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Intelligence or Good Looks
Historically “white”, “male”, “middle class”, “straight men” have been able to use their minds and not their bodies in order to become valuable in western culture and elsewhere – and they were employed as high-paid decision-makers. In contrast, ethnic minority, female, working-class, trans and queer people have generally had to rely on their bodies in their working lives – in manual, domestic, reproductive, or slave labour, or even sex work. Belonging to a social group whose value is defined through the body is generally a sign of your subordination, which explains why women have been long paying a lot of attention to their bodies and why so many young men…
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Proclaim! All of you who care, Proclaim!
Proclaim! You the reader, Proclaim! “In what capacity do I proclaim? In whose name do I proclaim?” “Proclaim, in the name of your Lord who created man from (what you could never imagine it could be made from. A thing nothing in its essence, then what is it that fills you with arrogance.)” “Proclaim, the fact that your Lord is the most Bounteous (for it is he who has given all that he has given to anyone who has anything. There is nothing to be proud about).” Proclaim! You who has lost courage, Proclaim! “What do I tell them who it is that taught me what to proclaim?” “(Proclaim that…
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Kaashif and Baatin on Love
What does it mean to say that if there is a tinge of attachment it is not real Love? Kaashif Real Love is selfless. There is no attachment, you don’t need the person anymore. Baatin How can “no attachment” be possible? Kaashif At the “real” level of Love, you are not attached to the person but the person’s “being”. And that is how “no attachment” is possible. Baatin Separation from the beloved shouldn’t hurt then. Kaashif The “being” of the person never goes. The beloved always “is” once she “has been”, she cannot “not be”, for a person who has “been” will always “be”, he can never “not be”. Baatin…
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How to practice faith?
I don’t claim to be a mystic who has gained any kind of spiritual mileage, however, the very fact that I am a human being makes me eligible to write on a topic that concerns the core living of us humans. While for most of my life I have held on to rationalism in the public sphere of my life while holding on to intuition as the source of judgment in my personal one, the two often seem to be at loggerheads for an outsider. That, however, has not been true in my experience; it has been a smooth ride between the two seemingly contradictory sources of knowledge. Why I…
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Women Liberation – An alternative viewpoint
We do not always realize that an opinion we carry, with all the conviction with which we carry it, may not be our opinion at all. Has it ever occurred to you that what you say may not be the outpouring of your real innate ideas? Has it occurred to you that the ideals you carry may not necessarily have been yours at all? What if the ideals are an import? Is there the slightest possibility that an opinion we think is a well-informed one could have come out not of critical examination but from a blind adhering to a thought which we assume to have emerged out of critical…
Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment
