Hermes Heartbeat

Alan Watts again

2006-11-17T11:58:00.000-08:00

These quotations come from Nature, Man and Woman, (Vintage Books, New York, 1991). But, first, here is the Dedication:

To the beloved company of the stars , the moon, and the sun;
to ocean, air, and the silence of space;
to jungle, glacier, and desert,
soft earth, clear water and fire on the hearth.
To a certain waterfall in a high forest;
to night rain upon the roof and the wide leaves,
grass in the wind, tumult of sparrows in a bush,
and eyes which give light to the day.

And now the quotes:

If the ego were to disappear, or rather, be seen as a useful fiction, there would no longer be the duality of subject and object, of experiencer and experience. There would simply be a continuous, self-moving stream of experiencing, without the sense of an active subject who controls it or of a passive subject who suffers it. The thinker would be seen as no more than the series of thoughts, and the feeler no more than the feelings.(pp.70-71).

...(I)f political health consists in realizing that legal restraint is freely imposed by the people, philosophical health consists in realizing that our true self is the natural man(sic), the spontaneous Tao, from which we can never deviate. In psychological terms this realization is a total self-acceptance standing, like political freedom, as the constant background of every thought, feeling, and action - however restricted. Such acceptance of oneself is the condition of that underlying integrity, sincerity, and peace of heart which, in the sage, endures bemeath every disturbance. It is, in short, a deeply inward consent to be just exactly what we are and to feel just exactlty what we are feeling at every moment, even before what we are has been changed, however slightly, by accepting it.... Stated boldy, if crudely, it is the insight that whatever we are just now, that is what we should ideally be. This is the sense of the Zen Buddhist saying, "Your ordinary mind is the Tao, the "ordinary mind" being the present, given state of consciousness, whatever its nature. (pp.131-132).

To act or grow creatively we must begin from where we are, but we cannot begin at all if we are not "all here" without reservation, or regret. Lacking self-acceptance, we are always at odds with our point of departure, always doubting the ground on which we stand, always so divided against ourselves that we cannot act with sincerity. Apart from self-acceptance as the ground-work of thought and action, every attempt at spiritual or moral discipline is the fruitless struggle of a mind tht is split assunder and insincere. It is the freedom which is the essential basis of self-restraint. (p.132).

To the extent that we do not yet know what man (sic) is, we do not know what human sexuality is....What man is, and what human sexuality is, will come to be known only as we lay ourselves open to experience with the full sensitivity of feeling which does not grasp.
The experience of sexual love is therefore no longer to be sought as the repetiton of a familiar ecstacy, prejudiced by the experience of what we already know. It will be the exploration of our relationship with an ever-changing, ever unknown partner, unknown because he or she is not in truth the abstract role or person, the set of conditioned reflexes which society has imposed, the stereotyped male or female which education has led us to expect. All these are maya, and the love of these is fantasy. What is not maya is mystery, what cannot be described or measured, and it is this sense - symbolized by the veil of modesty - that woman is always a mystery to man, and man to woman.. It is in this sense that we must understand, van der Leeuw's remarkable saying that "the mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."(pp.158-159).

Emerson - Part I

2006-11-17T11:40:00.000-08:00

At some point I intend to include a number of Emerson's thoughts in this blog. But, for now, this quotation which was projected onto the wall in a Unity Church, here in Victoria a few weeks ago, will have to suffice:

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.

And here is one from his aunt, Mary Emerson: "Always do what you are afraid to do." Don't I wish!

Some more Alan Watts

2006-10-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I neglected to make note of the title of the 1960 pocket book from which these quotes come - I just have some loose pages!
(Emphases are in the original):

... the spiritual is not to be separated from the material, nor the wonderful from the ordinary. We need above all to disentangle ourselves from habits of speech and thought which set the two apart, making it impossible for us to see that this - the immediate, everyday, and present experience - is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe.

Spiritual awakening is the difficult process whereby the increasing realization that everything is as wrong as it can be flips suddenly into the realization that everything is as right as it can be. Or better everything is as It as it can be.

The most impressive fact in man's (sic) spiritual, intellectual, and poetic experience has always been for me, the universal prevalence of those astounding moments of insight which Richard Bucke called "cosmic consciousness....[which] .... is a release from self-consciousness, that is to say from the fixed belief and feeling that one's organism is an absolute and separate thing, as distinct from a convenient unit of perception.... The central core of the experience seems to be the conviction, or insight, that the immediate now, whatever its nature, is the goal and fulfillment of all living.

About which Jack Kornfield had this to say - again I don't have the reference:

Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future, in regrets, guilt or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war.

Paulo Coelho - Part VI

2006-09-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

So here, after a long silence, are some more quotes from "Eleven Minutes:"

If I must be faithful to someone or something, then I have, first of all, to be faithful to myself. If I am looking for true love, I first have to get the mediocre loves out of my system....

...it's best to live as if today were the first (or last) day of my life.

I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It's all a question of how I view my life.

...the great aim of every human being is to understand the meaning of total love. Love is not to be found in someone else, but in ourselves; we simply awaken to it. But in order to do that, we need the other person. The universe only makes sense when we have someone to share our feelings with.

...really important meetings are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other. Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meetings are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes direction.
Everyone knows how to love, because we are all born with that gift. Some people have a natural talent for it, but the majority of us have to re-learn, to remember how to love, and everyone, without exception, needs to burn on the bonfire of past emotions, to relive certain joys and griefs, certain ups and downs, until they can see the connecting thread that exists behind each new encounter, because there is a connecting thread.

Every human being experiences his or her own desire; it is part of our personal treasure and, although, as an emotion, it can drive people away, generally speaking, it brings those who are important to us closer. It is an emotion chosen by my soul, and it is so intense that it can infect everything and everyone around me.
Each day I choose the truth by which I try to live.... But I would like to be able always to choose desire as my companion. Not out of obligation, not to lessen my loneliness, but because it is good. Yes, very good.

Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone.... When desire is still in this pure state, the man and the woman fall in love with life, they live each moment reverently, consciously, always ready to celebrate the next blessing.
When people feel like this, they are not in a hurry, they do not precipitate events with unthinking actions. They know that the inevitable will happen, that what is real always finds a way of revealing itself. When the moment comes, they do not hesitate, they do not miss a single opportunity, they do not let slip a single magic moment, because they respect the importance of every single second.

Paulo Coelho Part V - On Love

2006-04-03T23:08:00.000-07:00

I have just finished reading one of Paulo Coelho's books entitled "Eleven Minutes" (HarperCollins Publishers Inc., New York, 2004) which, in many ways, is, to me, so different from his earlier works.

The opening line is "Once upon a time, there was a prostitute named Maria" and the story is a fictional account - but factually based - of a woman's experience in that profession, in Switzerland, that began and ended in one year i.e. when she had saved up enough money to go back home to Brazil and buy a farm.

And Coelho is consistent. The words below that he puts in Maria's mouth, are almost identical to the ones he wrote six years earlier in his book The Fifth Mountain (HarperCollins etc 1998) which I re-read last Christmas night after my car accident earlier that day.

Note: The theme of the latter book is that some things in life are unavoidable. So my choosing to read it that night, with no memory of its contents, was an interesting piece of synchronicity, because that was how exactly how I felt about putting a car in a ditch after forty years of basically accident free driving. But that is a separate story in itself.

In the book, the widow-woman, (Luke 4;24-26), whom the prophet Elijah visited in the town of Zarephath about 870 BC, says to herself [that] She would go on loving him, because for the first time in her life, she knew freedom. She could love him even if he never knew; she did not need his permission to miss him, to think of him every moment of the day, to await him for the evening meal, and to worry about the plots that people could be weaving against the foreigner.

This was freedom: to feel what the heart desired, with no thought to the opinion of the rest. She had fought with her neighbours and her friends about the stranger's presence in her house: there was no need to fight against herself ....

She was free, for love liberates.

And Maria, who in the other story is only twenty-three , writes in her diary:

All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that's a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives himself or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most whole heartedly....

In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel.

It hurt when I lost each of the various men I fell in love with. Now, though, I am convinced that no one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone.

That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.

So I am both grateful and joyful that the universe chose a very special person to be the mirror in which I would finally find this awesome gift of freedom. Little wonder that I love her so much, fully aware that she is not only much younger than me, but is also married with two small children, three dogs and a couple of cats!

So love comes to each of us in many ways of which this is but one example at this particular time in my life

Amma - today's third posting!

2006-03-27T11:42:00.000-08:00

I was brought to Amma's web-site, www.ammachi.org via a man on the lower mainland of British Columbia who seems to be making a remarkable recovery from terminal prostate cancer. These three quotes got my attention:

Spirituality is the practical science of life. Apart from taking us to the ultimate goal of self-realization it also teaches us the nature of the world, and how to understand life and live fully in the best way possible.

The purpose of one's life is to realize who we really are. By realizing our own self we become full, with nothing more to gain in life. Life becomes perfect.

If you ask the river "why do you flow?" what can it say?

I had no idea my week was going to start this way but this is what wanted to happen. So what can I say??

Pages from a journal

2006-03-27T09:13:00.000-08:00

The lettering on the cover of this little book is in an oriental language. Only the first four pages have been written in - in English - by, it seems, a young female student at a school somewhere in North Vancouver. She had left the book behind the back row seating in a bus that I happened to get on. It contains no identification. Inside the front cover is written a quotation by a Ralph Miller whose name means nothing to me:

The only thing you get to be is who you are.

The next page contains the rules for the journal:

1. The secrets have to be true and honest.

2. If you write a secret it will have to be neat and tidy.

3. If you disobey these rules you can't write in here again.

And do you know what? The last two pages are messy with crossings out and hasty scribbles. So she was right. It is highly unlikely that she will write in that book again. I could have given it to the bus-driver to go into the Lost and Found. But it seemed to me that her words - these cries from the heart - needed first to be shared and put out into the world rather than being left to languish on a shelf somewhere. She began, on February 23rd of this year, with a poem entitled The Wind Blows:

it blows hard at me as i stand there on the grass field.
it's cold and sunny.
i'm facing the sun, my eyes closed.
i feel like a sail on a boat, or a kite.
any moment the wind may pick me up and i would fly away ...
the wind blows hard towards me.
but even if i wasn't there,
the wind would still be there on that grass field,
doing its thing.
blowing,
the wind blows.

The next page is entitled "but we also love" which is the real reason I did not leave this book in someone else's hands:

everyone is perfect.
perfectly disfunctional. (her spelling)
perfectly fucked up.
we are all perfectly fucked up in our own special way.
we hate, kill and destroy.
but none of that matters when the spark of love in a stranger's eyes bring tears to your own eyes.

The next day, underlined, she wrote be silly like billy:

simon says, be silly.
seriousness is a disease,
it will bring you to your grave,
it will make you be a slave.
it will bring you to your knees.
seriousness is a disease.
damn the daemons of disease.
do the world a favour please;
do bend over my dear lass,
and take the carrot out of your ass.

And, on the next page, two short entries:

Simplicity is key, that's all there is to say 'bout that.

any lock in the world can be opened, and i ain't even jokin' ...

And this last entry blows me away because I have been studying Inca shamanism for two years and have yet to experience Ayahuasca, the Vine of Death from the Amazon jungle that takes people, after much vomiting I am told, on hallucinatory journeys:

ayahuasca is like a mother .... and a mother would never hurts its child.
(maureen, Sept 24th 2005).

Anway ... a psychic friend has suggested that she and I do a healing ritual for the unknown author of these writings and after that we'll ask for guidance as to what happens next with the book and its hundred empty pages.

Swami Amwar Jyoti

2006-03-27T09:02:00.000-08:00

I found these first quotations of his on a calendar in one of a family physician's treatment rooms. His wife, Nancy, his receptionist, chooses them:

Open your eyes: life is a perennial flow of joy, a perennial beauty.

The silence within us is the source of all that we are.

The mission of everyone on earth is to realize our relationship with the Creator or the source.

Look at life through divine eyes and it will be divine life.

And two other quotes from a book in the waiting room of a friend who does live blood analysis:

The things that matter most in our lives are not fantastic or grand. They are the moments when we touch one another.
Jack Kornfield.

Touch is the vehicle through which we comfort one another and are comforted, via hugs or clasps of the hand.
Howard Cutler.

Wayne W. Dyer

2006-03-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

Here are some extracts from his book, There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem (HarperCollins, New York, 2001) which I have just finished reading:

The essential message of this book is in the following ten points.

1. Everything in our universe is nothing more than energy. That is, at the very core of its being, everything is vibrating to a certain frequency.

2. Slower frequencies appear more solid and this is where our problems occur.

3. Faster frequencies such as light and thought are less visible.

4. The fastest frequencies are what I am calling spirit. (emphasis in the original).

5.When the highest/fastest frequencies of spirit are brought to the presence of lower/slower frequencies, they nullify and dissipate those things we call problems.

6. You have the ability and the power to increase your energy and access the highest/fastest energies for the purpose of eradicating any problems in your life.

7. There are some basic foundations and principles that you will need to understand and practice in order to access spiritual solutions to any "problems" you are encountering.

8. Your ultimate choice, once you understand these principles is to align yourself with a high energy field or a low energy field.

9. In essence, when you finally come to know and understand the world of spirit on an intimate basis, you will see clearly that all problems are illusions in that they are concocted by our minds because we have come to believe that we are separate from our source, which I call God, but you can label it any way you prefer.

10. These illusions are nothing more than mistakes in our thinking and like every error they dissolve when put face to face with the truth

Much later, he writes:

I recall a highly evolved spiritual teacher of mine saying to me, "Stop taking your life so personally." I was shocked and responded with something like, "What do you mean by that? This is my life, it's very personal." He was alluding to the idea that we are not our bodies, our personalities, or any of our material world possessions. We are eternal, spiritual beings disguised as fathers, spouses, managers, proprietors, and owners. When we know our true divine nature, we stop taking everything personally, including our own lives....

So, he continues:

I recommend that you stop taking the opinions of others personally. Remind yourself that you are not going to give any energy to what they want for you if it conflicts with what you intend to create for yourself, unless the energy you give is kindness, understanding and love.

In terms of personal relationships, he also emphasizes the need to be clear about who we allow into our lives:

You must say good-bye, albeit with unconditional love, to anyone who pollutes your life space with slowed down [negative] energy .... Anyone you allow to be a regular visitor in your body energy field must come with love, peace and the higher spiritual energies."

And I think the key word here is "regular" because love and compassion, it seems to me, ask that we also be available, at times, for anyone with what Dyer calls a "problem."

Lastly, the more I think about these things, the more I realize there is only love. Nothing else. And now I'm ready to dismantle the computer!.

.

Mercury retrograde??

2006-03-13T08:44:00.000-08:00

Apparently there is a "damaged" file somewhere in my computer. So it needs to go into the shop to be looked at. But these quotes wanted to be recorded before that happens:

Each day we are born again to start our life anew.
What we do today is what matters most.
The Buddha.

We don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is around us, is itself a marvellous victory.
Howard Zinn, historian.

Nothing happens until something moves.... The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the power of all true science.... To know that what is inpenetrable to us really exists is at the centre of true religiousness. In this sense I belong in the ranks of religious men.
Albert Einstein.

Every event we experience and every person we meet has been put in our path for a reason. When we awake to this fundamental truth, we begin to understand that a benevolent force of energy is available to guide and direct our lives. I call this energy the unmistakeable touch of grace.
Cheeryl Richardson.

Choose with awareness what gives you joy and it will lead to spirit.
Margot Anand.

You are here to enjoy an original relationship with the universe.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Daoist advice: Avoid excessive Thinking, Craving, Distractions.

Two poems and a postscript

2006-03-13T08:23:00.000-08:00

The first of these was written by my friend Susan, a Body-Talk practioner, after one of our sessions, to mark my birthday. The second - I like Haiku's - was my response.

A Poem for Bill

Morning, and I remember the moon
above our heads the way the crows
sometimes enter the conversation
right when we need to hear what
they’re saying. Not synchronicity,
but attention. The way a man must
know the dance floor if he wants to be called
a good dancer. A nod, a slight bend in the arm
and the pair floats to the centre of the room.
Bill’s a sailor, a man willing to witness
the world over and over again the way
the wind takes his breath away with his heart.
Each wave, one epiphany after another.
The pain there, too, witnessing, remembering.
After each storm, the sea unravels, waits.
So many voices calling Bill for answers, and
some not calling, but answering, in a language
Bill is willing, ready now, to share.

Miracles are Everywhere

Saturday mornings

Bill and Susan's bodies talk

While daffodills bloom

All of which reminds me of the words on one of the Tree of Life Inspirations cards:

Friendship is the journey of souls who join hands in the celebration of each other's lives.... True friendship paints the world with colours that never fade.

Love - Part III

2006-03-02T11:21:00.000-08:00

A young friend in Indiana recently sent me John Lennon's beautiful ballad, Imagine, which I hadn't thought about for awhile. She began her e-mail this way:

....why must we define love? Can't we just feel it?

On this planet in this life-time I try to love everyone, especially those who cross my path although I feel a love for people I don't know. It is difficult to love everyone equally because some just tend to touch your heart and soul more than others. Others take a lot of effort to love....

Note: I call the former my soul-mates because we seem to have instant recognition though we may have never physically met before. So here is Lennon, plus a couple of other quotes on this timeless topic.

"Imagine"

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

And from a greeting card:

If life is a journey ... love is what makes the journey worthwhile....
Love ... is the magic of all things felt with the heart.
www.treeol.com

And Rumi again:

Love is the energizing elixir of the universe, the cause and effect of all harmonies.

Lastly, Buddha:

You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and attention.

Love - Part II

2006-02-18T12:03:00.000-08:00

This first quote, by Kate Nowak, came to me on Valentine's Day, from a dearly beloved friend, whom I call Joy because she is such a joy in my life, comes to you all a little late - but, as the old saying has it, "Better late than never":

Today, on this traditional day of love, practice loving until it hurts. Love those you think don't deserve it, and those you think do. Love those who are loving in return and love those who are not. Love those who smile and those who frown, those who are up and those who are down. Love everyone you meet and everyone who comes to mind. Love without reservation or stipulation. Love without question. Just love them. And then bask in the warm glow of love that is returned to you.

Now that, added "Joy", is a Valentine's Day. And that, to me is unconditional loving across the board. That’s what I’m practicing, today, everyday, but with an extra reminder and a boost if you will, for today. May you be blessed with all things good.

And from Osho:

Love is the ultimate value, the final flowering; hence you cannot perfect it.

If I have to choose between the words love and God , I will choose love; I will forget all about God, because those who love are bound to know God. But it is not vice-versa.

Love ... comes like a breeze with great fragrance, fills your heart, and suddenly where there was a desert there is a garden full of flowers. But you don't know where it comes .... It comes on its own and remains as long as existence wills it. And just as it had come one day, as a stranger, as a guest, suddenly one day it will be gone. There is no way to cling to it, to hold it.

You love someone and you promise, "I will love you my whole life". And you know perfectly well that you cannot even be certain of tomorrow - you are giving a false promise. All you can say is, "I am in love with you in this moment, and I will give my totality to you. About the next moment I know nothing. How can I promise? you have to forgive me?"

Love is the greatest danger there is ... because you are possessed by something that is bigger than you ... but it cannot be trusted. In the moment it is total, but the next moment remains open. It may grow within you: it may evaporate from you.

And Rumi:

A lifetime without love is of no account.
Love is the water of life.
Drink it down with heart and soul.

And here is a delightful web-site to fill your heart with love:

www.youarelovemovie.com/

So let us wish for each other that, no matter how challenging this may be, we find love somewhere in our lives every day and not just on Valentine's Day.

And a later added PS from Iris Murdoch (1919 -199):

Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.

Two poems

2006-01-26T21:14:00.000-08:00

The first one I found on a Victoria Public Transit bus as part of their series of "Poetry in Motion." I thought I had posted it before but I don't seem to be able to find it. Anyway it is worth repeating. The title is Promises, Promises by Heidi Greco:

I will ride my red motorcycle
Into your heart
Crashland my feelings
All over your doorstep
Fling scented pink flowers
Across your front lawn
Kiss you like pancakes
For breakfast.

And this one, which touches my soul, comes from a young Swedish friend, Helen Lundgren, whom I met at an International Transpersonal Association conference in Palm Springs about eighteen months ago:

Broken Wings

Oh beautiful soul, how much you have been missed,
Days and nights I have been waiting for you to show yourself,
How could this have happened?
How could I lose you?
Now, when I feel the closeness again with you,
I do not want to lose one bit of you,
You mean everything to me,
Tell me what you want me to do for you,
....
Mend your wings ....
I do anything for you,
I will go through fire,
I will swim every ocean,
Someone whispered that you are in all things,
Oh, I want to be with you again,
There is nothing else in my world that is more precious,
Oh my wings, oh, my soul.

Some more quotations

2006-01-16T09:18:00.000-08:00

I suppose if I was super-organized I would go back through all the archives and give each posting of miscellaneous quotations a number.
But, right now, that doesn't seem like a good use of my energy.

Anyway ..... here are a couple of little ones that have been waiting for their turn in the light, plus what I suspect is Rainer Maria Rilke's most oft quoted piece of writing, "A Letter to a Young Poet":

Where the attention goes, energy flows.
(Unknown)

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it, is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
(William Arthur Ward).

I want to beg you, as much as I can, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and books that are written in a very foreign tongue.

Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything now. Live the questions now.

Perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

The Law of One

2006-01-09T09:38:00.000-08:00

A friend sent me this at Christmas-time and cited their web-site which is neat: http://www.lawofone.org/pathways.html
I quote from his message, and wish all who read this a Happy New Year, which I am going to start with more quiet time than usual: Time for an inner journey:

The Law of One was the basis of Atleantean and early Egyptian spirituality and is currently being remembered by many.

THE LAW OF ONE
We are all One.
When One is harmed, All are harmed;
When One is helped, All are helped.
Therefore, in the name of My Being
Which is One with All
And is All Powerful and All Loving
And is One with the Angels and with the Christ
I ask for only that which is The Highest Good of All Concerned
To happen here and now and everywhere and through all times.
On the Physical plane, the Greatest Beauty and Harmony;
On the Emotional plane, the most Profound Joy and Love;
In the World of the Mind, the Greatest Wisdom;
And in the Spirit, the greatest Unity with All.
I am deeply thankful that this is being done here and now.
Amen.

The Four Agreements

2005-12-26T16:11:00.000-08:00

I have to return Miguel Ruiz's book to a friend tomorrow, so I just wanted to list his Four Agreements which are:

Be Impeccable with Your word.
Don't Take Anything Personally.
Don't Make Assumptions. And,
Always Do Your Best.

Of the first he writes,

Through the word you express your creative power. It is through the word that you manifest everything....

The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby create the events of your life...it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you. One edge is the misuse of the word which creates a living hell. The other edge is the impeccability of the word, which will only create beauty, love and heaven on earth. Depending on how it is used, the word can set you free, or it can enslave you even more than you know.

So, let us be impeccable with our words, for, as he goes on to say, the other three agreements will then fall naturally into place.

GoGratitude

2005-12-26T09:15:00.000-08:00

The following are from two of the planned 42 daily messages that Stacey Robyn has posted to her web site www.GoGratitude.com/masterkey so far. If you haven't checked it out you might want to.

give to receive

receive to give

balancing Gratitude equally in favor of collective abundance .

Giving presents an opportunity to be open to all sources for offering a justly-tailored trade.

Receiving allows us to gracefully conduct exchange in order to accept what is presently offered for mutual benefit.

***

Practice is the art of learning

Mastery is the art of living

Gratitude is the art of loving

***

Love - Part I

2005-12-25T08:44:00.000-08:00

Christmas Day seems like a good day to begin this series of quotations from many different places, cultures and ways of life:

Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.
(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French Jesuit priest).

Love is an endless mystery for it has nothing else to explain it.
(Rabindranath Tagore, Indian mystic).

I had found a kind of serenity, a new maturity.... I didn't feel better or stronger than anyone else but it seemed no longer important whether everyone loved me or not - more important now was for me to love them. Feeling that way turns your whole life around; living becomes the act of giving.
(Beverly Sills, US opera diva).

We can learn that human relationship is inseparable from friendship and commitment. We can learn that the essence of love is not to use the other to make us happy but to serve and affirm the one we love. And we can discover, to our surprise, that what we have needed more than anything was not so much to be loved, as to love.
(Robert A. Johnson, US Jungian analyst).

Where there is great love there are always miracles.
(Willa Cather, US novelist)

Lastly, this one which I added, (the ability to edit is neat), a month later:

In the thick of things we discover that love will not die.
(Pema Chodron, US Buddhist nun).

Paulo Coelho - Part IV

2005-12-24T18:22:00.000-08:00

I have read all of Coelho's novels except his latest one, which has a long waiting list at the library. And a little while ago, as you can tell from recent blogs, I started re-reading the others and copying passages that I wanted to share.. Then the books are being passed on to others: I need to reduce my personal library.

So last night, I read The Devil and Miss Prym ( HarperCollins London, 2001) in one go - didn't get to bed until after one-thirty am. And the same thing is happening today so this is a very early Merry Christmas to all who read this.

The first surprise I got when I opened the book was to find a folded sheet of exercise-book paper inside on which I had written quotations from many sources. Clearly, it will shortly be their time to be shared. But first a couple of brief extracts from this novel which the dust jacket brazenly overstates as being a story of "A community devoured by greed, cowardice and fear.... will they choose good or evil?" (For the latter is what the whole story is about. But I don't accept Coelho's premise that our souls spend most of their time struggling with good and evil for that is certainly not my personal experience. Hence the short quotes).

And even the rocket scientists know the answer to the dust-jacket question because no one usually gets rich making movies, or writing books, where evil wins. Anyway, enough of me. Coelho again:

[Miss Prym] had just realized there were two things that prevent us from achieving our dreams: believing them to be impossible or seeing those dreams made possible by some turn of the wheel of fortune, when you least expected it. For at that moment all our fears suddenly surface: the fear of setting off along a road heading who knows where, the fear of a life full of new challenges, the fear of losing forever everything that is familiar.

People want to change everything and, at the same time, want it to remain all the same.

And this little gem from Berta, the elderly widow who was nearly sacrificed by the villagers, led by the mayor and the priest, for ten bars of gold: She was rescued at the last minute by Miss Chantal Prym, which is an interesting name to give a young hotel bar-maid who slept around with the tourists, hoping that one of them would rescue her from the village and take her to far-away places. As it happens, she got the gold instead, and presumably lived happily ever after. But who knows??:

And now you are finally going to do as I suggested, my girl. One thing I can tell you with absolute certainty: life can seem either very long or very short, according to how you live it.

Reminds of a comment attributed to Einstein about how relative time is i.e. It seems to go very quickly if you find youself sitting on a hot stove and very slowly if you are kissing a beautiful woman.

And a couple of other quotes about life that were on the page I retrieved from the book:

Only in growth, reform and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found. (Anne Morrow Lindberg).

It had been my repeated experience that when you said to life calmly and firmly (but very firmly!) 'I trust you, do what you must', life had an uncanny way of responding to your need. (Olga Ilyin).

We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. (Marie Curie).

Be kind - everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. (John Watson).

Walk on a rainbow trail.
Walk on a trail of song,
And all about you will be beauty.
There is a way out of every dark mist
Over a rainbow trail.
(Navajo song).

And wouldn't you know it? The chimney on the house is blocked, so little wonder that no-one has come down the chimney!! So I'll drink the egg-nog instead.

Paulo Coelho - Part III

2005-12-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading "The Valkyries, An Encounter with Angels"(HarperSanFransisco,1992). In an Author's Note at the end Coelho indicates that this book is very different from his previous ones and that he found it difficult to write in that it is based on some very personal experiences, including his relationship with his wife. (I often wonder why wives agree to these kind of revelations: Richard Bach did a similar thing. Seems to me these men's egos get in their way).

Anyway ...here is Valhalla, the leader of the motor-bike riding Valkyries, speaking to the basic theme of this book:

In order to see an angel, three things are needed ... Break a pact. Accept forgiveness. And make a bet ....And, in addition to those three things, courage is needed. A woman's courage not a man's.

So after he was imprisoned by the Brazilian police in 1974 part of the pact Coelho made to secure his freedom was to abandon his dreams. Valhalla again:

From the moment you set foot outside [the cave] promise in the name of the archangel Michael that never again - never again - will you raise you hand against yourself. (Emphasis in the original).

Note: In The Four Agreements (Amber-Ames Publishing, San Rafael, CA, 1997) Miguel Ruiz makes a similar point: How many times do we pay for one mistake? The answer is hundreds of thousands of times... We have a powerful memory... [So] everytime we remember, we judge ourselves again, we are guilty again, and we punish ourselves again, and again, and again.

True justice, he writes, is paying only once for each mistake, and not , as Valhalla pointed out, continually raising one's hand against one's self.

So Coelho and his wife go into the California desert over and over, complete the other two tasks and he sees his angel before they go back to Brazil.

In that process they listen to some of Valhalla's other teachings:

Have courage....Open your heart, and listen to what your dreams tell you. Follow those dreams because only a person who is not ashamed can manifest the glory of God....

There is no sin but the lack of love, Valhalla continued. Have courage, be capable of loving, even if love appears to be a terrible and treacheerous thing. Be happy in love. Be joyful in victory.. Follow the dictates of your heart.... Follow your dreams and take your risks.

Note: And that, of course, to misquote Aldous Huxley, is the Perennial Teaching.

And Coelho says to his wife:

People are once again speaking of the spiritual world that only a few years ago was seen as something that only ignorant, complacent people believed in. There is an invisible thread that unites all those on the side of the light ... and this thread is becoming a strong, shining rope, anchored by the angels. A handrail that is perceived by those who are most sensitive, and that will support us. Because we are many, and we are spread all over the earth. All of us moved by the same faith.

Then, reflecting later on his progress, he writes, (the italics are in the original):

...I broke a pact that needed to be broken ... I accepted forgiveness that I should have accepted long ago...

And continues (my italics):

...[T]here are frontiers. That it was necessay to go as far as possible - but that there were certain times when one had to accept the mystery, and understand that each had his own gift. Some knew how to cure, others possessed words of wisdom, while others conversed with spirits.... The world was in the hands of those who had the courage to dream - and to realize their dreams.

Each to their own talent. Each to their own gift.

And in the Epilogue, written a year and a half after these adventures, he writes:

With the strength of our love and our will, we can change our destiny, as well as the destiny of many others....

One has only to accept a simple fact: Love - of God and of others - shows us the way. Our defects, our dangerous depths, our suppressed hatreds, our moments of weakness and desperation - all are unimportant. If what we want to do is to heal ouselves first, so that then we can go in search of our dreams, we will never reach paradise. If, on the other hand, we accept all that is wrong with us - and despite it, we are deserving of a happy life - then we will have thrown open an immense window that will allow love to enter. Little by little, our defects will disappear, because one who is happy can look at the world only with love - the force that regenerates everything that exists in the Universe.

.

Paulo Coelho. Part II

2005-12-17T14:11:00.000-08:00

The following extracts are from Veronika Decides To Die (I forgot to record the publishing data before passing the book along to a friend).

Veronika, who lives in Slovenia, attempts to commit suicide but fails and awakens in Villette, Ljubljana's hospital for the insane. There Zedka, one of the inmates asks her, "Don't you know what it means to be crazy?"

[Veronika] ... hadn't the slightest idea, because the word was used in a completely archaic way. People would say, for example, that certain sportsmen were crazy because they wanted to break records, or that artists were crazy because they led such strange insecure lives, different from the lives of normal people. Then there were the thinly clad people walking the streets ...pushing supermarket trolleys full of plastic bags and rags proclaiming the end of the world....

'I don't know what it means to be crazy' whispered Veronika [to Zedka]. 'But I'm not. I'm just a failed suicide.'

'Anyone ,[replied Zedka] who lives in her own world is crazy. Like schizophrenics, psychopaths, maniacs. I mean people who are different from others...'

'On the other hand,' Zedka continued ...' you have Einstein saying that there was no time and space, just a combination of the two. Or Columbus, insisting that on the other side of the world lay not an abyss but a continent. Or Edmund Hillary, convinced that a man could reach the top of Everest. Or The Beatles, who created an entirely different sort of music and dressed like people from another time. Those people - and thousands of others - all lived in their own world.'

This madwoman makes a lot of sense, thought Veronika, remembering stories her mother used to tell her about saints who swore they had spoken to Jesus or the the Virgin Mary. Did they live in a world apart. (Emphases in the original).

Note: So now I'm a lot more comfortable with all the "crazy" things I have done in the last eight years.

Veronika's remorse over her attempted suicide resurfaced, and she firmly pushed it away again.Now she was feeling something she had never allowed herself to feel before: hatred.

Hatred. Something almost as physical as walls, pianos or nurses. She could almost touch the destructive energy leaking out of her body. She allowed the feeling to emerge, regardless of whether it was good or bad; she was sick of self-control, of masks , of appropriate behaviour ....

At that moment she hated everything: herself, the world, the chair in front of her, the broken radiator in the corridor, people who were perfect, criminals....

The she started to hate the person she loved most in the world: her mother ... and her father. She hated her father too ... She hated everything....

Veronika ... went over to the piano ... pounded on the keys. A mad, cacophonous, jangled chord echoed around the empty room ... that seemed to tear at her soul. Yet it was an accurate portrait of her soul at that moment....

She pounded the piana again, once, twice, twenty times, and each time she did it, her hatred seemed to diminish, until it vanished completely.

Then, once more, a deep peace flooded through her and .... the impression returned of Infinity and Eternity walking hand in hand; you only had to look for one to find the other - for example the limitless universe - to feel the presence of the other, Time that never ends, that never passes, that remains in the Present, where all of life's secrets lie....
She sat on in silence, enjoying the present moment , letting love fill up the empty space left behind by hatred. When she felt the moment had come, she turned to the moon and played a sonata in homage to it.... Then she played music for the stars, for the garden, for the mountains she could not see in the darkness but which she knew were there.

While she was playing that music another crazy person appeared: Eduard, a schizophrenic who was beyond all cure ... she smiled, and to her surprise, he smiled back.

The music could penetrate even his remote world, more distant than the moon itself; it could even perform miracles.

I know that too.

Awakening the Fearless Self

2005-12-17T13:50:00.000-08:00

That is the sub-title of Chris Griscom's book, The Healing of Emotion (Simon & Shuster, New York, 1994?) from which this extract is taken:

As long as we are determined by these feelings [of loneliness, emptiness, insecurity and mourning], we will not be capable of merging with another person to such a degree that a symbiotic relationship can emerge. The longing to merge completely with another out of loneliness almost always leads to the energy merely flowing from one partner to another and not to a true mutual exchange on a similar or compatible plane of energy.

As long as we believe we need another person (or thing, cause, organization, mission, or task) in order to become whole ourselves, we will inevitably keep getting lost in ghost towns of feelings, thoughts, and projections. We then count on the outside world, on having forces other than our own, abilities and authorities outside ourselves, to help us survive, grow and become fulfilled. Thereby we give ourselves away - and end up empty- handed.

Until we experience that the whole universe exists within us, that we are always and forever connected to everything that is, both the manifest and unmanifest world, we will not be able to join the cosmic giggle and find peace in our lives. Our fear of being alone, as a consequence of the thrust of life into conception, has led us to a tragic misconception - that we must fight to survive. If we succeed in awakening universal consciousness, we will know unequivocally that survival is the divine plan of the cosmos; energy is never lost, it simply transmutes, and reshapes itself to contribute to the magnificent dance of evolution. We, ourselves, are the stars of evolution.!

Oneness

2005-12-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

Beofe the advent of blogs, I use to write a hard-copy newsletter for my friends. This appeared in the first one I wrote (January, 1998):

WE ARE MANY. WE ARE ONE. WE ARE BEACONS OF LIGHT IN AN OCEAN OF DARKNESS. SOUL-MATES ON A SEA OF LOVE. WE ARE TOGETHER. WE ARE APART. WE HEAL OURSELVES AND THE UNIVERSE IS HEALED. WE GROW AND THE UNIVERSE GROWS. WE ARE DIVINE BEINGS WHOSE IMPERFECTIONS MAKE US PERFECT. WE ARE ONE WITH THE LIGHT, AND THE LOVE, OF THE ONE.

Paulo Coelho. Part I

2005-12-10T20:53:00.000-08:00

I recently started re-reading his novels, most of which are in my book case. Here are some things from Warrior of the Light, A Manual (HarperCollins, New York, 2003), that caught my attention. Gratitude is in #6:

1. The Warrior of the Light is a believer.

Because he believes in miracles, miracles begin to happen. Because he is sure his thoughts can change his life, is life begins to change. Because he is certain he will find love, love appears.

Now and then he is disappointed. Sometimes he gets hurt.

Then he hears people say: "He's so ingenuous!"

But the Warrior knows that it is worth it. For every defeat, he has two victories in his favour.

All believers know this.

2. When somebody wants something, the whole Universe conspires in their favour. The Warrior of the Light knows this.

For this reason, he takes great care with his thoughts. Hidden beneath a whole series of good intentions lie feelings that no one dare to confess to himself: vengeance, self-destruction, guilt, fear of winning, a macabre joy at other people's tragedies.

The Universe does not judge; it conspires in favour of what we want. That is why the warrior has the courage to look into the dark places of his soul in order to ensure he is not asking for the wrong things.

And he is always very careful about what he thinks.

3...the Warrior of the Light knows that everything around him, - his victories, his defeats, his enthusiasm, and his despondency - form part of his Good Fight. And he will know which strategy to use when he needs it. A Warrior does not try to be consistent; he has learned to live with his contradictions.

4. A Warrior of the Light values a child's eyes because they are able to look at the world without bitterness. When he wants to find out if the person beside him is worthy of his trust, he tries to see him as a child would.

5. A Warrior of the Light .... is someone capable of understanding the miracle of life, of fighting to the last for something he believes in ....

6. A Warrior of the Light knows that he has much to be grateful for.

Angels help him in his struggle; celestial forces place each thing in its place, thus allowing him to give his best ....

That is why, at sunset he kneels and gives thanks for the Protective Cloak surrounding him.

His gratitude, however, is not limited to the spiritual world; he never forgets his friends, for their blood mingled with his on the battlefield.

7. A Warrior of the Light knows that in the silence of his heart he will hear an order that will guide him.

8. Little by little, everything that seemed complicated begins to become simple. And the Warrior is glad.

9. A Warrior of the Light knows that certain moments repeat themselves .... Then the Warrior realizes that these repeated experiences have but one aim: to teach him what he does not wish to learn.

10. The Warrior of the Light views life with tenderness and determination.... Every so often, he says to himself: "This life is absolutely insane."

He is right .... But the great wisdom of the Warrior lies in choosing his insanity well.

Which is why I am now more accepting of some of the things I do that people in the last quarter of their lives, from society's point of view, just "aren't supposed to do." It's also very joyful doing "crazy" things.

Lastly, I think this is important to remember too because we all have our own cup:

11. The cup of suffering is not the same size for everyone.

Gratitude

2005-12-10T20:44:00.000-08:00

Stacey Robyn, the genius behind the Go, Gratitude activity now making it's way around the world, recently posted these words of Sandy Graysom on her site. I use nightly prayers rather than a journal but the effect, it seems to me, is the same:

When you slow down long enough to notice the details around you, you will be awed by the beauty and abundance in the world. This is a good time to express your thankfulness for all that you have and all that you are going to create in your life. Keeping a Gratitude journal is nothing more than writing down a few thing each day that you are grateful for, yet this practice holds magical powers....you will begin to look for things throughout your day to write down....once you get going, Gratitude will overflow from your journal because there are so many things to be grateful for. Therein lies the magic of expressing Gratitude in your journal. It connects you to a state of appreciation that spills over into everything you do and experience. It inspires you to view your life through a state of grace...

And that, I now know, is a beautiful place to see the world from: I am getting to spend a lot more time there than ever before in my life.

Enlightenment - Part I

2005-12-02T08:17:00.000-08:00

I am becoming a little more computer literate. So when I read the following, which came to me as part of Stacey Robyn's 42 days of Gratitude postings, it was a simple matter of Cut and Paste. This opens up huge vistas!

But I have no idea who Petros is. Anyway .... And somewhere I have a small collection of other quotes on Enlightenment which I have been meaning to look for sometime now.

Enlightenment is an ending as well as a beginning: the ending of the old, veiled, dark ego, its longings, illusions, frustrations; the beginning of a vast expanse, an infinite field of the Unknown, an adventure in consciousness.

It is a revolution: it represents danger to the old way of life, to old ways of thinking and living.

It is freedom from the known and the unknown; from the real and the unreal; from any appearance of division between you and Truth. It is the abandoning of beliefs, dis-beliefs, presumptions and stances, self, ego, call it what you will, or call it nothing, what it is. It is the Path of the Golden Dawn, the Path out of the Night of Time into the bursting daylight of Eternal Now...
Petros

Rachel Naomi Remen - Part II

2005-11-26T12:55:00.000-08:00

The following extracts are taken from her book,"My Grandfather's Blessings, Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging."
(Riverhead Books, New York, 2000):

We do not serve the weak or the broken. What we serve is the wholeness in each other and the wholeness in life. The part in you that I serve is the same part that is strengthened in me when I serve. Unlike helping and fixing and rescuing, service is mutual.

Note: It seems to that this is another way of saying Namaste.

... blessing life is about filling yourself up so that your blessings overflow onto others. (Osho says the same thing slightly differently).

At the beginnings of medicine, the shamans, or medicine men, defined illness not in terms of pathology but in terms of the soul ....illness was "soul loss", a loss of direction, purpose, meaning, mystery, and awe. Healing involved not only the recovery of the body but the recovery of the soul.

Life asks of us the same thing that we have been asked in every class: "Stay awake." "Pay attention." But paying attention is no simple matter. It requires us not to be distracted by expectations, past experiences, labels and masks. It asks that we not jump too early to conclusions and that we remain open to surprise.Wisdom comes most easily to those who have the courage to embrace life without judgement and are willing to not know, sometimes for a long time. It may require us to suffer. But ultimately we will be more than we were when we began.

When life is stripped down to its very essentials, it is surprising how simple things become. Fewer and fewer things matter and those that matter, matter a great deal more.

We strengthen life any time that we listen generously or encourage someone to find meaning, or wonder about possibility, or dream or hope or escape from self-judgement and inner criticism, or know that they matter. Anytime we share someone's joy, we bless the life in them.

In the depths of every wound we have survived is the strength we need to live. The wisdom our wounds can offer us is a place of refuge. Finding this is not for the faint of heart. But then, neither is life.

We learn by experience. The unexperienced life does not teach anybody anything. There are no spiritual shortcuts.

Without compassion, the world cannot continue....

Compassion begins with the acceptance of what is most human in ourselves, what is most capable of suffering.... Experiencing this allows us to find an instinctive kindness towards life which is the foundation of all compassion and genuine service.

By its very nature Mystery cannot be solved, cannot be known. It can only be lived.... But Mystery does not require action;Mystery requires our attention ... that we listen and become open. When we meet with the unknown in this way, we can be touched by a wisdom that can transform our lives.

Mystery helps us to see ourselves and others from the largest possible perspective, as a unique and possibly endless process that may go on over life-times. To be living is to be unfinished. Nothing and no one is complete. The world and everything in it is alive.

...I heard a Tibetan lama ...[tell his dharma class] "We die, not because we are ill but because we are complete." "Illness is the occasion of our dying, but not the cause."

Mystery requires that we relinquish an endless search for answers and become willing not to understand. That we be open to witness.... Perhaps real wisdom lies in not seeking answers at all.

After all these years I have begun to wonder if the secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company.

I like that idea!

Rachel Naomi Remen - Part I

2005-11-15T12:03:00.000-08:00

Rachel Naomi Remen is an American medical doctor who has written two best-sellers both of which were recommended to me by a physician friend. Dr. Ramen, I now discover from reading the back part of the book- jacket, "has been in the private practice of psycho-oncology for the past twenty years .... [and] ... is cofounder and medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, in Bolinas, California."

The first book, Kitchen Table Wisdom, (Riverhead Books, New York, 1996), is sub-titled, Stories That Heal and below are some of the things that got my attention:

Life is full of the unknown, full of wonder, full of mystery.... Moving into the unknown is often where we find the healing, not by running away from it for a quick fix. [Ramen] teaches that life is not broken and does not need to be fixed; it needs to be savoured and celebrated.

Note: This first quote, which is from the Foreword written by Dean Ornish M.D., also mirrors the teachings of Osho.

And now the words of Rachel Naomi Ramen, who, herself suffered much ill-health having been diagnosed with Crohn's disease as a teenager. (I can't imagine what it must be like to have a bag attached to your body to remove solid wastes for a whole life-time.) :

It is actually difficult to edit life. Especially in regard to feelings. Not being open to anger or sadness usually means being unable to be open to love and joy. The emotions seem to operate with an all-or-nothing switch. I never cease to be impressed by the capacity of some ill people to live life more fully than most, to find more meaning and more depth, more awe in the ordinary. Perhaps it is because they have allowed the events of their lives to take them to some extra-ordinary highs and lows. Meeting people there is a choice.

Sometimes we may need to simply choose life. It is possible to become so attached to something or someone we have lost that we move forward blindly, looking over the shoulder of the past rather than before us to what lies ahead.

We can all influence the life-force. The tools and strategies of healing are so innate, so much a part of a comon human birthright, that we believers in technology pay very little attention to them. But they have lost none of their power.

People have been healing each other since the beginning. Long before there were surgeons, psychologists, oncologists, and internists, we were there for each other. The healing of our present woundedness may lie in recognizing and reclaiming the capacity we all have to heal each other, the enormous power in the simplest of human relationships: the strength of a touch, the blessing of a forgivenss, the grace of someone else taking you just as you are and finding in you an unsuspected goodness.

Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and others. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.

Note: It is my current belief that I cannot help another person to heal without his or her demonstrated willingness to take full personal responsibility for their own healing. i.e. it is not my task to take over their burden: Compassion, empathy, of course, but no assumption that I know what is best for another person.

And, lastly:

At the heart of every story is a mystery. The reasons we attribute to events may be far different than their true cause. Often our first interpretation of events is quite different from our last reading of them. Mystery is a process, and so is our understanding of it.

The ability to seek and find meaning in life is based more than anything else on the capacity to hold paradox and maintain an unblushing cognitive dissonance. The objective world and the subjective world lie one atop the other. Spiritual causality and immediate causality are often different yet occupy the same space, and so a truth may be less a matter of either/or than both/and.

And that is a teaching that has come down through the ages from the time of Heraclitus in Greece and Lao Tsu in China.

The Seat of the Soul

2005-11-04T14:45:00.000-08:00

Another book that needs a new home is this one by Gary Zukav, (Simon & Shuster, New York, 1989). Interestingly, given how much attention it got when it was published, there are only a few quotes that I would keep for the future. Here they are:

It is the health of the soul that is the human experience ... [which is] ... an experience in movement and thought and form, and, in some cases, a experiment in movement and thought and form .... Let us do it in wisdom and love and joy. Let us make this the human experience.

It is not until you have the courage to engage in human relationships that you grow.... Our deeper understanding tells us that a truly evolved being ... values love more than it values the physical world and what is in it..... you will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is.... [But] without commitment, you ...[will not] ...learn to see others as your soul sees them - as beautiful and powerful spirits of Light.

Only through emotions can you encounter the force field of your own soul.

The soul is. It has no beginning and no end .... The personality emerges as a natural force from the soul. It is an energy tool that the soul adapts to function within the physical world.... Each soul comes to the Earth with gifts. A soul does not incarnate only to heal and to balance its energy, to pay it's karmic debts, but also to contribute its specialness in specific ways... It does this with purpose and intention.

Alan Watts on Krishnamurti

2005-11-04T13:33:00.000-08:00

This has waited patiently for a couple of months and completes the extracts from his autobigraphy which I began quoting from earlier this year. (And now I can find a new home for the book!).

Watts is recording his memory of an evening in 1936 when, in a friend's home, and for the first time, he heard Krisnamurti speak:
(Emphases are in the original).

Why - and again why - do you want to know whether there is a God, whether there is life after death, or what method you should follow to be enlightened, liberated, or realized. Could it be tht you identify yourself with a merely abstract ego based on nothing but memories? That therefore you are not alive and aware in the eternal present, and thus worry interminably about your future? Furthermore, don't you you realize that when you accept someone as a spiritual teacher, you do so by your own authority and choice? You yourself licence the Bible, the Koran, or the Bhagavad-Gita as infallible. Wake up! ... and, without putting it into words, watch what is, now. You thus realize that there is no "feeler", apart from feelings, and no granular billiard-ball "self" confronting the universe.

Note: These latter thoughts were also at the heart of Osho's teachings some forty years later.

In 1953, when Watts was an internationally known figure, he had, in his words, "a long heart-to-heart conversation" with Krishnamurti at the latter's home in the Ojai Valley near Santa Barbara. Watts writes:

We discussed the art of meditation. Was I practicing yoga? If so, why? I replied that this was my problem: I could not do any systematic or formal meditation because I had pondered too long his own reiterations of the point that methodical spiritual disciplines are merely highbrow ways of exalting the ego. Aiming at unselfishness is the most insidiuos form of selfishness.

Thereupon Krishnaji picked up two cushions from the couch and said, "Look. On the one hand there must be the understanding that there is nothing, nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing that you can do to improve, transform, or better yourself. If you understand this completely you will realize that there is no such entity as 'you'." He then moved his hands from the first cushion to the second, and went on, "Then, if you have totally abandoned this ambition, you will be in the state of true meditation which comes over you spontaneously in wave after wave of amazing light and bliss."

Why did he continue to use the word "you"? Merely because he was speaking English and was therefore conforming to the grammatical rule that a verb must have a subject, and that processes are mysteriously initiated by pronouns and nouns.

We say, for example,"It rains." But there is no "It" that is raining. The rain just is.

Three more quotes

2005-11-04T12:48:00.000-08:00

The first I found in a Dermatologist's waiting room in a book of Yousef Karsh's magnificent photography. The quote, he wrote this in 1987, happens to reflect only the male view of the world, but that is not surprising for his times:

It is rarely possible to repay directly those who have rendered us great personal kindness. But it is also foolish to rationalize and say that the time for sacrifice, to repay just moral debts, is past - for I do not believe that time ever passes. Nature does not often collaborate with men to permit simple repayment, whether the debt is from son to father, from soldier to comrade, or from pupil to master. We may never be able to repay directly the gifts of true friendship - but pay we must - even though we make payment to someone who owes us nothing, in some other place, and at some other time.

And this from Rainier Maria Rilke which I found somewhere on the Internet

For one human being to love another. That is the ultimate, the last test and proof. The work for which all other works is a preparation.

And for some reason - another Trinity? - this third quote from Marianne Williamson's book, The Gift of Change, which was sent to me by a dear friend in Olympia, WA, (so I don't have the publishing data), also wanted to be included in this posting:

Every relationship is a teaching-learning assignment. Anyone we are destined to meet, we will. We are drawn to each other for teaching and learning, as each of us is presented with the chance to learn the next lesson in the journey of our soul. Every encounter is a holy encounter if we use it to demonstrate love. And every encounter is a setup for possible pain if we are not open to the opportunity to do that. Anyone we meet we were destined to meet, but what we do with the relationship is entirely up to us.

Sometimes someone is brought into our life to help us learn a lesson we've failed to learn before ... [so] ... there is no point trying to go to Outer Mongolia to escape your issues; they will find you there because they live inside your head. The people you need will be brought to you; you will subconsciously attract them; there is no escaping the curriculum of the Holy Spirit.

Footnote: Her reference to Outer Mongolia reminded of the title of one of Jon Kabat-Zin's books, "Wherever You Go, There You Are." So true.

Alan Watts on marriage

2005-09-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

At the age of 15 Alan Watts joined the Buddhist Lodge of London because he felt much more called to Buddhism than to the Christianity with which he was growing up. Fifteen years later, in a surprising turn of events - he wasn't sure what to do with his life - he was ordained, in Chicago, as a Minister of the Episcopalian church. Five years later he abandoned both the community and his ministry. His long letter of resignation justifying that decision - which he seems to have circulated widely - is painful to read.

I use this preamble because he performed a number of marriage ceremonies, mostly for his friends, and the essence of what he said to them on those occasions bears repeating:

What I am about to say may at first sound depressing and even cynical, but I think you will not find it so in practice. There are three things I would have you bear in mind. The first is that as you now behold one another, you are probably seeing each other at your best. All things disintegrate in time, and as the years go by you will tend to get worse rather than better. Do not, therefore, go into marriage with projects for improving each other. Growth may happen, but it cannot be forced. The second has to do with emotional honesty. Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command. For the same reason, do not require love from your partner as a duty, for love given in this spirit does not ring true, and gives no pleasure to the other. The third is that you do not so cling to each other as to commit mutual strangulation. You are not each other's chattels, and you must so trust your partner as to allow full freedom to be the being that he and she is. If you observe these things your marriage will have surer ground than can be afforded by any formal contract or promise, however solemn and legally binding.

Following which, and this is typical Watts, he baldly writes:

A couple that would object to this discourse should not marry.

And then - he had three marriages - he adds this:

My first marriage came to an end from neglect of the third of these precepts, and my second from mutual neglect of the first.

But the fact that he seems to have had some difficulty following his own advice doesn't, of course, invalidate its appropriateness for others' intimate relationships.

The Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, had a similar insight regarding the third precept:

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

And a man named Paul Brunton, had this to say about "best" and "worst":

A happiness which is not mixed at some point ... with misery, can nowhere be found on earth.

So, relationships, are, it seems to me the second great challenge of living on this planet - the first is finding out who we are. Both are fun - but not always!

Alan Watts - In My Own Way

2005-08-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

Of all the books in my home this autobiography (Jonathan Cape, London, 1973) was the one that came to hand when, last week, I was looking for something to read.

In the Preface to his description of the first fifty years of his life, Watts explains that his intended title was "Coincidence of Opposites" but the publishers, "rightly", he says, asked him to find something "more simple and direct that would convey the spirit and style in which I have tried to live." So he chose a title which reminds me of the song I did It My Way that Paul Anka wrote to symbolize Frank Sinatra's life - both men, and we have a choice of metaphors here, walked what Robert Frost called "The Road less travelled" and Henry David Thoreau called "Marching to different drummers." Takes a lot of courage to do that.

And I can already see that the next step on the path I have just taken will be to review AW's other books that are in my library. But that's for another day. For now, "Here's Alan!":

My vocation in life is to wonder about the nature of the universe.

I am committed to the view that the whole point and joy of human life is to integrate the spiritual with the material, the mystical with the sensuous, and the altruistic with a kind of proper self-love - since it is written that you must love your neighbour as yourself.

Much of the secret of life consists in knowing how to laugh, and also how to breathe.

I have realized that the past and the future are real illusions, that they exist only in the present, which is what there is and all that there is. From one point of view the present is shorter than a microsecond. From another, it embraces all eternity. But there isn't anywhere, or anywhen, else to be.

In which connection, he later quotes from J.P. de Caussade's, "Abandonment to the Divine Providence, translated by Ella McMahon (New York, 1887):

If we knew how to greet each moment as the manifestation of the divine will, we would find in it all the heart could desire .... The present moment is always filled with infinite treasures: it contains more than you are capable of receiving .... The divine will is an abyss, of which the present moment is the entrance, plunge fearlessly therein and you will find it more boundless than your desire.

Many pages later, there is this remarkable commentary on the nature of "Nothingness":

We can hardly doubt that - at a time not too distant - each one of us will simply cease to be. It won't be like going into darkness forever, for there will be neither darkness, nor time, nor sense of futility, nor anyone to feel anything about it.... The universe will, supposedly, be going on as usual, but for each individual it will be as if it never happened at all; and even that is saying too much, because there won't be anyone for whom it never happened. Make this prospect as real as possible: the one total certainty. You will be as if you never existed, which was, however, the way you were before you did exist - and not only you but everyone else. Nevertheless, with such an improbable past, here we are again. We begin in nothing and end in nothing. You can say that again. Think it over and over, and try to conceive the fact of coming to never having existed .... [and] ... All of a sudden it will strike you that this nothingness is the most potent, magical, basic, and reliable thing you ever thought of, and that the reason you can't form the slightest idea of it is that it's yourself. But not the self you thought you were.

And somewhere in the book is a delightful piece of logic, to which I can find no come-back, to the effect that "The only reason we know we are alive is bcause we have been dead before!" This is the same idea that we can only know our Self through the Other; that without Unhappiness we wouldn't know what Happiness was etc. Boggles the mind.

Finally, in the last Chapter, he writes about a conversation he had with a Zen Master, Morimoto - san, in Kyoto, in which the latter told him "The sound of rain needs no translation." (It just is). And the same principle, writes Watts, applies to music:

But if you just listen, relating yourself to the world entirely through the sense of hearing, you will find yourself in a universe where reality - pure sound - comes immediately out of silence and emptiness, echoing away as memory in the labyrinths of the brain. In this universe everything flows backward from the present and vanishes, like the wake of a ship; the present comes out of nothing, and you cannot hear any self that is listening. This can be done with all the senses, but most easily with the ears. Simply listen, then, to the rain.... For when you have really heard the sound of rain you can hear, and see and feel, everything else in the same way - as needing no translation, as being just what it is, though it may be impossible to say what. I have tried for years, as a philosopher, but in words it comes out all wrong: in black and white with no colour.

And his last words - in this book - are totally provocative:

When you say the music ... [of life] ... is abominable, listen to the sound of your complaint. Above all, simply listen, and I (for the time being) will be silent.

And that is me for this Sunday morning. I'll be in another world - the sweat-lodge - in a couple of hours. And, tonight, a group of us are going to watch a movie on crop-circles - I have walked in a couple of them on my my visits to the UK.

Mutant Message Down Under - Part II

2005-08-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

Marlo Morgan again:

We journey a straight path in Oneness ... [because] ... the truth is, all life is one life. There is only one game in progress ... [The game of life] ... There is one race, many different shades... Blood and bone is in all people. It is the heart and intent that is different... Real people think about forever. It is all one, our ancestors, our unborn children, all of life everywhere.

I looked upward into the vast expanse of world surrounding us and, giving thanks, finally understood that the world is truly a place of abundance. It is full of kind, supporting people to share our lives if we let them. There is food and water for all beings everywhere if we are open to receiving and open to giving. But most of all I now appreciated the abundant spiritual guidance available in my life. Help was in every stress, including a brush with death and the very act of dying, now that I had got past "doing it my way".

According to the tribe, fear is an emotion of the animal kingdom. There it plays an important role in survival. But if humans know about Divine Oneness and understand that the universe is not a haphazard event but is an unfolding plan, they cannot be fearful. You either have faith or fear, not both.

The Real People nation have for centuries had the practice at birth of speaking the same phrase to all new-borns: "We love you and support you on your journey." At their final celebration, everyone hugs them and repeats this phrase again. What you heard when you came is what you hear when you leave.

Regal Black Swan told me that in the world of personalities, there is always duality. I had interpreted it as good versus bad, slavery or freedom, conformity and its opposite. But that is not the case. It is not black or white; it is always shades of gray. And most important, all the gray is moving in a progressive pattern back to the originator.

And during the winter months here in Victoria I watch the interplay beween the ever-changing grey skies and their reflections on the water and have a new appreciation of how beautiful gray can be.

Maybe another version of the Buddhists "Middle Way". Who knows??

Mutant Message Down Under - Part I

2005-08-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

I recently opened my home to a young "gay girl" with severe emotional problems so that she could have a few days of "retreat". It was a most difficult experience. However, her gift to me was a copy of Marlo Morgan's "Mutant Message From Down Under" (HarperCollins, New York, 1991) which she had found in our Value Village store. Here are some of the things that got my attention:

These people ...[a small Outback Nation of Australian Aborigines known as The Ancient Ones] ... believe everything exists on the planet for a reason. Everything has a purpose. There are no freaks, misfits, or accidents. There are only misunderstandings and mysteries not yet revealed to mortal man.

The purpose of the plant kingdom is to feed animals and humans, to hold the soil together, to enhance beauty, to balance the atmosphere.... The primary purpose of the animal is not to feed humans but it agrees to that when necessary. It is to balance the atmosphere, and to be a companion and teacher by example. So each morning the tribe sends out a message to the animals and plants in front of us. They say, "We are walking your way. We are coming to honour your purpose for existence". It is up to the plants and animals to make their own arrangements about who will be chosen.

The Real People tribe believe ... the universe is still unfolding and not a finished product.

You cannot recognize what you deem to be good or bad in others unless you yourself have the same strenghts and weaknesses at some level of your being. Only the degree of self-discipline and self-expression differ. They believe the only way a person ever truly changes anything about himself is by his own decision, and that everyone has the ability to change anything he wants to about his personality. There is no limit to what you can release and what you can acquire. They also believe the only true influence you have on anyone else is by your own life, how you act, what you do.

I came to the understanding that there would be some storms in my life, that people and things I had invested a lot of time and energy into were going to be laid aside, but now I knew what it felt like to be a centered, peaceful being, and I had that emotion to draw upon anytime I needed or wanted it. I learned I could live more than one life in a life-time and that I had already experienced the closing of a door. I learned that a time had come where I could no longer stay with the people, the location, the values and beliefs I held. For my own soul growth I had gently closed a door and entered a new place, a new life that was equal to a step up a spiritual rung on a ladder. And, more important, I did not have to do anything with the information. If I simply lived the principles that appeared to be truth for me, I would touch the lives of those I was destined to touch. The doors would be opened. After all "it" was not my message; I was merely the messenger.

And with, to me, those profound insights, this is a good place to stop because the next extracts contain quite a shift in emphasis.

Action and contemplation - An Afterword

2005-08-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

Handbook For The Soul, (edited by Richard Carleson and Benjamin Shield, Little, Brown & Company, Boston, 1995) contains a collection of essays by such luminaries as Angeles Arrien, Joan Borysenko, Ram Dass, Wayne Dyer, et al.

One such essay, by psychologist Nathaniel Branden, who has been described as the "father of the self-esteem movement" in the US, got my attention because he, too, wrote about action and contemplation using different words for those two concepts:

Some writers - Erich Fromm ,for one - contrast a so-called "being" orientation with a "doing" orientation. The implication is that that being and doing are in some sense antithetical. Of course they are not. Doing and being, action and stillness, are dependent on one another. Without action we would cease to exist, and without stillness, we would neither be able to appreciate our existence nor have a foundation from which to act. We need stillness, we need the pure experience of being, in order to fully realize ourselves. Out of that stillness can come the motivation to act and also the awareness we need to act wisely, not to lose perspective.

When being and doing are in harmony, when stillness and action are friends to each other, we create an integrated, satisfied soul. We are then in the best position to truly enjoy and appreciate life and not be destroyed by adversity.

And this has been a week, after one spent earlier in Utah learning Advanced Divination with Alberto Villoldo's Four Winds Society, when, and this is a significant change, there has been much more stillness in my life than usual: The "still pond" with which we began our training, is an interesting metaphor for "seeing" clearly because when it is rippled by, for example, our egos, nothing can be seen in its mirror.

So it really is all about awareness; about being present, with integrity, to each moment that comes. (What the Buddhists call being mindful).

And it is in that stillness, which has no time dimension to it, that the shamans believe we can dream our world into being. Be interesting to see how that plays out in the days ahead.

Silence

2005-08-04T20:32:00.000-07:00

Silence - another piece of the mystery that I call my life:

In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery. It is the place of reflection and contemplation, and it is the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way.
Angeles Arrien

A meditative mind is silent. It is not the silence which thoughts can conceive of; it is not the silence of a still evening; it is the silence when thoughts, with all its images, its words and perceptions have entirely ceased. This meditative mind is the religious mind -- the religion that is not touched by the church, the temples or by chants.
Krishnamurti.

When thoughts arise, then do all things arise.
When thoughts disappear, then do all things disappear.
The Zen Teachings of Huang Po. (Translated by John Blofeld).

The innermost centre is in silence .... It is only out of silence that action arises .... If you don't know how to sit silently, or stand silently in deep meditation - whatsoever you go on doing is reaction, not action....(Emphasis in original).

Learn sitting silently ... [which] ...makes a mirror out of your consciousness, and then you function moment to moment. You reflect life ....Then your eyes are clear and innocent, you have clarity, you have vision, and you are never untrue to life. This is authentic living.
Osho.

Only let the moving waters calm down; and the sun and the moon will be reflected on the surface of your being.
Rumi

And here is the absolute opposite which comes from I know not where, but which resonates equally strongly with me:

Drumbeat rises on the air, its' throbs, my heart. A voice inside the beat says, "I know you are tired, but come, this is the way."

Embracing the Everyday

2005-07-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

Nothing gives me more joy than a little sign - a little piece of synchronicity - that reminds that I'm right in the flow of life. What my shamanic teachers call reading the signs of destiny and acting accordingly. So here goes.

The other day I opened a book, Handbook For The Soul ((Little, Brown and company, Boston,1995) that I haven't looked at for a long while. The editors are Richard Carlson and Benjamin Shield; Marianne Williamson wrote the Foreward; and the contributors - all "big" names e.g. Ram Dass and Jean Shinoda Bolen - wrote their personal views of the soul for the book.

I took the book out on the sun-deck an hour ago to look at after I had breakfasted looking out, under sunny skies, at a sea gently rippled with the lightest of breezes with snow-capped Mount Baker, 225 kilometres away, barely visible in the morning haze. At night when the sun sets on it the snow is a beautiful pink.

Anyway ... the book opened at an essay, the title of this blog, by Thomas Moore who, as I recall, has written a number of books about soul. And, interestingly, in this piece he echoes the thoughts of both Parker J. Palmer and Sam Keen. Another Holy Trinity? So here is Moore (what a terrible pun!) about the upper and lower journeys. (Again the emphases are in the original):

I've come to believe ... that the soul is really very broad.... it encompasses not just the higher or transcendant level of consciousness, the realm that we traditionally call spirit, but also what we might refer to as the lower level of consciousness - the soul in everyday experience ... everyday life.

The higher level has to do with developing an overview or philosophy of life, a sense of moral conviction, an idea of what the world is all about and our place in it .... [The] ... lower level is the value of living one's day- to-day life with attention to everyday essential qualities such as beauty, intimacy, community, imagination....

In our culture, however, we are so focussed on success and progress that everyone talks about going up the ladder - no one talks about going down the ladder. We have lost the sense of how we might find religion and piety in the most ordinary experiences.... [So] ... I think many of the troubles we run into are due to our treating the sacred as something abstract. This attitude is what allows us to do great harm to nature and ourselves.... [Consequently] ... I think we would be able to live in this world more peacefully if our spirituality were to come not just from looking into infinity but very closely at the world around us - and appreciating its depth and and divinity.

He then suggests our close relationships with others are possibly "the most soulful aspects of our lives" and continues:

We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible ... but ...[that] ... involves courage and risk.... to be able to express our most intimate feelings and thoughts without fear of betrayal is one of the great quests of the life of the soul. And an important step in soul care is to give time and attention to those relationships that allow us to do this.

Note: Similar advice is given to people diagnosed with cancer: "If you want to heal, eliminate toxic relationships from your life and focus on the nurturing ones."

Moore ends his essay this way:

If people are having trouble finding ways to care for the soul, it may be that they imagine this task is too big a project. It really isn't .... The key is to give up the project of making yourself something shiny and big and to recognize that we are very ordinary people. By learning to discover and value our ordinariness, we nurture a friendliness towards ourselves and the world that is the essence of a healthy soul.

So, "Go for it".And now it is time to take myself up the peninsula and get the fire extinguishers from my boat serviced - I have a friend's car for the day.

Action and contemplation - Palmer, Part III

2005-07-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

So I just decided to stay focussed and complete this review of Parker's thoughts on this subject. (The book title is in an earlier post).

Chapter 2, (the emphases that follow are in the original), begins with this paradox:

Our drive to aliveness ... to be fully alive ... expresses itself in two elemental and inseparable ways: action and contemplation. We may think of the two as contrary modes, but they are one at the source, and they seek the same end - to celebrate the gift of life.... [So] ...[r]ather than speak of contemplation and action, we might speak of contemplation-and-action, letting the hyphens suggest what our language obscures: that the one cannot exist without the other....

Hence, he suggests, "If we are to ... understand their vital relatedness, we must abandon ordinary logic and embrace the insight of physicist Neils Bohr: 'The opposite of a true statement is a false statement, but the opposite of a profound truth can be another profound truth' ". ( I just had to include that piece of wisdom)

Moreover, continues Parker: ... when we abandon the creative tension between the two, then both ends fly apart into madness.... Action flies off into frenzy - a frantic and even violent effort to impose one's will on the world, or at least to survive against the odds. Contemplation flies off into escapism - a flight from the world into a realm of false bliss.

To be fully alive is to act .... I understand action to be any way that we can co-create reality with other beings and with spirit....

To be fully alive is to contemplate .... I understand contemplation to be any way that we can unveil the illusions that masquerade as reality and reveal the reality behind the masks....

The greatest risk in action is the risk of self-revelation, and that is also action's greatest joy. No one can know us fully, not even we ourselves, but when we act, something of our inner mystery often emerges, and it can shock or delight when it does.... Real action is part mind itself, as well as spirit and soul....

As an aside, in terms of mind, he mentions an interesting popular saying: "How can I know what I think until I hear myself say it?" I know that experience.

He continues,

Ultimately, action will help reveal what ... reality is, if we pay attention to its outcomes. These are the crucial links between action and contemplation, for the function of contemplation in all its forms is to penetrate illusion and help us to touch reality....[So] ... when a friend says that he or she is disillusioned ...instead of commiserating or offering a shoulder to cry on ... we ought to congratulate, celebrate and ask the friend how we can help the process go deeper still.

Pain is one of the sure signs that contemplation is working ... [which] ... first deprives us of familar comforts. Then it replaces them with an inner emptiness in which new truth, often alien and unsettling truth, can emerge. The contemplative journey from illusion to reality may have peace as its destination, but en route it usually passes through some fearsome places.

So, as Carl Jung noted long ago it is a downward, not upward, journey. A journey down into the depths, the darkness, where the monsters dwell; where good and evil co-exist as one.

Parker, citing Isaiah 45:7, makes a similar point: "I am Yahweh, unrivaled, I form the light and I create the dark. I make good fortune and create calamity....." Consequently, he adds, "When we meet the spirit that that gives life we encounter all the powers including death, and we cannot be selective."

He continues, again echoing Jung, who refers to them as shadows:

We must ...[therefore] ... abandon the common sense notion that the monsters we meet within ourselves are enemies to be destroyed. Instead we must cultivate the hope that they can become companions to be embraced, guides to be followed, albeit with caution and respect.

Why? Because, in Parker's concluding words of this Chapter:

When we live a full life of contemplation-and-action, the monsters will always be aroused - tell me about it ! - and we will be compelled to search the depths. It is good to know that those very monsters can take us to the depths we need to explore. It is even better to know that in those depths we can find the hidden wholeness that unites and energizes us, the source and the power that make us fully alive.

And without that knowledge, that hope, I am not sure most of us would not be at all willing to embark on this journey which, it seems to me, takes a life-time to complete. So the final destination, death, becomes rather irrelevant.

And now it is done. I had no idea this would happen when I woke up this morning. However, a dead battery in my friend's borrowed car - I left the lights on overnight - changed my plans. But obviously for the better.

Solitude and Community - Part II

2005-07-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

In Hymns to an Unknown God, Awakening The Spirit In Everyday Life (Bantam books, New York, I don't have the year), Sam Keen, supporting Parker J. Parker's thesis writes:

The final test of the spirit is not to be found on the mountain heights or in the depths of the solitary journey. Individual men and women of all ages have accomplished this. The great challenge is to learn how all kinds and conditions of human beings can dwell together peacefully in the valley of the shadow of history.

Notwithstanding the shortsightedness of our modern spiritual cartographers and guides, most of the maps left by the great classical explorers indicate that, just past the mid-point of the journey, the road takes a 180-degree turn - away from the self and towards the community, away from the cultivation of the private realm and toward compassionate action in the public realm. Once re-membered and re-collected, the self must be forgotten and a new search undertaken for a communal home that lies somewhere beyond the horizon. [Which, presumably is why I have yet to find that home - it is still - to use a more modern phrase - not yet on my radar screen - or , just maybe, it is right before my eyes but I don't yet see it! We shall see].

Keen continues:

To state the matter in a less metaphorical way, the development of a spiritual perspective involves two steps. First, I must aggressively affirm my unique individuality. Second, I must continually resist the nearly inevitable illusion of ego-centricity and explore the ways in which I rise out of, and take my life from, an encompassing sea. In the spirit dance, we continually go back and forth from "I" to "We", from subjectivity to intersubjectivity, from solitude to communion."

Of which Clarissa Pinkola Estes had this to say. My sense is the quote comes from her book "Women Who Run With Wolves":

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any, small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts, or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip towards an enduring good."

Which leads me to a quotation from Henry David Thoreau's Walden, which has also been quietly waiting its turn to appear here:

The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ouselves nor one another thus tenderly.

Which reminds me again of a Philip Larkin quote which I know I have cited somewhere else before - it just popped out of a pile of papers:

We should be careful of each other, we should be kind while there is still time.

Time? Where does it go? There never seems to be enough just to stay in the same place, as the winds of change constantly blow and the dreams pour in demanding attention; to changes in the ways I am doing things.

But that is for another day: I still haven't completed my review of Palmer's thoughts on this topic which will be the subject of the next post: I need to return the book to its owner. Fortunately, as far as I know, there are no "Overdue" fees.

A Holy Trinity

2005-05-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

So much for planning. How could I not have known that if I was going to write about God it would have to be in three, not two, parts! - "Holy Trinities" exist everywhere in my life.

Anyway ... Gillian posted this on her web-site on April 29th of this year. It comes from page 205 of The Diamond Heart Book 4 by A.H.Almaas.

The Heart of God

The human being is nothing but the manifeststion of the heart of God. So if there was no love we would not exist. Love is that basic. All that you see is a manifestation of love. When you actually, finally, let yourself see it, you see that you are a particularization of loving energy. Your body is made out of love. Your mind is made out of love. Your surroundings are made out of love. Everything is made out of love. If there was no love, you would see nothing. Beyond love there is just God. Out of that love that manifests from the God state, or from the supreme reality, emerge all of the particularizations. We are the final fruit of that particularization ...[I question this] ...and because we are the final fruit, we have the microcosmic heart that reflects the universal heart.

The latter part of the quote reminds me of the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching, as translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English (Vintage Books, New York,1972):

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things (particularizations)....

And this is God as seen through the eyes of David Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior. A Book that Changes Lives (HJKramer, Inc, Tiburon, CA):

Wake up! Wake up! Soon the person you believe you are will die - so now, wake up and be content with this knowledge: There is no need to search; achievement leads to nowhere. It makes no difference at all, so just be happy now! Love is the only reality of the world, because it is all One you see. And the only laws are paradox, humor and change. There is no problem, never was, and never will be. Release your struggle, [Thy will be done], let go of your mind, throw away your concerns, and relax into the world. No need to resist life: just do your best. Open your eyes and see that you are far more than you imagine. You are the world, you are the universe; you are yourself and everyone else, too! It's all the marvellous [unscripted?] Play of God. Wake up, regain your humur ....You are already free!

He writes "humur". I write "humour". The first just doesn't look right to me - childhood programming. How many "m's would you like! Oh well.

Lastly, as promised, a couple of quickie quotes , both of which certainly reflect my ever-changing life:

We are not born all at once, but by bits.
Mary Antin.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic age) as in being able to remake ourselves.
(Ghandi)

Next time, I intend to continue the exploration of Palmer's concerns re action and contemplation - and the importance of community - with some support for his position from Sam Keen, another perceptive author.

The nature of God - Part II

2005-05-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

I was with friends in Vancouver last week and another of Parker J Palmer's books was put in my hands. This one is entitled The Active Life, Wisdom for Work, Creativity and Caring.(HarperSanFrancisco, 1991).

Palmer explains the rationale for the book, which resonates with me as a Westerner, this way - God comes later in one of the stories:

In the spiritual literature of our time, it is not difficult to find the world of action portrayed as an arena of ego and power, while the world of contemplation is pictured as a realm of light and grace....

Contemporary images of what it means to be spiritual tend to value the inner search over the outward act, silence over sound, solitude over interaction, centeredness and quietude and balance over engagement and animation and struggle. If one is called to monastic life [e.g. Thomas Merton whose thoughts Palmer values], those images can be empowering. But if one is called to the world of action [as Palmer, who did not succeed at monasticism, clearly is], those same images can disenfranchise the soul, for they tend to devalue the energies of active life rather than encourage us to move with those energies toward wholeness....

Later, he writes, My aim in this book is to celebrate and criticize the active life ...[which leads to] some of our deepest spiritual crises as well as some of our most heartful joys ... to explore [by means of stories] its joys and pains, its problems and potentials, to understand the forces that both drive and deform our activity - but to do all this with reverence for the mystery of self-discovery and creation which is at the heart of human activity.

In analysing God's role in the story of The Angel and the World's Dominion, which comes from the pen of the great Jewish philospher Martin Buber, Palmer writes:

The truth about God in this story - and, I believe, about God in our lives is ... unsettling: God is in this mess with us and has the same unfulfilled yearnings that make our human hearts ache.

If reality is a continuous process of co-creation between ourselves and God, as I believe it is, then God is not a fixed quantity in some cosmic equation. Instead, God experiments, succeeds, fails, changes, learns, suffers, enjoys and grows - just as we do....

Buber's story ... describes a God who yearns for a better world, who pushes against the limits of things, who needs us as companions in this pushing, and who gets lonely when we don't respond.

Of course, Palmer continues, I am now describing a God who.in pushing against the limits of things, is pushing against the part of God's own self.... [But] ...(i)f God is ultimate reality, then God must surely embody the paradox of destruction and creativity....At the heart of reality, we and God together ... [the Oneness] ...are streteched by the creative tension between death and life, finding ourselves tugged sometimes this way, sometimes that.

And then this heart-felt conclusion which I feel too:

I find a profound flaw in the image of a God who has set everything up, past and present and future; who knows exactly what has been and is and will be; who has absolute power to control and change any of this; but who simply lets the script play itself out into eternity. In part, such a God is boring, quite unlike the God I experience. But the deeper flaw is that I cannot love such a God - nor can I feel that such a God loves me. Love is a dynamic relationship, a two-way exchange of energy. When God is conceived as an omniscient and omnipotent Prime Mover, no such energy is generated. Entropy ensues, the universe becomes a cold and empty place and the Great Work will never be done....

Only a God who is vulnerable and even needy will evoke our love in a way that completes the circuit of human-and-divine, the circuit in which each of us becomes a carrier of love's energy, a co-creator of the Great Work to be done. Whenever that circuit is completed, we are jolted out of our illusion of isolation and into the knowledge that we can find right action only in relationship, in communion, in community.

[For] (w)hatever else the Great Work will be, it surely will be a work of community ... a communion that is the rebirth of the Messiah on earth.

And, somehow, the idea of the Great Work reminds me of Carl Jung's comment that "The universe is healed one soul at a time."

More on community next time, plus a comment by Dan Millman on Oneness, and a couple of quickie quotes.

The nature of God - I think I got it!

2005-05-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

The day before I left my sister's home to return to Canada I copied this last quote which Lucinda Vardey had excerpted from "The Essential Alan Watts" (I don't have the publication data). What an amazing teacher he was:

...Shiva does a dance in which the universe is finally destroyed. The moment of cosmic death is the waking up of Brahma, the creator, for as Shiva turns around and walks off the stage, seen from behind he is Brahma ... and the beginning of it all again. And Vishnu is the preserver, that is to say the going on of it all, the whole state of the godhead being manifested in many, many faces....

[So] ...(s)uppose that god is the one playing all the parts, that god is the child being burned with napalm ... [suffering cancer, being in a concentration camp. Then] ... there is no victim except the victor. All the different roles which are being expressed, all the different feelings which are being felt, are being felt by the one who originally desires, decides, wills to go into that very situation ....

Wake up and find out eventually who you really are ... [God] ... In our culture, of course, they'll say you are crazy or blasphemous .... But ... in India ... [they'll say] ..."Oh, congratulations, at last you found out."

And that insight, in this case attributed to a man named Bill Smith, is repeated, at page 176, in Alberto Villoldo's newest book, "Mending the Past and Healing the Future with Soul Retrieval" (Hay House UK Ltd, London, 2005):

The first four levels of the upper world represent four stages of your own awareness of your own nature. In the first stage, you experience God as outside yourself, which is common to most religions. In the second, you discover that God is within you through a process of self-enquiry. The classic question here is "Who am I?" and, later, "Who is it that is asking this question? In the third stage , you experience God as working through you; while in the fourth, you discover that God is working as you. (Both emphases in the original). God is no longer working through you, there is only God working, playing and praying.... you're God masquerading as God.

But God, as I'm sure we all know, does strange things: Before I went overseas, I opened my home to a woman who, as far as western medicine is concerned, is dying of cancer. I came back to broken glasses, dying plants, a burned out pot, and the thousand pieces of a beautiful completed butterfly jig-saw puzzle, carefully concealed by two layers of cloth on the dining room table, thrown into a corner of the room. (No explanation for that bizarre behaviour was offered).

So I continue to be pre-occupied - it came up in Ireland again - with the concept of "Thy will be done" and what that means for my destiny in this particular life-time. More about that another day.

In the mean-time, let me end with a Thomas Merton quote, that has been patiently waiting since February 2nd - when Gillian Eardley, in England, posted it - to appear here:

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.

Nothingness

2005-04-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

I was at a bit of a loss for a title but I think this will do. With one exception - the second one - the quotes come again from Lucinda Vardey's book.

To discover that which is, the mind must die to that which it has experienced.
J. Krishnamurti

And my sister comes home earlier today and shows me another library book, The Tibetan Art of Living, by Christopher Hansard (Hodder & Stoughton, London 2001). I pick it up and it falls open at this page:

The place to live is not in the moment, but in the space between the moments - a space that holds a continued flow of wisdom and consciousness. By connecting to the space between the moments of your life you start to experience what is, not what was.

About which Krishnamurti says:

When you are watching without motive ... any kind of demand ... with a great silence and space ... [then] ... there is something beyond words, beyond all measure ... [and] ... when there is silence, there is immense timeless space; then, only then, is there a possibility of coming upon that which is the eternal, sacred.

Ram Dass continues that thought:

... When the intensity of concentration allows us to see the space between two thoughts we see eternity ... against the backdrop of emptiness, of nothing [of no thought], we exist .... Then we face ... the fear of own own extinction... By letting go of even the thought "I" what is left? There is nowhere to stand, and no one to stand there. No separation anywhere. Pure awareness. Neither this, nor that. Just clarity and being.

And, for now - Ken Wilber has a lot to say about no separation - I'll let Alan Watts have the last word:

We begin from nothing and end in nothing ... [and] ... all of a sudden it will strike you that this nothingness is the most potent, magical, basic and reliable thing you ever thought of, and the reason you can't form the slightest idea of it is that it is yourself. But not the self you thought you were.

Tomorrow, after a quiet interlude here in Bedford reading, writing and doing word puzzles with my sister, I fly to Ireland and into a different world, the world of shamanism.

Love and Being

2005-04-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

I am in Bedford, England, and each time I visit my sister in a near-by village she goes into the library and gets out God in all Worlds, an Anthology of Contemporary Spiritual Writing, edited by Lucinda Vardey(Hodder & Stoughton, Vintage Books, New York, 1996).

Here are some of the thoughts that have got my attention so far:

The search for security is an illusion ... it does not mean returning into the woods, or to a monastery, or isolating oneself in some peculiar belief .... [because] ... nothing can exist in isolation. To be is to be related; it is only in the midst 0f relationship that we can spontaneously discover ourselves as we are.
J. Krishnamurti

Love is our true destiny ... the only thing that makes it possible for me to continue to tick .... We don't find the meaning of our lives by ourselves - we find it with another .... The meaning of our life is a secret that has to be revealed to us in love, by the one we love (emphasis in original) ... [so] ... we will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love - either with another human being or with God.
Thomas Merton

The salvation of man is through love and in love.

Viktor K. Frankl

An intimate relationship goes beyond an implicit capacity for connectness; in intimacy we explicitly share our deep natures with each other in the belief that we can be fully known and the trust that we will be fully accepted.
Parker J. Palmer, in The Courage to Teach.

And, from an unknown source:

The highest form of love ... [is] ... love that allows for intimacy without the annihilation of innocence.
Biologist Barabara McClintock, Nobel Laureate.

When you look and look and look into another person's eyes you are looking at ... the universe ... looking at you. We are the eyes of the cosmos .... One energy playing myriads of different parts.
Alan Watts.

And into this One, we must let ourselves fall continually from being into non-being.
Dag Hammerskjold

And this theme of being, not being, plus No-thingness etc. will be the subject of the next posting.

Tidying up before going on a journey - and a PS

2005-04-12T21:54:00.000-07:00

In less than forty-eight hours I'll be on the first of a number of planes that will take me to Ottawa, London, and Dublin - to complete the first phase of my shamanic training with the Four Winds Society. Then back to Victoria a month later via the same route, after a side-trip to Cincinnati to visit my oldest daughter.

But these quotations, which originate with that remarkable Jesuit Priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, need to see the light of day before I head out to the airport:

One day after we have mastered the winds and the waves, gravity and the tides, we will harness for God the energies of love. And then for the second time in human history, mankind will have discovered fire.

My self is given to me far more than it is formed by me .... In the last resort the profound life ... the new-born life, escapes our grasp entirely.

We are not human beings on a spiritual journey.
We are spiritual beings on a human journey.

And for me the essence of that journey is to be found in relationships, especially those between the two sexes, about which the American writer John Updike observed:

You can go the far side of the moon and back and see nothing more strange and wonderful than the relationships between men and women.

Oh Yes! And part of this human journey also involves healing, awareness, and being present:

The world heals one soul at a time.
C.G.Jung

Every single shift in consciousness that a human makes changes the whole world.
Sandra Ingerman, shamanic practioner.

The Indian mystic, Paramahansa Yogananda, put that this way: Change yourself and you have done your part in changing the world.

I open my heart to life and life opens its heart to me.
Unknown

Which leads me to Marianne Wilkinson who writes in "Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness, and Making Miracles" (Riverhead Books,New York, 2002):

Our task then is to harness the energies of love - to actualize its enormous power in practical and meaningful ways. Love too must announce its intentions to the world with all the passion born of a compassionate heart ... [for] ... It is the conviction to love that gives birth to miracles. (Emphasis in the original).

PS. And then to Albert Einstein:

There are only two ways of looking at life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.

And when I look at all the flowers, and blossoms on the trees that have burst out in the last few weeks in Victoria it is prety obvious that everything is a miracle. And going from the far west coast of Canada to England in a matter of some twelve hours is another kind of miracle. As is the fact that I began this in Victoria and added the Einstein quote etc in a cafe in Bedfordshire.

The Wisdom of Insecurity

2005-03-27T08:28:00.000-08:00

Many years ago I read this book by Alan Watts (Vintage Books, New York, 1951) and recently recommended it to a young friend. Later, I thought I had better check to make sure it would be actually be helpful to her and quickly realized I had made a mistake - it's too intellectual.

But here are three pearls of wisdom that I need to carry with me on my journey. One about Life, one about Death and one about Love:

[Life] is a dance, and when you are dancing you are not intent on getting somewhere .... The meaning and purpose of the dance is the dance.

When each moment becomes an expectation, life is deprived of fulfillment and death is dreaded for it seems that here expectation must come to an end.... Death is the epitome of the truth that in each moment we are thrust into the unknown. Here all clinging to security is compelled to cease, and wherever the past is dropped away and safety abandoned, life is renewed.... When a man (sic) knows this, he lives for the first time in his life.

Love is the organizing and unifying principle which makes the world a universe (emphasis in the original) and the disintegrated mass a community. It is the very essence and character of mind, and becomes manifest in action when the mind is whole.... There is no problem of how to love. We love. We are love and the only problem is the direction of love, whether it is to go straight out like sunlight, or try to turn back on itself like a "candle under a bushel".

Released from the circle of attempted self-love, the mind of man draws the whole universe into its own unity as a single dewdrop seems to contain the entire sky.

Note: At this moment I don't share Watt's belief that "love ... can only come out when ... [a person] ... "is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself." That love only comes "in the awareness that one has no self to love."

My sense is that love does not have "direction" but is all encompassing and that while the "self" with a small "s" may not exist at the level of what Ken Wilbur calls "unity consciousness" it does exist on a more material level.

Lastly, on this Easter Sunday, in the middle of this life/death re-birthing, Watt's comment about the dewdrop does remind me of something that another mystic, William Blake, wrote:

To see a world in a grain of sand.
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

Love and blessings.

Quotes from past conferences

2005-02-13T08:38:00.000-08:00

Each week I go through more pages of notes collected over the years and quietly recycle the paper. On this sunny Sunday morning with clear skies and calm seas, these quotes asked to be saved from that fate:

However you think it is. It is different than that.
Rumi

Justice is the companion of love.
Robert Gass.

Love is the secret sensation of the self.
Ram Dass.

In the inner self there is a part that knows it all.
Herman Hesse.

At the end of the day it is not the words of our enemies we remember but the silence of our friends....

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Martin Luther King Jnr.

Note: Some 250 years ago, the British parliamentarian Edmund Burke, said much the same thing: "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."

And in the last century Albert Einstein echoed that thought too: The world is a dangerous place to live: not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

And these ones by Ramana Maharshi come in an amazing piece of synchronicity - the timing is so right for me - from a book that just came into my hands, "The Essential Ken Wilber, An Introductory Reader." (Shambhala Publications, Boston, 1998).

I AM is the name of God. (There is only the Self, there is only God).

There is neither creation nor destruction,
Neither destiny nor free will;
Neither path nor achievement,
This is the final truth.

That which is not present in deep dreamless sleep [which is literally nothing!] is not real.

And the ultimate paradox:

The world is illusory;
Brahman alone is real;
Brahman is the world.

Lastly, this equally important message that was the footnote on a recently received e-mail from another enlightened being:

"Save the earth - it's the only planet that has chocolate."

And there is lots of good organic dark chocolate made on both sides of the border here. Joy!

A neat web-site

2005-01-29T17:04:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm just back from a wonderful conference on Shamanism, Enlightenment and Sacred Sexuality held in sunny but cool Santa Fe, NM, where I found a stone Jaguar and Eagle to complete the four archetypal animals I need for my healing Mesa.

Footnote: But on March 10th, I purchased a beautifully carved eagle's head in pipestone ( used to make the bowls for peace pipes) from a carver I met in the sweat lodge the previous Sunday. So now I have to decide what to do with the first one!)

For me, the most profound speaker at the Conference was an indigenous man named Lewis Mehl-Madrona who has both a Ph.D and an M.D., and who combines complementary western medicine with native spirituality. Given my personal situation I was especially interested in some of his comments about cancer and healing:

There are no answers only delicious questions - no one understands cancer.

Personal power is largely illusory - the larger forces are bigger than all of us. What happens happens.

Note: World-renowned British physicist, Sir Arthur Eddington, put it this way: "Something unknown is doing we don't know what." And my journey these past few years is living proof of the truth of that statement because I have been moved in directions beyond anything I would have dreamed of.

Madrona again:

People who get well always have a story but there are logical inconsistencies in the stories about how people heal. However one thing, apart from a positive attitude, that these people all seem to have in common is that they live very much in the Present and have let go of the Past.

Lastly, and on a quite separate theme, here is a neat website:

www.greatday.com/motivate Choose any of the presentations on the right hand side for an audio-visual imspirational journey. Enjoy.

Note: I originally had the wrong name for the site hence the comment attached to this posting.

Hope is hearing the melody of the future. Faith is to dance to it.
Ruben A. Aives

The universe is laughing

2005-01-13T08:49:00.000-08:00

I keep forgetting that the one sure way to make the universe laugh is to announce that I have a plan! A couple of days after I wrote my last blog I was visiting "MJ" who practices traditional Chinese Medicine. In her waiting room was a book of 365 photographs and texts compiled by Danielle & Olivier Follmi, the official photographers for the Dalai Lama.

So I let spirit guide my fingers through "Offerings. Buddhist Wisdom for Everyday" (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, New York 2003) and came up with these offerings for you:

We can give something to others. We don't always have to receive something first in order to give something away.
Chogyam Trungpa.

All the harm, fear and suffering in the world are caused by attachment to the self: why should I hold on to this great demon?
Shantideva

Nothing goes right on the outside when nothing is going right on the inside.
Matthieu Ricard

Life is fragile, like the dew hanging delicately on the grass, crystal drops that will be carried away on the first morning breeze.
Dilgo Kyhatse Rinpoche

We will never again have the chance to be born into a body like this one.
Kalu Rinpoche

Some opening quotations

2005-01-09T21:21:00.000-08:00

This one, which really appeals to me, came last month from Deborah, an Ontario "Witch/ Druid". (I have accepted an invitation to be on the Irish based Hibernian Order of Druids mailing list).

Last night as I lay in bed looking up at the stars I said to myself .... "Where the hell is the ceiling??"

And this one is from young Seabella, now married, who has just returned to my life after an absence of a couple of years - the last time I saw her was in Buffalo, New York but we shall meet again later this month in New Mexico when I go to the Conference in Santa Fe:

Hear the song of your heart,
Dance the dance of your soul,
Remember the love that you are.

Reminds me of Rumi:

Dance as though no one is watching you.
Love as though you have never been hurt.
Sing as though no one can hear you.
Live as though heaven is on earth.

And here is Krishnamurti, (Think on These Things, Harper & Row, New York, 1964) on love:

Simple love is being tender ... being sensitive ... really gentle in one's approach to all things.... [And] ...The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstacy of it, you will discover that for you the whole world is transformed .

It is only when we love ... with our whole being ... that we can be free and happy.

What brings order in the world is to love and let love do what it will. [For] Love is the only quality that brings a total comprehension of the whole of existence.

And he gives a definition of Integrity that I also like:

Integrity means being one thing totally on all levels at the same time.

And this from Pupal Jayakar's book, "Krishnamurti, a Biography" - (I didn't keep the publishing data):

Understanding of the self only arises in relationship, in watching yourself in relationship to people, ideas and things; to trees, the earth, and the world around you and within you. Relationship is the mirror in which the self is revealed. Without self-knowledge there is no basis for right thought and action.

I intend to continue these related themes of love and relationships next time.

Hermes' Heartbeat

2004-12-30T22:02:00.000-08:00

So here I am sitting in Rick and Visudha's kitchen in Olympia, Washington and, suddenly and unexpectedly I have become a blogger! And a New Year is about to arrive so this marks the first of many changes that I sense are about to begin. Later, when I have a new template - the one you are looking at now was actually put in on March 10th 2005- I'll explain how that happened. In the meantime, Greetings and a Joyous New Year.

PS One of the clever things about blogs is that, as you have just seen, (bold type), I can go back and edit an original text if something needs to be added or changed.

PPS March 12th. This blog is the next transformation of a snail-mail newsletter (also briefly in e-mail format) that began seven years ago after I encountered that Aphrodite energy on a deserted beach in New Zealand - I was supposed to be in Australia at the time but the universe had other ideas.

I have also changed the title from The Love letter, which honoured that Goddess, to one that reflects not only the masculine nature of the writer but the last few years of my public service career designing and implementing a computerized Human Resources Management Information System (HERMES) whose image, on a specially designed decal with a gold background, was put on every computer in the Personnel Branch. (One is now on my printer here!)