CYCLE NINETY

1. The naturalism of the man walking along the street who stares at various women; the materialism of the man walking along the street who looks in shop windows; the realism of the man walking along the street who notices other people; the idealism of the man walking along the street who keeps his eyes to himself, i.e. straight ahead or down.

2. Peace only comes from being at one with one's self, especially through concentrated breathing. When a man is not at one with his self, he is likely to be divided against it and thus a victim, fundamentally, of self-division. All sexual and social relationships are manifestations of self-division; for they only happen because the individuals concerned are divided against their selves, whether emotionally, sensuously, or intellectually. The unity of a couple is merely apparent; in reality each person is divided against his self and therefore fragmented. True unity only comes from being at one with the self. It has nothing whatsoever to do with couples, families, groups, crowds, hordes, etc.

3. The connection between war and sex is so close that war usually has the effect of intensifying sex, resulting in systematic rape. In war, the struggle between opposing armies for, at any rate traditionally, the possession and exploitation of a given landmass ... is paralleled, in sex, by the struggle between men for the possession and exploitation of a given woman. Neither struggle is based on morality, but in power as a means to domination.

4. All states are based on immorality, whatever their constitution. Only the Church can be based on morality, the morality of self-overcoming in the interests of self-realization. Yet the State is not even based on the (phenomenal) self but on the not-selves of power and wealth, the former noumenal (monarchic) and the latter phenomenal (parliamentary). Objective extrapolations, as it were, from the sun and the moon.