Jiddu Krishnamurti Profile

Jiddu Krishnamurti Profile

May 8, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Profiles, Spiritual Teachers

Carolyn and I have long appreciated the spiritual teachings of the philosopher, speaker, and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Krishnamurti was born in 1895 in South India. He was described as a “sensitive and sickly” child, and his childhood years were difficult. Because Krishnamurti was often seen as “vague and dreamy,” people thought that he was cognitively impaired, and he was beaten regularly, at home by his father and in school by his teachers. However, he developed a special bond with nature during his childhood and this stayed with him throughout his life.

In 1909, while in early adolescence, Krishnamurti met a man named Charles Webster Leadbeater, who was part of a group called the Theosophical Society. This meeting was to change his life. The Theosophical Society is an esoteric religious movement that was founded in 1875 in New York by Russian mystic Helena Blavatsky and others. Leadbeater saw something special in Krishnamurti, and became convinced that he was destined to become a great spiritual teacher.

As a result, Krishnamurti was raised and educated by the Theosophical Society in Adyar, India, and they prepared him for what they believed him to be, the “vehicle” of the expected “World Teacher” or “Lord Maitreya.” In Theosophy, Lord Maitreya is an advanced spiritual entity, and master of ancient wisdom, who “periodically appears on Earth to guide the evolution of humankind.”

In 1911 the Theosophical Society established the Order of the Star in the East (OSE). The OSE was an international organization based in India that existed from 1911 to 1927. It was established by the leadership of the Theosophical Society to “prepare the world” for the arrival of a reputed messianic entity, the World Teacher or Lord Maitreya.

Krishnamurti was named as the head of the OSE, and senior Theosophists were assigned to various other positions. That same year Krishnamurti and his younger brother Nitya were taken to England by the Theosophical Society. Between 1911 and 1914, the brothers visited several other European countries, accompanied by Theosophist chaperones.

As a teenager, Krishnamurti described having psychic experiences, such as seeing the spirits of his late mother, and sister who had died in 1904. As Krishnamurti entered adulthood he embarked on a schedule of lectures in several countries, and he acquired a large following among the members of the Theosophical Society. Chapters of the OSE were formed in as many as forty countries.

In 1922 Krishnamurti and his younger brother Nitya traveled to California, where they stayed in Ojai Valley. During their stay in Ojai, Krishnamurti had a series of transformative psychological and spiritual experiences over a period of several months. Then, in 1925 his brother Nitya died, and this was a devastating event for Krishnamurti.

After years of controversy within the OSE, in 1929 Krishnamurti left his mantle and withdrew from the organization. He renounced his role, dissolved the Order with its following, and returned all of the money and property that had been donated for this work. He stated that he had made this decision after “careful consideration” during the previous two years. Krishnamurti moved away from the Theosophical Society because he came to realize that neither gurus nor organizations are required for attaining salvation, and he said that he had “no allegiance to any nationality, caste, religion, or philosophy.”

Krishnamurti spent the rest of his life traveling the world, speaking to large and small groups, and writing influential books. He also interacted with a number of other brilliant minds. In 1938 Krishnamurti was introduced to Aldous Huxley and the two became close friends for many years. In the early 1960s, Krishnamurti met physicist David Bohm, and the two men also became good friends and collaborated together. They started a common inquiry, in the form of personal dialogues — and occasionally in group discussions with other participants– that continued, periodically, over nearly two decades. Some of these intriguing discussions were published in a series of popular books.

In 1984 and 1985, Krishnamurti spoke to an audience at the United Nations in New York about peace. His 1985 talk, titled Why Can’t Man Live Peacefully on the Earth?

Krishnamurti is the author of over thirty books, including The Book of Life, The Awakening of Intelligence, The Beauty of Life, The First and Last Freedom, The Only Revolution, Krishnamurti’s Notebook, and The Ending of Time: Where Philosophy and Physics Meet, which includes some of his discussions with physicist David Bohm. Many of his talks and discussions have also been published and much is available online.

Krishnamurti was a lifelong vegetarian who exercised regularly and practiced yoga daily. He died in 1986 at the age of 90. Krishnamurti’s philosophy has remained popular in the years since his death; his books are in print, his foundations continue to maintain archives and disseminate his teachings, and his quotes are regularly shared social media.

Our dear friend Jai Italiaander became well acquainted with Krishnamurti. After spending five years in an ashram in Santa Rosa, Jai met someone at the ashram who took her to Ojai, where she became well acquainted with Krishnamurti, and his teachings became part of her life-long study of consciousness.

Some of the quotes that Krishnamurti is known for include:

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.

Emptiness comes as sunset comes of an evening, full of beauty, enchantment and richness; it comes as naturally as the blossoming of a flower.

You are the world and the world is you… If you as a human being transform yourself, you affect the consciousness of the rest of the world.

It is a waste of energy when we try to conform to a pattern. To conserve energy, we must be aware of how we dissipate energy.

To live in the eternal present there must be death to the past, to memory. In this death there is timeless renewal.

One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end… You can only be afraid of what you think you know.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. 

The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.

by David Jay Brown

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Lao Tzu Profile

Lao Tzu Profile

May 1, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Profiles, Spiritual Teachers

Carolyn and I have long appreciated the writings of Lao Tzu, author of the Tao Te Ching, and have incorporated his philosophy into our lives.

Lao Tzu (or Laozi, and there are also around 10 other possible spellings of his name) was a semi-legendary ancient Chinese Taoist philosopher. The name Lao Tzu is a Chinese term that is usually translated as “the Old Master.”

It’s difficult to separate myth from fact about Lao Tzu; little is known about his life. Traditional accounts say that his original name was Li Er or Lao Dan and that he was born in the 6th century BC, in the village of Quren, which is in the state of Chu, a southern region in China.

It’s thought that Lao Tzu served as an archivist and scholar, an official who worked as a keeper of the imperial archives, for the Zhou court at Wangcheng. Zhho was a royal dynasty of China that lasted from 1046 BC to 256 BC, and Wancheng was an ancient Chinese city that today is known as Luoyang. This position as an archivist reportedly allowed Lao Tzu to access and study the classic works of his time.

Early accounts of Lao Tzu vary. In one account, it said that he was a contemporary of the Chinese philosopher and politician Confucius during the 6th or 5th century BC and that he met Confucius on one occasion, who was impressed by him, and Confucius mentions him in his writings. Another early account said that he was the court astrologer Lao Dan, who lived during the 4th century BC reign of the Chinese ruler Duke Xian of Qin.

In another account, it is said that Lao Tzu married and had a son who became a celebrated soldier. It is also thought that Lao Tzu never opened a formal school, but that he attracted many students and loyal disciples. In the later part of his life, he moved west and lived in an unsettled frontier region of China until the age of 80.

When Lao Tzu moved to this new region in the west, it is said in one account that a guard at the gate of this region asked him to record his wisdom for the good of the country before he could pass, and the text that he wrote was said to be the initial draft for the Tao Te Ching, although the present version includes additions from later periods.

The oldest surviving text of the Tao Te Ching so far recovered was part of the unearthed tomb of Guodian Chu Slips in 1993 and dates back to the Warring States period, which was an era in Chinese history characterized by warfare and lasted from 481 BC to 403 BC. The text of this early copy of the Tao Te Ching was written on bamboo slips, which was the main medium for writing documents prior to the introduction of the paper.

Some Western scholars think that the person known as Lao Tzu is a mythical character and that the Tao Te Ching was actually authored by a group of philosophers, not a single person, although more recent archeological discoveries have provided evidence that many Chinese scholars believe affirm the existence of a historical Lao Tzu.

The Tao Te Ching is a fundamental text for Taoism. Along with Confucianism and Buddhism, Taoism is one of the main currents of Chinese philosophy. Taoism is a philosophical or religious tradition that emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao. The word “Tao” doesn’t have a clear definition, because, according to the Tao Te Ching, “The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao.” However, the term generally means “way,” “path,” or “principle,” and in Taoism, it denotes something that is both the source and the driving force behind everything that exists. Some think of it as “God,” “the Great Spirit,” or “the Great Mystery,” but if it can be expressed in words, then by definition, it is not the Tao.

There are numerous myths about Lao Tzu. Some traditions worship Lao Tzu as a god and believe that he entered this world through a virgin birth, conceived when his mother gazed upon a falling star and that he remained in his mother’s womb for 62 years. According to this tradition he emerged from his mother’s womb as a grown man with a full grey beard. Other myths say that he was reborn 13 times after his first life, and in his last life, he lived for 990 years, traveling around China and teaching about the Tao.

Today there are numerous translations of the Tao Te Ching, and the influence of Taoism on Chinese culture and the Western world has been deep and far-reaching, influencing literature and the arts, as well as science. The Taoist perspective on natural elements, and observing how the natural world works, helped to create Chinese medicine. A search on Amazon currently reveals over 60 popular translations of the Tao Te Ching. Wayne Dyer created Living the Wisdom of the Tao, which contains the complete Tao Te Ching along with affirmations, and our friend Timothy Leary wrote a translation of the Tao Te Ching called Psychedelic Prayers.

Much of Carolyn’s artwork and poetry has been inspired by Taoism. Below are several of her Taoism-inspired paintings.

Some of the quotes that Lao Tzu is known for include:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. 

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.

Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.

If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present. 

Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. 

Do you have the patience to wait until your mind settles and the water is clear? 

Silence is a source of Great Strength.

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.

by David Jay Brown

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Vincent van Gogh Profile

Vincent van Gogh Profile

Apr 24, 2023 | Artists, David Jay Brown, Profiles

Carolyn and I have both really enjoyed the extraordinary artwork of Vincent van Gogh. The legendary Dutch post-impressionist artist is recognized as one of the greatest painters that ever lived, and he has become one of the most famous and influential figures in art history. Van Gogh’s paintings are among the most valuable in the world, and in many ways, he personifies the quintessential archetype of the mad and tormented artistic genius.

In the span of a decade, van Gogh created an astonishing 2,100 pieces of artwork. These pieces included landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, and they featured dramatic brushwork with bold and vivid colors. However, despite his immense talent, van Gogh was unsuccessful commercially, and this resulted in years of poverty and severe depression that ultimately led to his suicide. Recounting Van Gogh’s tragic life is extremely sad, and it’s so ironic that someone with such a profoundly unhappy life, with so many so-called “failures,” produced so many astoundingly beautiful works of art in such a short period of time.

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born in 1853, in the predominantly Catholic province of North Brabant in the Netherlands. He was born into an upper-middle class family; his father was a minister, and his mother was a religious woman who came from a prosperous family. His brother Theo, who was to play an important role in his life, was born in 1857, and he also had another brother and three sisters. Van Gogh was described as being a “serious,” “quiet,” and “thoughtful” child who was “passionate about drawing.”

In 1860 Van Gogh attended his village school, after being educated at home by his mother and a governess. Four years later Van Gogh went to a boarding school in Zevenbergen, where he had a difficult time and felt “abandoned.” In 1866 he attended a Middle School in Tiburg, where he was also “deeply unhappy.” Van Gogh didn’t like school but he became interested in art at a young age, and was encouraged to draw by his mother.

In 1869 Van Gogh’s uncle arranged for him to get a job as an art dealer in The Hague, and in 1873 he was transferred to the London branch of the art dealership. This was a happy time for Van Gogh, as he was making good money, and according to Theo’s wife, this was “the best year in Vincent’s life.”
However, after being rejected by a woman he admired, Van Gogh grew more isolated and religiously fervent. Throughout his life, romantic rejection and loneliness plagued Van Gogh. In 1875 he was transferred to an art dealership in Paris, where he wasn’t as happy, and he became resentful of how the dealers commodified artwork. He was fired from this position after a year.

In 1876 Van Gogh returned to England to work as a substitute teacher in a small boarding school in Ramsgate, which didn’t last long; he left to become a minister’s assistant and then to work in a bookshop. He wasn’t happy at any of these jobs and mostly spent his time doodling and translating passages from the Bible. Van Gogh immersed himself in Christianity and became increasingly religious. In 1877, Van Gogh went to live with his uncle, a theologian, who supported his desire to become a pastor, but he failed his theology entrance exam at the University of Amsterdam, and he also didn’t pass a three-month course in Protestant missionary near Brussels, Belgium.

In 1880, at Theo’s suggestion, Van Gogh began devoting more attention to his art, and he went to study with the Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him to attend the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. In 1880 Van Gogh registered at the Académie, where he studied anatomy and the standard rules of modeling and perspective.

In 1881, Van Gogh returned home to stay with his parents. That year his recently widowed cousin, Cornelia “Kee” Vos-Stricker, arrived for a visit, and they took long walks together. Van Gogh declared his love for her and proposed marriage, but she declined, with the words, “no, nay, never,” largely because of Van Gogh’s inability to support himself. Van Gogh was emotionally crushed. He journeyed to Amsterdam but Kee wouldn’t see him, and her parents wrote that his “persistence is disgusting.”

In 1882, Van Gogh’s second cousin Mauve introduced him to oil painting and lent him the money to set up a studio. Van Gogh hired people off the street to serve as models. He liked working in this medium and was able to continue with money from Theo. That same year Van Gogh began living with an alcoholic prostitute and her daughter, which his family disapproved of. The woman drowned herself in a river years later.

In 1885, during a two-year stay in Nuenen, Van Gogh completed numerous watercolors, drawings, and almost 200 oil paintings. His paintings consisted mainly of somber earth tones, particularly dark brown, without the vivid and iconic bold colors that distinguished his later work.

In 1885 Van Gogh’s work was exhibited for the first time, in the shop windows of an art dealer in The Hague. That year he moved to Antwerp, where he lived in poverty, ate poorly, and spent the money that Theo sent him on art supplies and models instead of food. Van Gogh spent time studying the artwork in museums and he broadened the colors in his palette. He also began drinking absinthe heavily and suffered from a series of venereal diseases.

In 1886 Van Gogh moved to Paris where he shared Theo’s apartment and continued his painting. However, conflicts between the two brothers arose, and by the end of that year Theo said that he found living with his brother to be “almost unbearable.” Van Gogh moved to a suburb of Paris, and in 1887 there was an exhibit of his work in Paris.

In 1888 Van Gogh moved to Arles, where he entered into one of his most prolific periods. Here, Van Gogh completed 200 paintings and more than 100 drawings and watercolors. That year the post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin visited Arles and the two painted together, but they didn’t get along well, and their relationship got worse over time. It was during this time that the bizarre incident that Van Gogh is probably most famous for occurred— the severing of his own left ear.

The exact sequence of events remains a mystery, but it is said that Van Gogh was hearing voices in his head on the night that he cut off his left ear with a razor. There was severe bleeding and he bandaged the wound. Then Van Gogh wrapped the ear in paper and delivered it to a woman at a brothel that he had frequented. He was found unconscious the next morning and was brought to a hospital where he was treated. Van Gogh had no recollection of the event. His hospital diagnosis was “acute mania with generalized delirium.” Theo visited him and he recovered. Gauguin left Arles and Van Gogh never saw him again.

Van Gogh gave his painting Portrait of Doctor Felix Rey to his physician. His doctor was not very fond of the painting and gave it away. In 2016 the painting was estimated to be worth more than $50 million.

In 1889 Van Gogh was placed in an asylum in Provence, France, where he continued his painting in a cell with barred windows. Flowing, swirling energies and blurring boundaries, such as in his iconic painting “The Starry Night,” characterize his work during this time.

In 1890 Van Gogh left the asylum and moved to a suburb of Paris near his doctor and Theo. Several months later Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a revolver. There were no witnesses, and the shooting took place in the wheat field where he had just been painting. Van Gogh survived the shooting but died of an infection resulting from the wound around 30 hours later. According to Theo, his brother’s last words were, “The sadness will last forever.” He was buried in the municipal cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise.

There has been much speculation as to the type of mental illness that Van Gogh suffered from and how this influenced his creativity. Many experts believe it was a type of bipolar disorder, while others have suggested temporal lobe epilepsy with bouts of depression. Whatever the etiology of the illness was, it was certainly a very high price that Van Gogh paid in order to bring us the glorious beauty that he did.

Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime, Red Vineyard at Arles. The remainder of his more than 900 paintings were not sold or made famous until after his death when his reputation grew steadily among artists, art critics, dealers, and collectors. It’s so sadly ironic that Van Gogh suffered so much due to his lack of commercial success and romantic rejection, was considered a madman and a failure during his lifetime, and today he is regarded as one of the greatest artists who ever lived, as collective value to all of his work that is now estimated to be worth over 10 billion dollars.

Van Gogh’s paintings are located in many museums and art collections. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has many of his most iconic works. The museum houses the largest collection of his work worldwide, with 200 paintings, 400 drawings, and 700 letters. As one ascends through the museum, the artwork is presented in chronological order, and one can witness the transformation of his mind over time. More of Van Gogh’s work can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the National Gallery of Art in London. Through all his personal torment and darkness, Van Gogh’s ecstatic soul is miraculously singing to us.

Some of the quotes that Vincent Van Gogh is known for include:

I dream my painting and I paint my dream.

Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all.

…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?

Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.

I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.

What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.

If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.

The heart of man is very much the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too.

by David Jay Brown

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Profile

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Profile

Apr 21, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Musicians/Composers, Profiles

Carolyn and I have long enjoyed the music of Mozart, who is regarded as one of the greatest classical composers in the history of Western music.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756. At the time, Salzburg was a part of the Holy Roman Empire, and is in Austria today. Mozart was the youngest of seven children, and five of his siblings died in infancy. Mozart’s father was a teacher, a minor composer, and a violinist, who was the author of a successful violin textbook.

Mozart was a child prodigy, and he began composing music around the age of four or five, although there is some scholarly debate about how old Mozart was when he composed his first musical compositions.

In 1762 Mozart began traveling around Europe with his family, and he and his sister performed at exhibitions for the royal courts in Munich, Vienna, Prague, Paris, London, and Amsterdam. During this time, Mozart met many other musicians, and he became acquainted with the works of other composers.

In 1794 Mozart met the German composer Johann Christian Bach in London, who had a significant influence on him. When Mozart was eight years old he wrote his first symphony. The journeys around Europe were challenging for Mozart and his family, as conditions were primitive, and they had to wait for invitations and reimbursements from the nobility. The family also endured near-fatal illnesses while traveling far from home.

In 1770, while visiting Milan, Mozart wrote an opera which was performed with success, and this led to further opera commissions. Mozart’s father had hoped that their visits to Milan for the opera performances would result in professional employment for his son, and the ruling archduke considered employing him, but the empress was reluctant to hire “useless people” and so this didn’t happen.

In 1773 Mozart was employed as a court musician by the prince of Salzburg, in his hometown. Mozart had a lot of friends in Salzburg, and he had the opportunity to work in many different musical genres, including symphonies, string quartets, sonatas, and operas. In 1775 Mozart became particularly enthusiastic about developing violin concertos and he produced a series of five of them with increasing musical sophistication.

Despite Mozart’s artistic successes at this time, he grew depressed in Salzburg, partially due to a low salary, and he continued to look for a position elsewhere. Mozart longed to compose more operas, and he only had rare opportunities in Salzburg to do so. Then, in 1775, the court theatre in Salzburg was closed, and Mozart’s situation worsened. He travelled with his father to Vienna and Munich, and although there was popular success of his opera at the time, neither visit brought Mozart stable employment.

In 1777 Mozart resigned from his position in Salzburg, and he ventured out once again in search of better employment, visiting Paris, Munich, Mannheim, and elsewhere. In Mannheim he became acquainted with members of the “famous orchestra,” and although there were prospects of employment, no employment was found. Mozart fell into debt around this time and began pawning his valuables. In 1778 Mozart’s mother became ill and died. There were delays in calling a doctor for his mother due to a lack of money, which may have contributed to her death.

In 1779 Mozart returned to Salzburg, and he took up a new appointment but remained depressed about being there. In 1781 Mozart’s Italian language opera “Idomeneo” premiered with considerable success and Mozart was summoned to Vienna by his employer, Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg, who viewed Mozart as simply his “musical servant” that he wanted to have on hand.

Colloredo tried to prevent Mozart from performing outside his establishment in Salzburg, and this caused Mozart to become angry about losing money. This disagreement with Colloredo became increasingly difficult for Mozart, partially because his father sided with Colloredo. Mozart attempted to resign from this position in Salzburg and was refused at first— but then finally granted. Mozart was dismissed in a “grossly insulting way,” with a literal “kick in the arse,” which was administered by the archbishop’s steward.

Mozart decided to move to Vienna, where he worked as a freelance performer, as pianist, and composer, and this new career began well. Mozart established himself as “the finest keyboard player in Vienna,” and here he prospered as a composer.

From 1782 to 1785 Mozart performed popular concerts with himself as a soloist, performing three or four new piano concertos each season, and he became more prosperous. In 1784, Mozart joined a secret fraternal organization with moral and metaphysical ideals called the Freemasons, which dates back to the 13th century and exists to this day. Some of Mozart’s most popular works, such as The Magic Flute and Dir Seele des Weltalls, were inspired by Masonic values.

In 1787, Mozart obtained steady employment under the aristocratic patronage of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II in Vienna, who appointed him as his “chamber composer.” This was just a part-time appointment, requiring Mozart to compose dances for the annual balls, and the income was modest, but it helped Mozart when more difficult times arrived in the following years.

Between 1788 to 1790, Mozart began to appear less frequently in public concerts, his income shrunk by more than half, and he had to borrow money. Mozart had to write “pleading” letters to a friend for loans to get by. Mozart suffered from depression and his musical output slowed down.

In 1791 Mozart fell ill while in Prague for a premiere of an opera that he had composed. He continued his professional functions for a time, but his health deteriorated until he became bedridden. Mozart died that year, at the age of 35, and was buried in a “common grave,” which was subject to excavation after ten years, and the location of his burial is unknown to this day. The cause of Mozart’s death is also a mystery, and there has been much speculation as to the illness, with more than a hundred different suggestions by scholars.

Mozart was extremely prolific during his lifetime, composing more than 600 works, in a multitude of different genres — symphonic, chamber, operatic, and choral music— and today he is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential composers that ever lived.

In 1979 a partially fictional stage play by Peter Shaffer about the life of Mozart called Amadeus was performed on Broadway. The play was made into a popular Hollywood film in 1984, and Mozart’s music is heard extensively in the soundtrack. The film received widespread acclaim and was a box office hit, grossing over $90 million. It is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time, receiving eight Academy Awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Some of the quotes that Mozart is known for include:

Silence is very important. The silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves. … The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.

I choose such notes that love one another.

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence, nor imagination, nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.

Love guards the heart from the abyss.

Patience and tranquility of mind contribute more to cure our distempers as the whole art of medicine.

I cannot write in verse, for I am no poet. I cannot arrange the parts of speech with such art as to produce effects of light and shade, for I am no painter. Even by signs and gestures I cannot express my thoughts and feelings, for I am no dancer. But I can do so by means of sounds, for I am a musician.

by David Jay Brown

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Charles Baudelaire Profile

Charles Baudelaire Profile

Apr 5, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Poets, Profiles

Carolyn and I have both long admired the writings of the French poet, philosopher, essayist, and art critic Charles Baudelaire. Baudelaire is known for his major contributions to 19th-century French literature and is renowned for his revolutionary collection of lyric poems, Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil).

Charles Pierre Baudelaire was born in Paris in 1821. His father was a senior civil servant and amateur artist, and he was 34 years older than Baudelaire‘s mother. Baudelaire was 6 years old when his father died, so he never had an opportunity to know him well, and his mother remarried a man that Baudelaire never got along with well.

Baudelaire was educated during his stay at a boarding school in Lyon. In 1835, a fellow student at the school had this to say about Baudelaire, “[He was] much more refined and distinguished than any of our fellow pupils… we are bound to one another… by shared tastes and sympathies, the precocious love of fine works of literature.” Baudelaire later attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he studied law, and gained his degree in 1839. At the time, the law was a popular course of study for those not yet decided on any particular career.

Baudelaire spent his days in art galleries and cafés, and he experimented with opium and hashish. In 1841 he went on a voyage to Calcutta, India, and the trip left vivid impressions on him that later influenced his poetry. Baudelaire found beauty in the darker elements of human experience and was rather eccentric in his style of dress. He often dressed in black, dyed his hair green, and rebelled against the conformist, bourgeois world of 19th-century Paris in both his personal life and his poetry.

Baudelaire’s first art review was published in 1845, and between 1844 and 1847 eleven of Baudelaire’s poems were published in the Parisian weekly review magazine L’Artiste under a pen name. These were Baudelaire’s first published poems and it is unknown why he used a pen name for both the poems and the art review.

In 1847, Baudelaire’s novella, La Fanfarlo was published. The name in the title, Fanfarlo, has been associated with a Polka-dancer of the time. This novella tells the fictionalized story of the writer’s love affair with a dancer. That same year Baudelaire became acquainted with the works of Edgar Allan Poe, which he felt a strong kinship with.

Baudelaire translated a number of important English works into French, such as Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, and many of Poe’s works, which helped to popularize his work in France. Although Baudelaire admired Poe, and the two never met, there was a literary connection between the two writers. Baudelaire found tales and poems by Poe that he claimed, “had long existed” in his “own brain but never taken shape.” Baudelaire also wrote critical essays on contemporary art, and essays on a variety of other subjects.

In 1857 Baudelaire’s most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal was first published, although more poems were added in later editions. Upon its original publication, the poetry collection was embroiled in controversy. Within a month of its publication, the French authorities brought legal action against Baudelaire and his publisher, claiming that the work was “an insult to public decency.”

Although the French government condemned the poetry collection when it was first published, with six of its poems censored due to their “immorality,” it is now considered an important work of French poetry. The poems in this radical volume frequently break with tradition, and deal with themes relating to decadence, eroticism, suffering, and an aspiration toward an ideal world. The final volume of Les Fleurs du mal was published posthumously in 1868, and it includes nearly all of Baudelaire’s poetry, written from 1840 until his death. 

Despite his inheritance of a respectable fortune at the age of 21, making his way financially wasn’t easy for Baudelaire, as he had a taste for extravagance. By 1844, just two years later, he had spent nearly half of his inheritance, and he had become known in artistic circles as a “dandy” and “free spender.” Baudelaire “regularly begged his mother for money throughout his career, often promising that a lucrative publishing contract or journalistic commission was just around the corner.” During the course of his life, he borrowed from his mother an estimated total of 20,473 francs, and much of what is known of his later life comes from his correspondence with her. Baudelaire faced increasing financial difficulties toward the end of his life; he was forced to sell off many of his possessions in order to pay his debts and was frequently in and out of debtors’ prison.

In 1859 Baudelaire’s health began to deteriorate due to chronic illness brought on by stress, poverty, syphilis, and his long-term use of laudanum, a tincture of opium. In 1861 his financial difficulties increased when his publisher went bankrupt. Despite these difficulties, Baudelaire continued to write and publish his works, and he gained recognition for his critical essays.

Baudelaire died in 1867 at the age of 47, leaving behind a legacy as one of the greatest poets in French literature. He is buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris. Baudelaire’s mother died in 1871, outliving her son by almost four years.

Despite Baudelaire’s relatively slim production of poetry, his work has had a huge influence on Modernism, a movement in the arts that aims to break with classical and traditional forms of expression, and which embraced experimentation and “a focus on the individual experience.” Baudelaire is noted for his innovative use of creative language, as well as for his use of symbolism and imagery in his poetry, and his work has had a significant impact on later poets.

Some of the quotes that Charles Baudelaire is known for include:

The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.

Any healthy man can go without food for two days — but not without poetry.

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.

An artist is an artist only because of his exquisite sense of beauty, a sense which shows him intoxicating pleasures, but which at the same time implies and contains an equally exquisite sense of all deformities and all disproportion.

Always be a poet, even in prose.

Nothing can be done except little by little.

I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no Melancholy.

Whether you come from heaven or hell, what does it matter, O Beauty!

The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others, as he wishes.

by David Jay Brown

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Rainer Marie Rilke Profile

Rainer Marie Rilke Profile

Apr 5, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Poets, Profiles

Carolyn and I have both long enjoyed the writings of Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Marie Rilke, particularly his Letters to a Young Poet.

In 1875 Rainer Marie Rilke was born in Prague, which was then part of Austria-Hungary. His father was a railway official and his mother came from a well-to-do family. Rilke had an older sister who died before he was born, and this unfortunate tragedy was said to influence how his mother treated him as a child, “as if he were a girl” by the way that she dressed and treated him.

Despite his somewhat feminine nature, and being poetically sensitive and artistically talented in his youth, from 1886 to 1891 Rilke was pressured by his parents to attend a military academy. He left the academy due to illness and attended a German trade school for a short time, but he was expelled from this school in 1892 at the age of 16. From 1892 to 1895, Rilke was tutored for his university entrance exam, which he passed in 1895, and until 1896, he studied literature, art history, and philosophy in Prague at Charles University and in Munich, Germany.

In 1895 Rilke published his first work, a volume of poetry called Leben und Lieder (“Life and Songs”). In 1897 Rilke met a married woman in Munich who changed his life, Lou Andreas-Salomé, with whom he fell in love and had a relationship with. Salomé had trained with psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, and she shared her knowledge of psychoanalysis with Rilke. Their relationship lasted until 1900, and Rilke took two extensive trips to Russia to spend time with her. Around this time, Rilke changed his first name from “René” to “Rainer,” at Salomé’s urging, because she thought that name to be “more masculine, forceful, and Germanic.”

In 1899 Rilke traveled with Salomé and her husband to Moscow, where he met the novelist Leo Tolstoy. In 1900, Rilke stayed at an artists’ colony in Worpswede, Germany, and it was here that he got to know the sculptor Clara Westhoff, whom he married the following year, and their relationship continued for the rest of his life. Their daughter Ruth was born in 1901.

In 1902 Rilke traveled to Paris to write an essay on the sculptor Auguste Rodin, and this is where he really began his writing career, although he initially had some hardships in the new city that he wrote about later. In Paris, he encountered Modernism, a movement of the time that reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, and social organization, and which reflected the emerging industrial world. Rilke became deeply involved with the sculpture of Rodin and then the artwork of Paul Cézanne. For a while, Rilke acted as Rodin’s secretary and he also lectured on Rodin’s work. Rilke also wrote a book about Rodin titled Auguste Rodin.

In 1902 Rilke published Das Buch der Bilder (The Book of Images), a collection of poetry that was later expanded in a 1906 edition. In 1905 Rilke published Das Stunden-Buch (The Book of Hours), a collection of dreamy melodic poetry that he had written between 1899 and 1903. In 1907 and 1908 Rilke published additional poetry collections, Neue Gedichte (New Poems), and Der Neuen Gedichte Anderer Teil (Another Part of the New Poems). In 1910 he published his only novel, Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Btigge (The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge), which is semi-autobiographical and describes the difficult time that he had when he first arrived in Paris.

For around eight years Rilke experienced depression and a lack of creativity and didn’t write much between 1911 and 1919. During this time he traveled across North Africa and Europe in search of inspiration. In 1919 he began working again on his book Duino Elegies, a collection of poems that he had started in 1912, while he was a guest at the castle of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, who was part of a German noble family, on the Adriatic Sea, near Trieste, Italy. Duino Elegies had languished for years, and the collection was finally published in 1923.

In 1922 Rilke wrote a cycle of 55 sonnets that were published the following year under the title Die Sonette an Orpheus (Sonnets to Orpheus). These sonnets, inspired by the death of his daughter’s friend, were written during a period of 3 weeks that Rilke described as a “savage creative storm.” That same year Rilke also completed work on a ten-poem collection entitled Duino Elegies, which had taken ten years to complete, and has been described as “deeply philosophical and mystical.” The Sonnets to Orpheus and the Duino Elegies are largely considered Rilke’s masterpieces and the “highest expressions of his talent.”

There is a mystical quality in much of Rilke’s work, and he extensively engaged with metaphors and contradictions in his poetry and prose to convey a sense of disbelief and a crisis in his faith. He also incorporated figures from Greek mythology and angels into his poems. Between 1902 and 1908, Rilke corresponded with a young writer named Franz Xaver Kappus, who was studying at the military academy that Rilke had also attended. Kappus had written to Rilke when he was feeling uncertain about his future as a military officer or a poet. Rilke advised Kappus on “how a poet should feel, love and seek truth in trying to understand and experience the world around him and engage the world of art.” These letters offered profound insight into the ideas and themes that appear in Rilke’s poetry, as well as his creative process, and were written during a key period of Rilke’s early artistic development. In 1929 these letters were first published in the now classic volume, Letters to a Young Poet.

Shortly before his death, Rilke was diagnosed with leukemia. Rilke died in 1926, in the arms of his doctor, in Switzerland. In 1927 he was buried in the Raron cemetery in Visp, Switzerland. Rilke chose these words for his own epitaph:

“Rose, o pure contradiction, desire
to be no one’s sleep beneath so many lids.”

In addition to his essays, famous letters, and one novel, during his lifetime Rilke produced over 400 poems, as well as short stories and plays. Rilke is currently one of the best-selling poets in the United States and his spirit lives on. Many self-help authors reference his work, and he is frequently quoted in television shows, films, and music, especially when the subjects of love or angels are discussed. I also see Rilke quoted regularly in social media memes.

Some of the quotes that Rainer Marie Rilke is known for include:

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us.
Every angel is terrible.

We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.

I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.

Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.

The only journey is the one within.

I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.

It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.

by David Jay Brown

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