Yes he speaks of us thinking of the body as a frozen anatomical structure ... and of his insights and often having the same reaction as I do - namely 'where did that come from!?' ... I really must get around to seeing what is in How to know God ... some great links ... and on the other HAND they 'all' say ONCE you truly awaken your own INNER wisdom you won't seek the answers externally ...
I like the end of one of his
interviews -
So ... I sent that to the
Chopra Forum
as 53576 ... yeah there is a VAST pool of wisdom in that 53000 plus messages!!!
"What is my little lifetime of flotchy? Lifetime of flotchy ... I am the question of all lifetimes" ...
Eating Well For Optimum Health - search results -
here
Stacks more to type up for
chapter.htm as well ...
Listened again to the millenial webcast - I think i have it on tape somewhere or other ... it's a good kob I'm practicing nonattachment ... :) ... and how he said we all tend to romanticise about the past ... do we ?? ...
And I continue to add interesting links to the file mental4,htm - even though I may not be attending Suzanne St a whole lot in the coming months ... oh well, somebody may benefit ... one never knows ...
mental4.htm {"A few interesting mental health sites" - using my own rather broad concept of 'mental health' - and it is growing into quite an eclectic collection of sites - try saying that with a mouth full of marbles ... }
Interview with James Twyman -
here - interesting webiste actually ... one article called "Yes, cells do remember" ... interesting reading ... and quite apt for my case ...
or here ...
- should add them to emissary.htm just in case anyone ever reads ...
She thinks I am a great intellect, but that I need to mature, that I am still trying to prove something to the world, and that I need to let go of that, and she is right. ...In the end, what helps me most is to constantly experience gratitude for everything I have, for the relationships I have. Gratitude always brings me to a place of peace. As long as I keep my awareness in the experience of gratitude, the grace of God is there.
A curious thought just 'popped' into my head ... it's almost like I'm enjoying the 'struggle' too much to want it to end ... it would be too 'easy' ... hmmm ... like that article called
The Game ...
Treat each other with respect,
Olympics drawing to a close ... some interesting aspects - okay, 'ideally' it would be far healthier for all concerned to devote ALL that energy & focus onto some 'higher' pursuits ... but I'm in a less 'attacking' mood lately - CWG - 'All attack is a call for help' ...
Interesting results from search of 'cells do remember' -
here is the article?? or a report on it ...
Events calendar for victoria - sunday services etc - link may change -
here ... or www.livingnow.com.au
Saved on my hard-drive as events.htm ... somewhere ...
Huge couple of days continues - much more to type up into
chapter.htm ...
Also added some to Conversations With God excerpts - happened to look up 'celebrate' in the index - as usual
Anyways ... click here and scroll down to the phrase 'celebrate your being' ...
Somebody tells me about 'Jason's quotes' & I lose the web address ...
click here for some search results ... I vaguely recall it being ccnet in the address ... hmmm ...
Actually found it and it seems word-for-word the same as Creative Growth website's quotes ... Heaven & Hell and Native American ...
Also Callahan - cartoons -
here
nurture one another,
and play well together ...
(a) Hits the nail RIGHT on the head ...
(b) I wonder why i bother trying to 'express' it in 'my own words' - it is awfully hard to compete with God for inspiration ...
Interesting Seinfeld episode - "The Opposite" ... 'Every instinct I have in every aspect of life is wrong ... so I should do the opposite ...'
Actually some great contributions to the Forum around # 53570 ... as someone poses the question:
And some observations of the 'motives' people have and being 'needy' as almost a guarantee the relationship won't 'work' ... and my eternal puzzle of WHY do most people seem shaped entirely by environment-upbringing-conditioning while others transcend it ... it is a HUGE conundrum ... and those who do 'transform' all seem to be trying to teach others to do likewise yet overall the shift seems awfully, awfully slow ...
"how do you perceive your relationship in light of how you are coming to know God? What part does it play?"
www.drweilselfhealing.com
Dr Weil - add to mental4.htm
Also include deepak question of day? - this from sept 20 -
Q: Are all events really neutral and it's just the way we react that gives them a value?
A: All events are neutral and it's our interpretation that creates a biological response. If a doctor says to someone, "You have cancer", because he or she is coming from a position of authority, it will evoke the biological response of fear. Yet what is the word 'cancer' except a vibration of breath. If the same doctor said the same word, 'cancer', to someone who only spoke Chinese then it would not illicit that response. All responses are interpretations in consciousness. The nervous system transforms one kind of energy into another kind of energy. A word is mechanical energy of the atmosphere that begins to vibrate our eardrum which causes electrical and biochemical changes in our brain and then it's up to us to interpret what that experience is. It is literally meanings that become biology. The meanings that we give to events become our biology. That's what stress is, the interpretation of a physical or psychological threat. Stress is not in the environment, it's not in our biology, stress is in the interpretation of what is happening in the environment by the human nervous system. Therefore there are ways to go beyond this, when we choose to make a creative response to a situation instead of a reactive response. We can think of stress like waves on the surface of an ocean. If we are skillful surfers, every wave means exhilaration but, if we aren't prepared, every wave could mean disaster. So too, how we interpret the situations, circumstances and events of our lives determines what brings stress and what brings joy.
www.chopra.com
Yet, in the general 'run of things', one does expect to react vastly differently to the suicide of a 'loved one' than to the suicide of somebody 'we don't know' ...
Still the same yo-yo experience to some extent ... some days are just amazing and the most 'ordinary' or 'mundane' things are sources of deep wonder ... other days it's like a radio signal and you can't get the antenna in the right spot ... actually the other day i was thinking of my old TV analogy for the 'voices' - if you don't turn the TV on then you don't see the programs but the SIGNAL is there, you're just not tuning into it ...
The edible schoolyard - and other search results ...
Beekeeping & honey ... 'the secret garden' ...
August New paradigm - transcription of that wonderful debate at VICSERV conference ... plus grief and mental illness - grief over 'what could have been' ... plus the status quo and remaining silent ...
Andrew Weil on Tv - mentioned flax seeds as an alternative source of the omega 3 oils for people who are disinclined to eat fish (salmon) ... he had some interesting thoughts on nutrition & pregnancy & the developing foetus & brain formation and possible links to manic-depression etc ... hmmm ...
Nell - Jodie Foster - I had forgotten what a brilliant movie it was ... big questions ... wonderful performances ...
Interesting program on
Compass - about Asia & buddhism & Islam & Taoism etc ... and how (1) People's belief system TENDS to be formed by the community they were raised in ... and the point I used to labour when i was trying hard to be an atheist - namely that it's not like these beliefs are 'selected' from a spiritual 'boutique' ... hmmm ...
More interesting posts - amazing that I had faces.gif lined up and the 'galaxy' seems to have a face in it ...
Also posted link to 'random' sites - and checking it works - takes me to
www.ordinarymind.com
www.vraustralia.com - exellent panoramas of olympics & bondi beach ...
Upload faces.gif to fortune city -
Petlinks -
here
{From a search for 'stupid pet photos' - sites seem to be out-of-date .... }
I keep adding interesting links to
mental4.htm ... such as -
Quotes from seth ... they're all saying "much the same thing" ... why do we find it so hard to believe at the 'gut level' ... at least I do ... well, it comes and goes ... which may or may not be more maddening than those millions who have this vague feeling they can't articulate or really address but something is missing ... some dimension of experience ... apart from fleeting glimpses ... if that ...
Wrote first poem in weeks - should transcribe it into
here ... added dribs and drabs to it as they flitted through my mind ...
Interesting stuff at Forum as well even though i've become something of a 'spectator' ... on 'masters' and being single or 'attached' and the different ideas about what love is ...
That Seth site - also has some Monroe - here
From that SBS special across the Himalayas ... xuanzang - quick search tossed up this -
xuanzang's journey
Yes, those links - includes tonglen -
here ... 'be attentive to your inattention' ... excellent commentaries ...
plus Nat Geog magazine or here
Sydney is -
here
also astron.htm -
here
and "The art of doing nothing" ...
Interesting 'random' site - The Endless Knot -
here
The saturation coverage and the nationalistic tone of the Olympics ... gives me an idea for "Real heroes" ... as in Tibet where cultivation of spiritual aspects of one's being like compassion & kindness & wisdom are seen as marginally more sensible pursuits than being able to swim up & down a pool a fraction of a second faster than other people ...
added more to olympics.htm ... despite the above ... hmmm ...
Oh, plus 'True self-esteem' - olympics also reminds me of it ... in a society which was on the 'right track' it would be unquestionable ... each individual would have a sense of unconditional worth from birth ... that aint quite the message people get from this lost world - you have to constantly earn it ... so it's perpetually on shaky ground as it is defined in terms that are transient and changeable and dependent on the fickleness of approval/disapproval or other such shaky notions ...
Interesting messages at forum -
and the responses to it ... around # 53,500 ... plus links ... plus someone at least appreciated way to the light enough to print it and thank the 'person' who posted it ... and talk of people putting on the 'teacher' hat and not the 'student' hat ... as always a range of views ...
added to buddhist quote of moment - Dr Thynn Thynn at Buddhanet -
here - living meditation & thoughts on observing anger ...
From forum - HTML help - http://www.geocities.com/~annabella/basics.html
Added even more ideas into chapter.htm ...
and qld.htm maybe ...
NOT to mention re-reading bits of Celestine Prophecy - tree & building up love within yourself and 'sending it to the tree ... 'playing aloof' & universe & body ... interesting ...
From my perspective and based on my ego run-ins with people, the problem arises when we don't really listen, or try to understand the other person. Until we can really listen, we are not dealing with the other person; instead we are working off of the stories and ideas we create in our heads about the other person. I'm guilty of this; Hadi is guilty of this, as I'm sure most of us are. When we are only dealing with our own made up stories and creations (projecting these to other people) we are really only stuck in our own heads. It is easy to become worked up and defensive as we are really working from a lower level of consciousness that requires a lot of effort to maintain. One way to step up to a higher level of awareness is to simply honor those you interact with by really listening to them. Listening does not mean that we necessarily agree, it just means that we honor them enough to acknowledge that they ARE (kind of the essence of Namaste). The act of genuinely listening forces the ego to quiet down, and opens oneself to higher level of awareness. There is an old Zen story about filling a cup until it overflowed. We can't possibly learn and understand beyond where we are currently at until we can let go of our own ego's stories.
Added even more ideas into chapter.htm ...
so this may be a trifle light on for content ...
Someone recommends Mutant Message Down Under - web search ?? - about a 'spiritual odyssey' downunder ....
Created a file for olympics photos etc -
*** Need to upload and collect more ... spelling ???
In compiling some of the articles off the web for someone else to read/print ... boy ...
* Lama Yeshe archive alone is 40,000 pages ... from this site -
here ...
* These too - James Kerrick - http://home.jps.net/seek/JosephKerrick - Dark Zen - Tonglen -http://www.theflow.org/tonglen/ - etc etc ...
added even more to chapter.htm ... and still haven't typed up Monday's thoughts on chemical imbalance ...
Borrowed
Who Are You?
again from the library ... I open it at the bustop to page 194 - a discussion session after the chapter Flies in the soup - argues agaisnt the traditional theory of evolution & the origin of life in a way I haven't read elsewhere ... should update my transripts - it's yet another of those books you can open at 'random' - so much of it just has the resonance of 'truth' clearly stated ...
Yes, those thoughts on what constitutes 'success' ... it is like beauty - sounds great at first glance but 'beauty' can't exist unless its opposite is created or imagined or perceived ... so to view some people as 'scuccesful' necessitates the idea that others are 'failures' ...
Then again, one could define a 'success' as a person who loves everyone equally and unconditionally ... by which criterion 99.99999 % of the population are 'failures' ....
Yes, a few more thoguths on the Olympics - on the surface it's a grand idea to have many young people from different nationalities & cultures and beliefs congregate in one city for a few weeks ... pity the main focus is sweating an 'winning' ...
... and everyone is doing their best to appear 'suitably excited' by it all ... it wouls be considered heresy to say what you really think about the amount of fuss and attention and money being spent on what in reality is poeple running, jumping and swimming which goes on every day ... hmmm ...
And with regards to the torch relay and 'community spirit' - yes, it's interesting to hear materialists speak about such ideas and concepts - what other words do we have than 'spirit' or 'soul' ...
On reconciliation - I have (as always) mixed feelings - on the one hand the whole basis of identification of yourself as "an aboriginal' or 'a white fella' is a temporary statement of this incarnation - who knows - some 'aboriginals' may have been white or asian or whatever in past lives ...
Secondly, and maybe even more important - as LONG as you make your own emotional or spiritual healing dependent on the actions or attitudes of others you rob yourself of power and hand it to them ... hmmm ... and souls only come to this knowledge by experiencing the results of holding onto such beliefs ... anyways, sent a message to forum around # 53,423 ... with a link to the
Dream Time Stories
Not to mention the idea of embracing forgiveness rather than anger (thanks to Amy Long - even if you feel you have 'a lot to be angry about' ...)
http://www.joyzine.zip.com.au/music/albums/top.htm
Top 100 Albums - from a survey - a lotta Beatles in there ... NO Jethro Tull or
click here for
100 photos from around Oz - the torch relay ...
Brilliant quote - supposedly from Buddha -
"People with opinions just go around bothering one another"
... or "Buddha's Little Instruction Book" - the meditations and daily thoughts ... esp on misconceptions us Westerners have about 'meditation' & 'spirituality' ...
Excellent article at www.myss.com - Why People Don't change much food-for-thought ...
Sent a message to forum about olympics & torch relay ... and brainteaser ... and chemistry & way to the light ... and aussie males & sport ... sense of 'belonging' - but like any concept it divides ...
More interesting 'stuff' at the Forum - around # 53,390 - even tossed in my own view on my 'idea' of 'success' and maybe I'm just crazy ... if so, I'm loving every minute of it ... yes, like 'beauty', 'success' seems like a nice idea ... but it creates its opposite ... so you see some people as a 'success' & others as a 'failure' ... interesting stuff on anger etc - added a few to
allah.htm ...
I think he has a website ... www.richardbach.com but it is 'down at the moment as he works on other projects ...
For some reason I recalled that "The Way To The Light" which I read long before my own 'awakening' - then again I was a 'funny' atheist reading about near-death experiences & The Tibetan Book of the Dead ... yes ... here's just a bit from the start ...
We do not understand why the souls choose to stay, for lifetimes are full of tests and these tests can be awful, but time after time they go back and do not rise to the Light. They do seem to be evolving into other than parts of the Light and time is becoming short for the worlds.
The souls went out first to beautify and create more Light, and for a time they did this and the darkness was far away and the Light warmed all with knowledge, life and love. Your Bible speaks of the snake and Satan but that did not happen, for it was not until those created human forms died that the souls wanted to continue to exist outside the Light.
For centuries our earth guides have been endeavouring to awaken the souls of the Light. Our efforts have not succeeded as far as we wished. We wish to write a book of love. We wish to speak of the Way to the Light. We know we must begin to educate ...
{Much more to follow ... }
So worth another read - include a link? - IF I upload it to fortune city it will be
click here for the rest of the text ...
The book is aimed at the 'soul memory' and predates a lot of the stuff I have been reading ... hmmm ...
Then I find it was already there?? -
Um ... in that process ... boy am I slow at times! I found Word 97 can automatically save a DOC or RTF file as a HTM file!!! Hmmm ... you learn something every day ...
Interesting movie - "The Book of Life" - yes, arguing with an atheist about souls and if we are merely 'biological units" ... how do you explain love ... or consciousness ... let alone altered states of consciousness ... should have taped it ... oh well ... see if script is on web ...
Added myss links to mental4.htm - yes, I had never thought of people not healing being by 'choice' ...
The way to the Light is simple but souls have chosen to forget or ignore. The Light is not total power and it cannot continue to create a universe of love and peace without help from the souls, for they are the Light and they must remember for life to survive the darkness which will otherwise come.
The disease AIDS is a collective manifestation of too many unaware souls without direction. These souls are not loving the others and the power of these souls is weakening the universe. Be under no illusion. This manifestation can only be surmounted by collective awareness. All disease can be surmounted by collective awareness, for only then is the Light given strength in the way that it can dispel the darkness. It does sound too simplistic, but it cannot be explained otherwise. ...
click here for The way to the light ... NOT as 'neat though ?? ...
Brainteaser of the day:
(For overseas readers - simply substitute the names of two adjacent states in your home country ... e.g California & Arizona)
Answer: click here
That should read 'border of' !!! ...
In the process - found worldatlas.com
If a plane crashes on the border or Victoria and New South Wales, where do you bury the survivors?
Here's an excerpt -
Buddhism is not a collection of spiritual or therapeutic techniques. Buddhism is an ocean. If we want we are free to paddle on the edge of the shore, trying a technique here or a therapy there, occasionally getting our feet wet, but staying safely within our limitations. Or we can take the advice of Dogen Zenji, who said: "Arouse the mind that seeks the way, and plunge into the ocean of Buddhism." Ultimately the future of Buddhism in the West will be decided by those who take the plunge, because the paddlers will always draw back and, rather than adapt Buddhism to its new home, will develop new forms of Buddhised psychotherapy. For ultimately we must choose whom we will follow. We can follow Buddha or we can follow Freud; we cannot do both, because they are just not travelling in the same direction.
Also added more to chapter.htm - on recent 'protests' and the 'blame mentality' ... and why so few seem tuned into this 'stuff' ... and until wee reach that critical mass ... Emissary ...
click
Interesting resources on buddhism - click
From Forum - around # 53,375 come this -
Actually I know that we aren't "supposed" to have opinions because that is an ego thing....something we need to transcend at some point...but I was thinking about Jesus as an example, and I seem to recall that he occassionally got angry or exasperated about things--like the Pharisees and their strict codes?? I am personally currently trying to figure this issue out for myself--as far as what I think of it--being in the world but not of it :-) In some respects it seems to me that one part of being in the world is to appreciate its wonders...but that means attachment to some degree to dualities...for where there is wonder so is there also pain etc...maybe the reason to be here at some point becomes to transcend what seems to be? A training ground to see past the obvious/the "real"...?? That would mean seeing past seeming horrors etc...to the underlying Reality...so why then was Jesus angry? Why didn't he see that the Pharisees were just doing the best they could at their level of consciousness? This same thing applies to pleasure/pain...one idea is to embrace it all, pleasure pain w/o judgment as just what you need at the moment. Then another school of thought seems to say detach from either...seeking instead spiritual awareness which then makes one (or as a result) no longer interested in the pursuit of pleasure or the avoidance of pain--I know the wonders of such are supposed to be great, but what about being in a relationship? You know, sex?! Seems a shame to detach from something so lovely! And the enjoyment of snuggling with a small child? Etc..It seems odd to not appreciate this....I understand the argument for putting God first--am just not clear what this means for the rest of my life and my loves :-) CWG stuff seems to say both things--it talks of enjoying beauty of flowers etc...and also of not having any preferences...maybe this is multi-level advice and one goes with where one is? Also the idea of mindfulness to me is about being aware of textures and smells and odors etc...details of what's going on--which seems to me another way of confirming the experience of a self in a body vs a Self, emanation of God?? As always, excuse the muddledness ;-) Kids! No time to rethink! Peace!
... plus replies ... if it's all 'a game' people play it in a variety of ways ... :) ... one said we're all 'learners' ...
From Library - Nature's Prozac - on web -
http://www.qrg.com/QSchool/elvira.htm - added it to links in mental4.htm ... one day i might compile all my 'links' pages ... then again ...
I think that is why alien spacecraft crash here - the aliens take one look at the way we are living and they laugh so hard they crash their craft ...
A bit of talk about 'conditioning' lately - it is one of those puzzles - why do some break their conditioning & the majority never question it ... hmmm ...
What's the alternative? In one word, faith. Faith involves a surrender to the tradition, which in Buddhism is expressed as taking refuge in the three treasures of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. We began this paper with Jack Kornfield's assertion that half the students who attempt the three month retreat at IMS cannot engage vipassana meditation because of the suffering they are undergoing. In the Nidana-vagga of Samyutta Nikaya the Buddha in one passage expounds in brief the full path from suffering to liberation. He explains that suffering gives rise to faith (saddha), faith gives rise to delight (pamojja), delight gives rise to rapture, rapture gives rise to calm, calm gives rise to bliss, bliss gives rise to concentration, concentration gives rise to knowing and seeing phenomena as they are, knowing and seeing phenomena as they are gives rise to disenchantment, disenchantment gives rise to the fading of passion, and the fading of passion gives rise to liberation (S 2.30-3). Note how the process begins. From suffering we proceed to delight, and what turns suffering into delight is faith. Faith is the missing ingredient in the strange attempt to psychotherapeutise Buddhism. None of the therapists we have looked at here seem to have taken seriously the thought that what we need to do is cultivate faith in the three treasures of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Presumably they are far too sophisticated for that - or perhaps they just feel that faith won't sell.
Also ... on a trip to library ... picked up E Fuller Torrey and he says Laing's ideas (about schizophrenia and how to 'treat' it) are 'romantic nonsense' ... more thoughts on this to come ... when i can find the piece of paper they are scribbled on - comparing supposed 'chemical imbalance' causing schizophrenia with adrenalin etc etc ... worth waiting for ... in fact i ought to type it into the file of ideas for the 'short story competition ...
here ...
For some strange reason I found myself humming the theme to "Chariots of the Gods" while I was making breakfast this morning ... am I a
Starseed? ... a bit later I listened to a tape where a 7YO lad from New Zealand has been recognised as a Rinpoche - a reincarntaion of a great teacher - that same tape has "Way of the Wizard" and "Strawberry Fields" which I ended up singing as well ... I know I'm in for a 'good day' if i feel moved to sing or chant or hum early on ...
I may transcribe that article "Temporary insanity" from Living Now ...
click here ... same issue of "Living Now" has other interesting articles ... worth considering for Murmur as well ... I did ... hopefully the contact details are accurate ... see website?? ...
More to add to chapter.htm ... and may create a new file schizo4.htm - a short story competition for Mental health week ... trouble is I can rarely confine my thoughts to a "short" story ...
Added a few links from yesterday's surfing into the "who are you" excerpts ...
Jack kornfield excerpts - path with heart - into mental4.htm & ... think ...
Plus added 'creation evidence' website to chris excerpts ... and reflected on how 'once upon a time' you could not have made me contemplate or consider their point of view if you held a gun to my head ... and I still don't embrace their consclusion but the evidence is worth contemplating ...
And back when I was a vehement 'atheist' I did say ... it is a huge leap from saying 'the universe shows abundant evidence of a designer or creator' to leap to saying 'THIS book comes directly from that creator and is without flaw and contains the whole truth and nothing but the truth' ... it's a leap I could never make and I still dont ... but I can understand to some extent ... and who am I ... very funny ...
Shameless mind - ironic title ??? ...
Creation Evidence Museum
Yes, at times, it is tempting to just turn your mind in on itself and see what happens ... but this modern way-of-living with pressures and non-stop entertainment and information deluge ... very few people have the time or energy or inclination or expertise or instinct required to go into the contents of their consciousness in any depth ... that's why we're in such a mess because there's a limit (a ceiling) on the amount or degree of satisfaction (let alone joy) that can be extracted from these activities, especially the 'entertainment' and the levels of consciousness and awareness it tends to induce or encourage ...
So ends today's lecture - actually that was written off-the-top-of-my-head at 9:50 PM last night ...
Added a few more articles from the Osho site to the file -
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/callanish/39/osho2.htm ... on anger & sadness etc ...
Ah yes, a couple of days ago i was trying to describe 'what i do' most of the time to someone who asked what it's like ... my thoughts are intensely focused but on 'nothing in particular' ... again we run into the extreme limitations of human language - 'awareness' is probly a much better term than 'thoughts' ... and focsu the awareness on itself ...
Added a few more 'quotes' to the vicserv notes which I haven't updated in weeks ...
Great stuff at Chopra Forum - truly inspired - may save it as allah.htm ?? after a lot of 'debate' about the 'evils' of dogma (esp. Islam) ... yes, click here for
allah.htm - truly inspired - "Conversations with Allah" and the 'collective' etc ... and being 'hypnotized' - should pose the question of who is doing the hypnosis ?? ...
Starts me wondering about questions - and how the most interesting questions start with "What is" (Okay, the unanswerable ones tend to start with "Why" and you can keep on asking "why" till one person or the other gets tired of it ...) -
What is time? space? love? anger? life? consciousness? existence? an experience? joy? etc ... the mind? the self? the spirit? ... what is a thought? an opinion? an idea? a belief? ...
Should add "Who Am I?" link to the exceerpt's of Chris Butler's book - where was that site ... in which of my umpteen links pages is it ... or in journal ...
Well ... no 'luck' so far but these interesting results from "swami who am I" ...
Book excerpts - Relaxing into clear seeing
the site i was lookin for - had somethin about 'absolute perfection is here and now' ?? ...
here it is? - Absolute Perfection is Here and Now
Final epsiode of "The West" - I ran out of spare videos and the final half hour was about indians and their way of life ... oh well ... one did emphasise forgiveness or you'll end up drinking yourself to death ... and his long 'vision quest' ...
Song - in a variety of voices & styles - yes, I am flying yet again - "You told me that I was crazy and I said yes I am a madman ... "
Saw a little $5 book of Krishnamurti aphorisms ina shop ... why i didn't elect to purchase it but merely flick through it ... something about "any form of wanting is a sign of an impoverished being" ... hmmm ...
Search for 'aphorisms & Krishnamurti' -
krishnamurti Fellowship of America - it would be interesting to know what he thinks about such a 'feelowship' as his 'teachings' are NOT to 'identify' yourself as 'belonging' to this group or that group or any of the 'isms' that mankind has created throughout its troubled and confused history ...
Truth is a pathless land -
Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophic technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security - religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships and his daily life. These images are the cause of our problems, for they divide man from man.
Then there's another Krishnamurti -
here - who says "I have no message for mankind."
and has become a famous 'philosopher' while emphatically denying that he even has a philosophy ... sounds like my kind of character ... . he isn't out to convince, convert, win over or influence anyone; and nothing in his manner or bearing is provocative or outlandish ...
http://www.unmuseum.org/unmain.htm -
The Museum of Unnatural Mystery - UFO - Loch Ness - etc ... includes some virtual reality recreations of ancient sites (not websites! :) ... plus some "3D" images - if you happen to have sme red & blue glasses handy ... and some cool links ... Bermuda triangle ... Philadelphia experiment ...
Interesting PDF file discussing science & God & ways of knowing and seers and degrees of relationship with God and the universe etc -
here ...
Of course Osho is saying "how it is", or "should be", or "can be".
Krisnamurti says the same thing.
And so we start running around, doing everything that's been recorded of what they've said about "how to"................thinking, breathing, walking, saying mantra's, etc., etc., so we can end up with "wu wie", or no-mindedness.
It's like Ram Dass (and {{Carol}}) are always saying..........we're already "IT" (functioning on all the levels), we're just "busy thinking we're not".
Yes, Ram Dass, says whenever you say "Ah, yes, that's it!" - how could you KNOW unless you already knew ...
SpiritWeb has some great stuff - this one on "wrong worms" - like most who have seen the light - cheeky and never-too-serious ...
here
Osho - had a bit more of a read ... wow ... "Don't allow your life to become just a dead ritual. Let there be moments, unexplainable. Let there be a few things which are mysterious, for which you cannot supply any reason. Let there be a few doings for which people will think you are a little crazy. A man who is a hundred percent sane is dead. A little bit of craziness by the side is always a great joy. Go on doing a few crazy things too. And then meaning will be possible." ... great minds think alike ...
More peom ideas or whatever -
My doctor tells me about the necessary worlds of lifetimes
"It is possible ... but not as LONG as you regard normality as the apex of human experience ..."
Watching some TV - on jokes and 'political correctness' and someone rightly pointed out that it is a choice as to whether you are 'offended' or NOT. True, but only true if one has reached the point of living consciously and the reality is that only a few are doing that ... so it seems that it is a 'natural reaction' rather than a choice ...
"It's your choice to believe it's not a choice ... that's what you have chosen to experience - what life is like with that particular belief system ...
"I am the ghost of many lifetimes"
"That's the really interesting question - why does it bother you? It's a question you can ask whenever anything bothers you. If you really dig deep into the question ...
"What is the truth? The truth can never be expressed in mere words. The truth is ... you are the truth ... your very existence is a manifestation of the truth ... Not enough people take the time to contemplate, really contemplate their own existence ... "
Little by little by little by little
Our thoughts converge and meet in the middle
here
- Lafcidio T. Lion - could add to my humour links ... or maybe not ...
Got some more email about Ideal day Program - so i gave them my website address ... one more mind about to be confused beyond recognition ... :) ...
Recovery By Discovery - yes, if I am going to suggest mental4.htm as a source for material for other newsletters ... may as well follow my own advice ... e.g. affirmations & re-training the brain ... actually the re-training was at biologicalunhappiness.com ...
I did some 'spontaneous' writing after walking home from the shops ...
My life has become a sentimental journey through the conscious realities of existence. Every cell in my body is a representation of the untire universe. I feel the energy of a thousand minds pulsating through my very arteries. I am a aware of all the possible and impossible states that any being could ever experience.
Morning has broken and I have hardly spoken. Laughter fills the air transforming any memories of despair. A cloud momentarily hides the sun as a new and transparent era has begun.
My mind floats like a balloon into the cold and frosty morning air. It drifts from a place I call "here" to somehwere else I call "there". I trust it will not wander too far from where I sit. I would miss it if it never returns just a little bit.
More possible dialogue -
"That's the way the universe works. If you have an impoverished belief system that is ready for an overhaul then you will encounter circumstances and experiences (and especially people and ideas) which do not fit neatly into your picture-of-reality ... so you have the opportunity to modify it ... it's really quite magical when you look at it the right way ... "
OSHO site - can enter numbers into his menus ... see osho2.htm - upload to fortune city ... yes, the meaning of life & how do you tell if someone really loves you & Zen & sex & thoughts on assisted suicide ... I can see why they are asking for subscriptions to the library ... but he also says NOT to collect conclusions from him ...
Then an article comparing the earth plane to a 'virtual reality' game ...
here ... send excerpts to Forum ...
This quote from Uri Geller about the book How To Know God:
How to Know God website -
click here
Oh, also this interesting article on the 'symptoms' of sanity ... so reminiscent of the ideas I used to have ...
More possible dialogue ...
"Yes, but the interesting question is WHY do you get angrry simply because someone DARES to live or think differently from you. I mean if all this is meaningless and you perish at death WHY should it bother you in the slightest ...
"Well, thats the big question, isn't it ... why are so few people genuinely happy and content ... I mean all other questions are a nonsense if you can't or don't answer that one ... we must be doing something findamentally wrong if so few are truly joyous ... yet we keep getting up each morning and doing the same old stuff which isn't working ... that is waht the psychotic person is actually saying - 'This isn't working! I'm not prepeared to go along with such nonsense! I'm willing to try any alternative ... "
"In his personal search for spiritual truths, Deepak has discovered definitions so simple and pure that they can change a life in the blink of an eye. I promise that there are readers who will need to do nothing more than open this book at a random page and read any line on which their eye lights - and that line will rewrite their lives. An extraordinary claim? Try it for yourself ..."
Sanity possesses a constellation of defining characteristics which are at first sight unrelated. In this it resembles other, more widely accepted, psychological syndromes... A sane person believes firmly in the uselessness of thinking about what he does not understand, and is pathologically interested in other people. These two symptoms, at first sight independent, are actually inextricably related. In fact they are merely different aspects of that peculiar reaction to reality which we shall call
"The Human Evasion" by
Celia Green
click here - that site also has excerpts ... one in library (see compiled list of library books - early sept 2000 - wilber, zukav, grof, rinpoche, hayward, thurman, pirsig, book of the dead, krishnamurti, alan watts ...
Hadi is 53,215 ... worth reading as always ...
Also today - oh yes, from a few night's ago (often I am laying in bed and I get a thought and I reckon "No need to get up and write it down ... I'll remember it ... and if I don't ...'
Dogma - ah yes the other huge impact it has is that it robs life of its mystery. If it's simply a matter of "Believe x,y and z and phew, I'm saved' ... the only thing left to do is convert everyone else you encounter ...
From latest forum discussions - found this at "Buddhist quote of the moment" -
Right aspiration is what develops in the mind once we understand that freedom of choice is possible. Life is going to unfold however it does: pleasant or unpleasant, disappointing or thrilling, expected or unexpected, all of the above! What a relief it would be to know that whatever wave comes along, we can ride it out with grace. If we got really good at it, we could be like surfers, delighting especially in the most complicated waves.
What Right Aspiration translates to in terms of daily action is the resolve to behave in a way that stretches the limitis of conditioned repsonse. If I want to build big biceps, I need to use every opportunity to practice lifting weights. If I want to live in a way that is loving and generous and fearless, then I need to practice overcoming any tendency to be angry or greedy or confused. Life is a terrific gym. Every situation is an opportunity to practice. In formal Buddhist language, this is called the cultivation of nonhatred, nongreed, and nondelusion.
Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think
When you look at it logically, there are hundreds of diverse aspect to the human personality ... so it takes hundreds of lives until the penny drops and you can "see" yourself-in-others and others-in-yourself ...
Interesting UFO book - opened at random - mentioned Betty Andreasson and her encounters ...
and a tribute to the author ... here ...
Heating up at froum - daily lama quotes about enemy and hatred etc ... and it is tough or radical for most people ... but the capacity to 'love thy enemy' ... and people perceiving statements as "attack" when iall it is is pointing out there are other pictures-of-reality & God ... and pointing out the inevitable consequences of dogma in creating the "Us & Them" mentality ... and how souls evolve (eventually) through these experiences ...
Then again in THIS lifetime i have experienced being dogmatic and closed-off and it aint fun ... pray for those who have yet to see the light - and that includes those who see "normality" as the ultimate goal of human existence ... so yesterday I did slip back into "attack" mode ...
And to truly love someone you want them to experience love at its fullest and you know that AINT going to happen while they cling to fear and dogma and anger ... & judgement ...
A few random thoughts scribbled down yesterday - make of them what you will -
Yet again, when I am around most people, I feel like Anna did in that section of the book "They just don't see it" and no words I can use would allow them to ...
"I need something but psychosocial rehab isnt it - not in its current form anyway - I suppose one of the reasons I have hung around these places is that i have always felt that those who are 'crazy' are in fact much more in contact with the ultimate reality than those who spend their lives being normal (whatever that is). The trouble is that if they are involved in these services, they are often drugged up on sedatives to 'bring them back' to something approximating normality ...
"Basically, most of my life, since my brain woke up to REALITY, everytime a normal person says anything to me, there is this little voice inside my head which says 'That's bullshit. How can anyone believe that nonsense? If it perpetuates normality then it MUST be bullshit."
"Why can't i live in a place where mystics are expected to be ecentric instead of being given psychiatric treatment"
"To my mind, the normal people seem to be barely HALF alive - as if they are all under the influence of some deep hypnotic trance."
"At some level, we all know these things (list them) are monumnetally unimportant ... yet, we get up each day and keep doing the same old stuff. We are truly crazy creatures ... "
"The person who is the most 'convinced' is the person who is furthest from the truth. The closer you get to the true nature of reality, the harder it gets to pin it down ... in words anyway ..."
(See bottom of chapter.htm - a recount of the dark old days of my psyhosis and how to paint youself into the blackest corner imaginable ...
"I sincerely believe that what we call 'psychosis' is in reality a doorway to spiritual metamorphosis. However, if the person is not prepared for the experience or if it is misdiagnosed and mistreated THEN it becomes the nightmare that we know so well ... However, I also understand why those people who have never ventured outside the boundaries of the shadowy existence known as 'normality' view the situation as they do ...
I should get some quotes from the Grof book - I mean all I have is my own experience to draw upon, he's had 40 years in psychiatry & spiritual awakening ...
In response to a few more Chopra Forum topics ... I would never seek to deny someone their right to believe whatever picture-of-reality seems 'best' at any given moment. In fact, I beleive souls only evolve through direct experience and there are certain inevitable results from holding onto dogma -
(a) You automatically polarise the population (as krishnamurti said) into "Us & Them" - "Us" is everyone who thinks like me and "Them" is everyone else. The "Us & Them" mentailty in all its various manifestations is probably the biggest single cause of grief in mankind's history.
(b) If your stance is dogmatic and predicts damnation for all not on your path, then you inevitably become evangelical and in those evangelical activities you may encounter beings like those at this forum whose picture of God and reality is somewhat less entrenched ...
(c) Yes, those thoughts on the analogy of being "entrenched" - you can shuffle backwards & forwards over the same old ground but this tends to get a little tiresome after a while and then you summon the courage to climb out of the trench and move forward into unknown territory ...
Yes, souls evolve through exeriencing the results of their actions & beliefs & attitudes & intentions ...
I did re-read one of my messages and on the one hand it says "where I'm at" and I did wonder if there was a more loving way of pointing things out but that's the best I have at the moment ... yes, it is hard to in effect say "My picture of God is more evolved than yours" and not sound somewaht patronising???
About that 'starseed' site (and anything else similarly challenging) ... "I don't close my mind off to any possibility ... ask yourself how can I POSSIBLY be absolutely certain ...
"Yes, but it is still your choice to be angry or insulted. If you are really together (and let's face it, very few people on this planet are) then you would be more inclined to feel compassion than anger for anyone who might attempt to 'put you down' in any way ...
This site has Kundalini resources ... includes this site - Patanjali -
here - "Non-ordinary experiences" ... some kundalini uprisings are 'unstable' esp if no 'established' spiritual practice beforehand! I don't suppose being a cynical atheist counts as a spiritual practice ...
Yes, I have to remind myself not to judge or 'blame' those who are 'normal' or unawakened ...
On that score - here's one tale which has a few parallels to what I experienced in Acacia ward -
Personal tale of awakening
I mean as CWG states, the idea of a God who is so unsure of himself and his love that he needs to 'scare' people into 'doing the right thing' is an absolute mockery of God ... yet, I note that it IS tough to point this out in a maaner that doesn't seem judgemental or patronising or "Hey, my idea of God is better than your idea" or ... and like the Bible, ther's some nice stuff in the Quran but if you are told you gotta believe ALL of it and the Hell bit is in there ... I mean even when I was an atheist I said I'd rather be in Hell - can you really see yourself as being "happy" in Heaven knowing God feels he has to torture souls forever ... for believing 'the wrong thing' ... I sure couldn't ...
Yet, even saying that does come across as something of a put-down ... oh yes, that reminds me of something else that's tricky - page 69 of
Taming The Tiger
- looks like I may do yet another 'book review' ... all about compassion and 'knowing what's best' in any given situation ... and not 'getting ahead of the stage you're at' ...
I suppose that's why I said those things about dogma being so divisive & adversarial ... contrast that with the Dalai Lama and in one book he says (about teachings that have transformed lives for thousands of years) basically "try it and see if it works for you - if not, just discard it" ... hmmm ...
******** Yes, should put today's scribbles into Journal etc - from those sessions at Suzanne St reminiscing about the very BEST and the very WORST of where I've been over the past 17 years and how each moment seems 'real' and as if that is the 'real me' ... well, that may not be entirely true ...
Before I get to that (you know me!) ... stanislav grof & "Spiritual Emergency" - here's a site with summary & sites to deal with 'distressing symptoms' - also more on this theme at forum ... plus "How will I know if I'm really meditating' ... oh BTW, here is the site! -
here ... plus neurofeedback
More interesting posts at forum about analogy of Hell with parking fines - um ... seems a trifle stretched! ... should paste my reply ... 'opportunity to be a part of the problem or a part of the solution' ... sometimes ...
Then I post another about my 'old atheist days' and the Dalai Lama in Hell ... around # 53,160
also readin a bit more of Taming the Tiger - a couple of excellent meditations on potential and realising your true self ...
click here
- random matrix quotes
here for
other scripts ...
Did I mention the Thick as a Brick lyrics page where someone had written an essay based on the classic Tull album ... where was that?? ... http://www.cupofwonder.com/thickasa.html
Sent a few to NetNation email list ... myss at http://www.comngrnd.com/myss.html
& www.biologicalunhappiness.com/ & well basically they all came out of http://www.angelfire.com/wv/geoall/mental4.htm
...
Yes, i love the Intro to "Taming the Tiger" -
There was a time I would have said he's OVERdoing the 'humble bit' ... I mean if he is 'immature' and a 'beginner' ... what does that say about the rest of the population ...
If you are a beginner like me ... I am a very immature person myself ... I have tried to share the limited knowledge I possess ... & it is dedicated to 'the growth of humility, peace & understanding in the world' ...
Checked out a few of the links from who_are.htm - not bad - natural selection MAY explain 'order' but LIFE is COMPLEX not just ordered and this requires a HUGE amount of INFROMATION. Evolution theory cannot begin to explain this 'evolution of information' ... plus quotes from scientists about the finely tuned universe and some slidehows ... most from http://www.godandscience.org/ and these days I'm OPEN enough to read it and agree up to a point ... BUT not with a God that will 'grind us to powder' (Matthew 21:44) (SO much for 'unconditional love') ... and that is after their excellent analysis and questions for atheists and saying that evidence for design doesn't in itself favour one religion or one picture of God ... oh well, nobody's perfect ...compare that with Chopra Forum message # 53,050 (approx) about the different ways of viewing God - taken from
How To Know God - as I said at the time, can you really expect a healthy (let alone 'loving') relationship wit God based on fear ... and fear is the ONLY reason you'd ever have for proclaiming 'This is the ONE TRUE PATH' ... luckily these days I aim to be more compassionate ... I've coma a LONG way from the days when I used to ridicule the 'Bible bashers' ... when in reality my 'atheism' was at least as dogmatic and unyielding as their dogma ...
Paste cathy.htm in here - someoene was curious about my 'journey' & 'story' - yes, I suppose few people can claim to have experienced Unity Consciousness and a Satori in a psych hospital ... let alone my views on psychiatry & schizophrenia & normality ... some mention of black-holes & mountaintops ... and Robert Pirsig ...
Yes ... my opinions (like anyone's) have been coloured by my experiences ... and if people seek paychiatric help voluntarily I have no problem with that ... I never sought or desired their so-called assistance but it was imposed on me ... these days, i try to be like Christ when he said 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do' ...
Albert Hofmann: LSD - My Problem Child - was at one stage used in psychiatry ...
Part of flashback.org ...
Interesting site with over 100,000 links??
re-visited starbuilders - I'd forgotten a lot of their 'stuff' ...
First, IROOT:NOT isn't about what other people think. If they don't support your desire to live a miraculous life, then maybe it's time to find new friends! Besides, look at THEIR beliefs. They're at least as weird as yours. The only difference is that their hallucination is more popular than yours. (If theirs was less popular, they'd probably leave you alone.) If they understood that everyone is hallucinating, they'd be more accepting and compassionate, or at least more tolerant.
...
More dialogue for the 'book' pops nto my head - 'Well, the way it works is quite beautiful actually. If you hold onto a negative or judgemental attitude towards a person or a group of people throughout your life then in your next life you get to experience those circumstances first-hand. Then eventually after countless lives ... the penny drops ...
In my case, I was probably very judgemental or hostile towards people who think or act a bit 'weird' ... I won't be making that mistake again ... '
More interesting stuff at the
Chopra Forum ... a question about 'observing' your own consciousness ... so I posted a link to the Who Are You? excerpts ... plus my own experience that some days I can do it and those days tend to be magic ... other days I get swept up in all the thoughts & other people's turmoil ... then I step back and wonder 'Why did I allow that to happen' ...
should save past 200 or so from foorum and send to xoom ... then again, that could be seen as 'clinging' ... and God knows there are umpteen websites you have links to but rarely visit ... I do send the past 400 as fourm-a.htm and b.htm to Fortune City -
forum-a.htm
Need to check typos - in who.htm & anna etc ...
And ... just what I need ... I'm walking past a book-sale ... a guide to HTML & the web ... reduced to 1/4 price ... some interesting art sites and I've only just opened it ..
Ansel Adams landscape photographs
Book is 5 years old ... expalins the price ... some links may be 'dead' ...
Doctor Fun - has been compared with "The Far Side" cartoons
Yes - huge archive and the style & 'feel' is very reminiscent ...
Zarf's list of Interactive games on the web
Scott Yanoff's Lists of Links
Python scripts as well as TV lyrics, Simpsons etc ...
URouLette - a 'random' URL generator - like a 'mystery trip' ...
Interesting - only used it a dozen times or so but already The Melbourne Age and The Sydney Morning Herald ... hmmm ... then a site about science which had an ad for "The Elegant Universe" ...
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/marsexpress-00b.html
also looks interesting ... mate ...
another random link generator
and where it is used ...
a webring about mental illness -
http://members.aol.com/faery116/depress.html - In The Arms of Madness ... includes '10 things you never say to a depressed person'
http://www.cupofwonder.com/thickas3.html
interesting commentary on thick asa brick lyrics ...
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