cared for by a perpetual endowment from E. V. Lucas, a modern English essayist whose work reflects so much of the gentle Elia spirit. Lucas' Life of Charles Lamb is the best work on the subject. 

The Dream Children: A Reverie  given below is the most poignant [and in my opinion, the best piece along with The Praise of Chimney Sweepers] in Charles Lamb's mostly autobiographical Essays of Elia.

DREAM-CHILDREN

Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when they were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene -- so at least it was generally believed in that part of the country -- of the tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood. 

Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts, till a foolish rich Person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. 

Then I went on to say, how religious and how good their great. grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by every body, though she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in some respects she might be said to be the mistress of it too) committed to her by the owner, who preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, "that would be foolish indeed." 

And then I told how, when she came to die, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread her hands. 

Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer -- here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted -- the best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, because she was so good and religious. 

Then I told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, but she said "those innocents would do her no harm;" and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she -- and yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eye-brows and tried to look courageous. 

Then I told how good she was to all her grand-children, having us to the great-house in the holydays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the Twelve Caesars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken pannels, with the gilding almost rubbed out -- sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me -- and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then, -- and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir apples, which were good for nothing but to look at -- or in lying a out upon the fresh grass, with all the fine garden smells around me -- or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth -- or in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings, -- I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits of children. 

Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. Then in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though their great-grandmother Field loved all her grand-children, yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L----, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out -- and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries -- and how their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration of every body, but of their great-grandmother Field most especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was a lame- footed boy -- for he was a good bit older than me -- many a mile when I could not walk pain; -- and how in after life he became lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough for him when he was impatient, and in pain, nor remember sufficiently how considerate he had been to me when I was lame- footed; and how when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and death; and how I bore his death as I thought pretty well at first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for we quarreled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was as uneasy without him, as he their poor uncle must have been when the doctor took off his limb. Here the children fell a crying, and asked if their little mourning which they had on was not for uncle John, and they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them, some stories about their pretty dead mother. 

Then I told how for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W---n; and, as much as children could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and difficulty, and denial meant in maidens -- when suddenly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech; "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. 

The children of Alice called Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name" ------ and immediately awaking I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side -- but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever.

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Charles Lamb's Dream Children - A Reverie  YouTube Video [49 min] [Click Here] 

Charles Lamb's Dream Children  YouTube Slide Share [Click Here] 
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CHARLES LAMB: HAIL, CANDLE LIGHT!

2014-05 Charles Lamb: Hail, Candle Light!

Charles Lamb [1775-1834]

Hail, Candle Light!

Charles Lamb or Elia as he called himself, was one of the great essayists, poets and critics of the early 19th century. Alone or with his sister Mary, he wrote such works as Tales from Shakespeare, The Adventures of Ulysses, Poems and Plays, The Essays of Elia and The Last Essays of Elia. 

"He delighted in the vigour and quaintness of seventeenth-century English. And his mastery lay in using it to record homely, intimate experience. He acquired from the old writers whom he loved, a lofty and fanciful way of treating trivial things. His work is more full of exquisitely apt literary phrases than that of perhaps any other prose writer."

Who else but Charles Lamb can write thus:  The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers

"I like to meet a sweep -- one of those tender novices, blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced from the cheek -- such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes sounding like the peep peep of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark should I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating the sun-rise?

I have a kindly yearning towards these dim specks -- poor blots -- innocent blacknesses -- I reverence these young Africans of our own growth -- these almost clergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption; and from their little pulpits (the tops of chimneys), in the nipping air of a December morning, preach a lesson of patience to mankind."

Sir Desmond MacCarthy writes in "Elia after a Hundred Years" thus:

"Lamb is a classic, but he is a little classic; and it is little classics who are, as a rule, most subject to fluctuations of appreciation.  Yet in spite of four generations having come and gone, how high the Essays of Elia stand!...

Lamb always writes as one to whom words are a delight in themselves, and though no one cared more genuinely for the things he wrote about, joy lay for him in the manner of describing them.  He is distinctly an art-for-art's sake writer....

His sentiment is that of one who loves to share the little arts of happiness, to whom past things are peculiarly endeared because they are no more, who is content with the 'most kindly and natural species of love', as he calls it, in the place of passion....

The Essays of Elia are largely autobiographical. Much of their substance is fetched from Lamb's boyhood, having lain many years in his memory unused. Those essays are in essence poems: Yes, passages in them are 'poems in prose'.

Facts, recalled in them, have turned into visions; visions in which the essence of the past resides. True wisdom lies in the contemplation of Essences; certainly they are the stuff from which good literature is made.  Hence, too, the charm of charity which pervades Lamb's work. 

Lamb had a superb gift for appreciation. That he was poet himself is the secret of his greatness as a critic.  Of course, he had his limitations.  He was more sensitive to things old than new...He wrote for 'antiquity'.

I should like to end with Lamb's words on my lips.  He is among the lesser luminaries of English literature, but --

'Hail, candle-light! without disparagement to the sun or moon, the kindliest luminary of the three--if we may not rather style thee their radiant deputy, mild viceroy of the moon! --We love to read, talk, sit silent, eat, drink, sleep, by candle-light.  They are everybody's sun and moon. This is our particular and household planet.'  And so is Lamb."

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YouTube Video: Charles Lamb --Top 10 Quotes [3 min] [Click here]

Charles Lamb's Essays of Elia and the Last Essays of Elia [Click here]

Charles & Mary Lamb: Tales from Shakespeare Illustrated Preview [Click here]

Charles & Mary Lamb: Tales from Shakespeare Full [Click here]

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