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"When I came to the stage on election night to give my acceptance speech[, a]fter thanking my supporters, I'd said this: "You know, it was back in '64 that a hero and an idol of mine beat Sonny Liston. He shocked the world. Well, now it's 1998 and the American dream lives on in Minnesota 'cause we SHOCKED THE WORLD!" Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, had been that hero and idol of mine growing up. I was at the impressionable age of twelve or thirteen, and naturally boxers are the epitome of toughness. Along came Muhammad, who broke the mold, reciting his poetry and predicting in what round he would win. Up until then, athletes were supposed to be modest people who were blessed by the Lord for having these wonderful physical bodies. Now here was this flashy, charismatic young black man proclaiming how pretty he was. Black men in America had never been pretty! [...] I had Clay's record album, I Am the Greatest! I'd memorized it. So I was ecstatic when Liston failed to come out for the eighth round. I always remembered Clay screaming, "We shocked the world!" after the fight, and that's all I could think of when I went out for my acceptance speech. Not long after this, I was in the transition office of the Capitol when on my schedule appeared the name Harvey Mackay. [...] Harvey came walking in with a big gift-wrapped box, and I was thinking, "What the heck could this be about?" Setting the box down, he said, "You'd better open that, governor." Inside was a pair of red Everlast boxing gloves and, written in magic marker on one of them was: "To Governor Jesse Ventura—You Shocked the World. Muhammad Ali." I was stunned. Harvey told me that Muhammad was watching TV the night I won. Harvey then set it up for us to go visit Muhammad on his farm in Berrien Springs, Michigan. [...] We spent a whole afternoon with Muhammad. It was a dream come true for me to be sitting on a couch with the Champ, creating a friendship. His wife, Lonnie, told me that he'd barely slept the night before, he was so excited I was coming. I was awestruck—Muhammad Ali, excited to see me? As the world knows, Muhammad suffers today from Parkinson's disease. So you do most of the talking, and he answers more with his eyes. We walked out to his gym and got in the ring together. [...] It was there that Harvey talked me into reciting "I Am the Greatest" from the record album. [...] I hadn't heard that album for thirty years, but I did the whole thing from memory. Muhammad was standing next to me and, when I finished, I could see a tear in his eye. Isn't it ironic that a white kid from south Minneapolis would have a black Muslim for a hero? Some people have said to me, "How can you, being a Vietnam veteran, look up to a guy like him who refused induction into military service?" My response is, "Because Muhammad is a man who gave up everything for his convictions. He was willing to sacrifice the greatest title in the world for his beliefs." You know damned well that Ali would never have seen Vietnam. He'd have done his boxing exhibitions on the military bases. But he wasn't going to play that game. I have tremendous respect for that. Something I noticed when I walked into his home: On a shelf in his living room, in equal prominence, are the Koran and the Bible. Obviously, they both carry a deep meaning for him. I imagine he reads both. For people who don't believe that Ali truly believes, they're wrong. Like I said, he's a man of conviction. Always has been, and always will be."

- Muhammad Ali

• 0 likes• African Americans• Muslims from the United States• Sufis• Boxers from the United States• People from Louisville•
"On 20 June 1967, boxing legend Muhammad Ali was convicted for refusing the draft for the Vietnam war in Houston, Texas. Ali had been a vocal opponent of the US war, saying: “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?” To try to quell the escalating resistance to the war, Ali was given the maximum sentence of five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. But their efforts were unsuccessful, and the anti-war movement continued to grow. Despite the Nation of Islam beginning to distance themselves from Ali, demonstrations supporting him took place around the world, from Egypt to Guyana to London to Ghana. Four years later his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court. Ali had no regrets: "I wasn’t trying to be a leader. I just wanted to be free. And I made a stand all people, not just Black people, should have thought about making, because it wasn’t just Black people being drafted. The government had a system where the rich man’s son went to college, and the poor man’s son went to war. Then, after the rich man’s son got out of college, he did other things to keep him out of the Army until he was too old to be drafted.""

- Muhammad Ali

• 0 likes• African Americans• Muslims from the United States• Sufis• Boxers from the United States• People from Louisville•
"In all the world there are only two kinds of people — those who know, and those who do not know; and this knowledge is the thing which matters. What religion a man holds, to what race he belongs — these things are not important; the really important thing is this knowledge — the knowledge of God's plan for men. For God has a plan, and that plan is evolution. When once a man has seen that and really knows it, he cannot help working for it and making himself one with it, because it is so glorious, so beautiful. So, because he knows, he is on God's side, standing for good and resisting evil, working for evolution and not for selfishness. If he is on God's side he is one of us, and it does not matter in the least whether he calls himself a Hindu or a Buddhist, a Christian or a Muhammadan, whether he is an Indian or an Englishman, a Chinaman or a Russian. Those who are on His side know why they are here and what they should do, and they are trying to do it; all the others do not yet know what they should do, and so they often act foolishly, and try to invent ways for themselves which they think will be pleasant for themselves, not understanding that all are one, and that therefore only what the One wills can ever be really pleasant for any one. They are following the unreal instead of the real. Until they learn to distinguish between these two, they have not ranged themselves on God's side, and so this discrimination is the first step. But even when the choice is made, you must still remember that of the real and the unreal there are many varieties; and discrimination must still be made between the right and the wrong, the important and the unimportant, the useful and the useless, the true and the false, the selfish and the unselfish."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

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"See what gossip does. It begins with evil thought, and that in itself is a crime. For in everyone and in everything there is good; in everyone and in everything there is evil. Either of these we can strengthen by thinking of it, and in this way we can help or hinder evolution; we can do the will of the Logos or we can resist Him. If you think of the evil in another, you are doing at the same time three wicked things: (1) You are filling your neighbourhood with evil thought instead of with good thought, and so you are adding to the sorrow of the world. (2) If there is in that man the evil which you think, you are strengthening it and feeding it; and so you are making your brother worse instead of better. But generally the evil is not there, and you have only fancied it; and then your wicked thought tempts your brother to do wrong, for if he is not yet perfect you may make him that which you have thought him. (3) You fill your own mind with evil thoughts instead of good; and so you hinder your own growth, and make yourself, for those who can see, an ugly and painful object instead of a beautiful and lovable one. Not content with having done all this harm to himself and to his victim, the gossip tries with all his might to make other men partners in his crime. Eagerly he tells his wicked tale to them, hoping that they will believe it; and then they join with him in pouring evil thought upon the poor sufferer. And this goes on day after day, and is done not by one man but by thousands. Do you begin to see how base, how terrible a sin this is? You must avoid it altogether."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

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"These three great crimes you must avoid, for they are fatal to all progress, because they sin against love. But not only must you thus refrain from evil; you must be active in doing good. You must be so filled with the intense desire of service that you are ever on the watch to render it to all around you — not to man alone, but even to animals and plants. You must render it in small things every day, that the habit may be formed, so that you may not miss the rare opportunity when the great thing offers itself to be done. For if you yearn to be one with God, it is not for your own sake; it is that you may be a channel through which His love may flow to reach your fellow-men. He who is on the Path exists not for himself, but for others; he has forgotten himself, in order that he may serve them. He is as a pen in the hand of God, through which His thought may flow, and find for itself an expression down here, which without a pen it could not have. Yet at the same time he is also a living plume of fire, raying out upon the world the Divine Love which fills his heart. The wisdom which enables you to help, the will which directs the wisdom, the love which inspires the will — these are your qualifications. Will, Wisdom and Love are the three aspects of the Logos; and you, who wish to enroll yourselves to serve Him, must show forth these aspects in the world."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

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"You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are beautiful or ugly within? Who but yourself can tell you if you are incorruptible? You are not serious in these things. But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. Because of that real understanding there will be true friendship. Because of that true friendship – which you do not seem to know – there will be real cooperation on the part of each one. And this not because of authority, not because of salvation, not because of immolation for a cause, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice. So these are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration for two years, I have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. I have not been persuaded to it by anyone. I am not persuaded in such things. For two years I have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently, and I have now decided to disband the Order, as I happen to be its Head. You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

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"Learning in the true sense of the word is possible only in that state of attention, in which there is no outer or inner compulsion. Right thinking can come about only when the mind is not enslaved by tradition and memory. It is attention that allows silence to come upon the mind, which is the opening of the door to creation. That is why attention is of the highest importance. Knowledge is necessary at the functional level as a means of cultivating the mind, and not as an end in itself. We are concerned, not with the development of just one capacity, such as that of a mathematician, or a scientist, or a musician, but with the total development of the student as a human being. How is the state of attention to be brought about? It cannot be cultivated through persuasion, comparison, reward or punishment, all of which are forms of coercion. The elimination of fear is the beginning of attention. Fear must exist as long as there is an urge to be or to become, which is the pursuit of success, with all its frustrations and tortuous contradictions. You can teach concentration, but attention cannot be taught just as you cannot possibly teach freedom from fear; but we can begin to discover the causes that produce fear, and in understanding these causes there is the elimination of fear. So attention arises spontaneously when around the student there is an atmosphere of well-being, when he has the feeling of being secure, of being at ease, and is aware of the disinterested action that comes with love. Love does not compare, and so the envy and torture of "becoming" cease."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

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