Читать книгу Soli Deo Gloria - M.T. Augustine - Страница 6

Montmartre

I had a wonderful room several years ago on my 1^st trip to Paris; at the Hotel Roma Sacre Coeur on the Rue Caulaincourt, a short walk from the Basilica. It was a fairly small room but wonderful; the best item being shuttered windows overlooking a perfect film-set of a Parisian Square with Cafes with tables full of Parisians because it was off-season; Flower shops, the Caulaincourt Metro Station; a perfect introduction to Parisian life.

It was a short walk to Sacre Coeur and for a couple of days I explored this magnificent 12^th century architectural wonder. The fact that in Europe the most magnificent buildings are dedicated to the worship of God Almighty is as it should be; but perhaps without so much dogma of which Jesus knew nothing and would probably not approve much of.

Place de la Concord (Louis XV)

The Place de la Concord, formerly named Place Louis XV, is enormous; one can understand the regular exercise which most of the French throughout history must have experienced on a daily basis, when one walks about Paris. The rich of course rode horses or in carriages and as the pictures show some of them had serious weight problems; so, there could be an advantage to actually not riding in carriages.

While on this subject it is entirely possible to have the mind take control of what seems to be a serious problem for many people in modern society; to take control of the weight problem it is necessary to first take control of the mind; and evidently mostly people try to avoid controlling their thoughts. Of course, once one realizes the ability to access a higher awareness; then all problems in life become solvable. In fact there are no problems which the Higher Intelligence, which we as human do have access to; there is no problem which cannot be solved or resolved by Universal Mind.

So, we as humans face all kinds of problems; not be daunted; we have within us the ability to access a power which can solve all problems. This includes even all of the financial problems of the European Union; the Nuclear problems which could become quite serious; even more serious than they are at the moment; and any personal personal and public problems which the mind can experience.

When the human race arrives at a state of higher awareness; beyond operating through the egoic-mind structures now in place; then and only then will our present problems on this planet be solved. Until then most of the human race will just be spinning their wheels and perhaps trying to travel to or arrive at outer space - a place that they are in already.

St. Laurent at le Gare L’Est

St. Laurent is a wonderful little church near the Gare de l’Est; and for several weeks I stayed at an apartment in this wonderful neighborhood just off the Rue de Magenta. Everything was available, like NYC, including a health food store; of which the French are becoming more conscious. Although things like vitamins and herbs are much cheaper in New York and the US. In the US every few years the big companies try to get control of the vitamin and herb markets for obvious reasons. So far the saner elements of society have been able to keep the misled business sharks at bay; but these companies tend to be run by humans who have not achieved any higher awareness and are trapped in the egoic mindset which means many of their actions appear to be and are literally, insane. It is all quite sad really; this effort to make bungles of money off of people’s ignorance of what is involved in maintaining health. Smoking has nothing to do with health; yet, billions are made exploiting peoples’ ignorance.

The general feeling in Paris is quite different from say Boston or New York, which would be my basis of comparison; San Francisco is closer.

When I was leaving Paris; I went into the metro and there was a woman of a certain age in a somewhat worn, long black evening gown with a rose in her hair and the look of perhaps a retired chanteuse, with a kind of sadness in her demeanor, as though her mind were in another place and time; yet, singing from the depths of her heart “La Vie en Rose. This is my last memory of Paris.

Versailles

Louis’ Hunting Lodge is quite an impressive place to our eyes and must have appeared even more impressively extraordinary in the eighteenth century. We in the past few centuries have become accustomed to impressive places; it is all relative; and no doubt the building of the future will appear exponentially that much more grand than what we see today. That being said; even today, Versailles is an extraordinary collection of buildings; and of course to someone who has history as a bit of a hobby, it is a little bit of paradise. One can almost see all the historical figures one has read so much of walking the grounds and in the various grande salles of the castle. Of course, no doubt it was created as a kind of paradise for the king and his court. Louis XIV seemed to be the most politically astute of the later Bourbons and established a system which essentially centralized the government and allowed him to exercise more power than his predecessors; Louis XV, who became king at an extremely young age, further consolidated this power to the degree he was able; although his real interests were essentially elsewhere; but already as with all human political systems the decline had already set in, as the king fully realized, as we can conclude with his famous, “après moi, le deluge.” He recognized that such extreme systems could not last but a few hundred years at most; this is what happens with all extreme political systems; one only has to look at history; it’s all there.

Louis XVI has come down to us as being a bit of a mentally deficient character; but I doubt that this was the truth; he seems to have made some admirable decisions; such as the decision to support the American colonies. It is doubtful that the Americans could have succeeded if it were not for the help of the French king; so in a nutshell, the American have an enormous debt to the Bourbon king who financially supported their endeavor to an extent that Washington could not have done. This expense was later falsely attributed, often done in history, to Marie Antoinette; a debt which she most likely was aware of only in the vaguest manner, and had no idea of the sums involved, but paid for this policy with her head. In any case, the French people mistakenly concluded that these amounts were spent on her wardrobe; but she actually passed over the infamous necklace in favor of a ship for the Americans; so America possibly has a great debt to Marie Antoinette vis-à-vis this policy of France. Louis on the other hand, one suspects, perhaps knew what he was doing, as he held his Court in some contempt, which feeling was returned with abundant interest, by large numbers at his Court. It would seem if one reads closely and between the lines that Louis knew more than is generally supposed; seemed to genuinely love the people, and in addition probably wanted to be remembered as a saintly king like one of his ancestors.

I remember looking out the windows of various rooms and “grand salles” at Versailles on a fine fall day and thinking of all the people in the past centuries who have looked out of these same windows during all the various historical events one reads of. How extraordinary to be present in a space where so much has happened to human beings, that in some way are all still connected; one can actually feel their presence, perhaps as spirits in the very room where one is having lunch.

I think it was Henry Ford who said that history is bunk; perhaps this is a half-truth, as much of what is passed down seems to be. One has to be able to read between the lines and discern the actual truth from all the various presentation of so-called truth. This would appear to be generally true vis-à-vis most areas in life. There is what we are told regarding people and events; e.g., the French and American revolutions; and then there is the truth about the people and the events involved which one can only arrive at by a kind of smorgasbord approach to all the available literature and material; taking only the best and most true accounts; and developing the ability to discern the truth from the nonsense of perhaps the popular history. It is rather facile to blame complicated historical events on only a few of the individuals present when, in truth, such events may have been inevitable whether they were present or not.