Click here for April 27 onward ...
"Keep out of children" (For a knife)
"Do not stop chain with hand." (For a chainsaw)
"Before folding, remove child." (For a fold-away cot)
For Fragments of a Conversation - "Unless (or until) you are aware of reincarnation, you DO tend to identify yourself and others solely in terms of current circumstances."
Should read & submit poems to www.AHAPOETRY.COM & the links in ermha.htm ...
Easter - added some new sites to denise.htm - interesting ones for kids ... and webcams ...
see checkout.htm & forums.htm ...
@ April 21, 2000 &
Apollo 13 - I have misplaced the CD - the AVI were interesting - THAT must have been amazing - search web??
I can't help myself - Forum message # 51913 - about highlights of other forums ... and links to specific messages about meditation & unconditional love & techniques & why do we need them and do we need them and I AM & Absolute Perfection is Here and Now
"How do you practice peaceful awareness, loving attention, choiceless observation, openness, innocence, unconditional love?" { & WHY do we need to "practice" if that is the TRUE nature of every single human being?} [Forum?]
Then I also enter 51933 ... needles to say most of the intervening messages were ... but let's not be judgemental! ... I was grateful in the end for those events leading me to those words ...
Also Talk City message on Taoism, which included this quote about Lao Tzu -
The philosophy of Lao Tzu is simple: Accept what is front of you without wanting the situation to be other than it is. Study the natural order of things and work with it rather than against it, for to try to change what is only sets up resistance. Nature provides everything without requiring payment or thanks, and also provides for all without discrimination - therefore let us present the same face to everyone and treat all men as equals, however they may behave.
More Tao Links etc in ermha.htm ... plus poetry links ...
He's right about that Capra link! I loved his book "The Tao of Physics" and have read it several times. I assembled that list of links in haste, as you may have surmised. A better link is - here or here or here
Started a poem about John - inspiration does come at the oddest times ... Davies & Hubble & Einstein & reincarnation & debate & Sagan his soul & the whole history - how do we know the universe is expanding? Maybe the earth is shrinking ...
Others at forum also posting interesting links - Time is relative
Heaps added to ermha.htm ...
Keeeping Faith by Jodi Picoult-
1
2
More Links -
Women Seasoned by trust
List of Books
Added more to ermha.htm and even included it in list of sites in that message to Chopra Forum ...
re=post it regularly? Why not, I mean if you have 30 consecutive messages "*" it is a nice change of pace ...
Excellent Poetry (incl. Reuel Howe)
Rainer Maria Rilke -
1
2
3
4 ... links
From a tea towel seen in a butcher's shop -
a mother's letter (to her son) -
Click here for best one?
www.jezzball.com - from a search for "jezzball" ... links to sites trying to improve the game ...
tips for playing it - I thought I was obsessive ...
Oilcap? Spejong?
Cathedrals? Songs of praise -
Cape Shanck
Also an episode of the Leylands featuring Lake Argyle
Link 1 - from a search for "machu pichu" ... also 2
A VERY different day from just a week ago - I shoud be used to this yo-yo pattern - compiled a few thoughts on the implications of reincarnation. Plus idea for a series of things or behaviours that are "unthinkable" in this current atmsphere of suspicion, mistrust & fear but why should they be. Plus that meditation where you systematically peel away all labels - (a) that you have placed on your self (b) that others have placed on yourself (c) that you have placed on others ... should tye it all up for this page ...
poetry, links, interesting page & guest book ...
Do-it-youself photo cards on Burke's Backyard for 14 April 2000. Many other links & Our House etc ...
HomePage which has some interesting links and poems and comes from the 100 most crazy guestbook entries. This poem caught my eye ... (Yes, I was a bit bored today watching the rain ... )
Interesting article on a greenpeace brochure - may type it up ... and I did - here
University of Alberta - webcams, links, philosopher's cafe, homepages,
Interesting idea - sign guestbooks to get more traffic ...
Mental Illness & spirituality - http://umr.org/Oct21/HTillnes.htm - 16 more in ermha.htm ??
Comprehensive list of electronic books at Buddhanet - in PDF format
More of Lama Yeshe at www.wisdompubs.org
Creativity and the Troubled Mind
@ April 12, 2000 &
Great Outdoors - Mt Warning?
A couple more thoughts occured to me about the imnplications of re-incarnation -
(a) When you see someone doing something you frown on or disapprove of ... you may have been doing the same thing just a lifetime or two ago.
(b) Children can no longer be seen as "blank sheets". They may infact have lived more (or better) previous lives than their parents and thus may be far wiser and enlightened and compassionate. Few Western parents would even allow this as a remote possibility
Oh, one more - someone you seem to have a "special" connection with in this lifetime may have been a family member in a previous life. You may be male in this life and they are female but it may have been the reverse in the past. This thought alone tends to make it easier not to so strongly identify with current circumstances. You may be rich, male, confident and Australian in this life whereas previous incarnations may have seen you female, poor or deprived, downtrodden and living in India or somehere ... food-for-thought. {Puts the "battle of the sexes" in a marginally different light}
[There is a meditation where you systematically "peel away" every label you have attached to yourself & others - every adjective that relates to the 3-D world ...]
MSDOS.SYS
Publisher 98 - found out you CAN merge cells in a table and then adjust size. Makes things way easier.
Tonglen practice from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
May All Beings Be Happy : Tibetan Medicine
Milarepa Society
From the Dragon who Never Sleeps, by Robert Aitken
New compilation of links - for ERMHA {if the internet actually arrives this week ... } and so some links will go in there instead of here or my other links pages - just to confuse things a bit more ...
From PC Update - Intro to Astronomy
Kung Fu quote? - about the rice paper & the shaolin monks?
I am reminded of a few sections of An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison -
My body is uninhabitable. It is raging and weeping and full of destruction and wild energy gone amok. In the mirror I see a creature I don't know but must live and share my mind with. I understand why Jeckyll killed himself before Hyde had taken over completely.
Images from The Book of Kells
More information on the book
discoverwest.com {Western Australia?}
Had a look at Make Your Mind an Ocean - some excellent articles at that site as well - one on "Buddhism & Mental Illness" - should include exact link? It is in the same section as "Ocean" ... probably here. Amazing - i just re-read it and it derives from a speech made in Melbourne in 1975! Well, some things are timeless ...
Stuck yowies onto wall with blutak
I had almost forgotten scribbling this poem down on a scrap of paper - almost threw it out ...
Untitled?
If poetry was set in motion
Would it fly across the ocean
Could you see it run all day
Over the hills and far away
Would it need to stop for meals
Maybe a bowl of deep fried eels
Or perhaps a nice thick chocolate cake
Before a swim in the nearby lake
I wonder if it would need to sleep
Would it resort to counting sheep
What dreams would come to poetry at rest
Your guess is most likely to be the best
That poem was followed by a curious thought - would the Dalai Lama be as serenely peaceful as he is now if he suddenly had a job working 9 to 5 and a wife and four kids to look after ... I wonder ...
Saw an interesting story on TV about gourds and the crafty uses they can be put to. Could see if there's anythink on the web about that subject ...
Start of a couple of days re-visiting the dark side. Every time I think I have made my last ever trip there (or the last i could envisage surviving) ... it happens again ... So, I either remind myself that there is an oportunity to learn from any experience or I decide not to re-visit it ... I suppose if I learn something fromeach trip - but there has to be a less painful way to learn! ...
Interesting article Practicing the Good Heart {Forgot to note the web address??} - "At the moment, you can't guide even one sentient being to enlightenment. In order to be able to work perfectly on behalf of them all -- to free them from all suffering and bring them to full enlightenment -- you have to complete your own mind training in compassion. You also have to develop perfect power, so that you can reveal to all sentient beings the appropriate methods according to their level of mind. Finally, you must become omniscient, having the ability to read every single thought of the numberless sentient beings and know all their characteristics, such as their level of intelligence and the details of their karma, and what methods suit each one at any given time. You have to know all these things directly. In other words, without first attaining enlightenment yourself, without becoming a buddha yourself, you cannot do perfect, unmistaken work for sentient beings."
Click here for full article - actually the website is based on Mahayana Buddhism and has many articles worth checkin out - some by the Dalai Lama & one about making your mind an ocean which sounds familiar ...
I should update "Fragments of a conversation" - a ton of ideas lately - "When you make others reponsible for your happiness you give them enormous power over you. Not to mention the pressure of expectation. Besides which it demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the true nature of happiness." {Needs some work but there is a good idea in there somehwere ...}
Latest Nat Geographic - stunning pictures of a cave called Chiquibil.
Prayer for the 21st Century - by Aussie author John Marsden - See here for the poem or here
Similar Title - which is part of an Aussie school online ... links to some interesting educational resources
Fragments? - "What if, despite all your seemingly VALID objections, there IS a God and you have been created in SUCH a way that by IGNORING God you SIMPLY cannot be truly happy." It IS a devastating question that used to POP into my head annoyingly often while I was trying awfully hard to be an atheist!
Click here for the mandala sand painting
It's very symbolic to put SUCH time and effort and energy into creating something beautiful and then to simply wipe it away! Symbolic of the transient nature of our time spent in this three-dimensional realm of existence. Found a couple more mandala sites - 1 2 3 4 5 {Tibetan Sand Cam}
Someone at Chopra Forum actually clicked on the candle which links to Wow Zone site - message # 51310 & 51303 ...
The Diary Project - some interesting Art ...
Wrote another poem - they do seem to come in spurts ...
Revelation Number Nine
I saw God in a psychiatric ward
His presence simply could not be ignored
I found him dwelling inside every living thing
Upon this realisation my soul started to sing
From a websearch for "The Good Heart" found this site - Good heart and quite a few others via www.alltheweb.com ....... 1 2 3 4
interesting tips on webpges & alignment?
Wrote a couple of poems after a long slump ...
I used to spend my days
Analysing the implications
Of every phrase
I used to endlessly theorise
About everything
Before my eyes
My life is an unfinished poem
Carried around
By the inhabitants of Rome
Twelve is a number
Twelve is also a word
We have used it in ways
that are rarely observed
Twelve months
Twelve apostles
Twelve birthdays
Looking for fossils
Twelve is the earliest possible lifetime of the numbers
This poem was written
Without using drugs
It arises quite naturally
From a recent study
Of microscopic bugs
The molecules in my head
Are arranged in tight patterns
That struggle to deliver
Important messages to my liver
As I float down the river
A sword in my left hand
Wonderful images of an ancient land
In that moment I decide not to stand
To listen to that ragtime band
Jealous neighbours stop and stare
As I stroke my golden hair
I wonder what is over there
A buried treasure in a rabbit's lair
If you feel at all confused
I think my brain cells are all fused
Too many words have been used
Keeping the population so amused
My life is a series of random events
Following an unseen plan
Written upside down
And closely guarded
By those who live in tiny tents
I am an influential soul
Waiting for the stones to roll
Throw me a mirror
Draw me a path
Interrupt this nonsense
Make me laugh
Grab reality in your left hand
And shake it hard to understand
If you think
This poem is bizarre
Move away carefully
Go wait in the car
Strangled moments
In a plastic cup
Do I sleep on
Or do I wake up
The dream continues
Now that I have your attention
Megan's Map of the Universe
I like the quote on the front page - "The realization that I am traveling nowhere in particular has given me the courage to abandon all pretense of being on course.
Perhaps this is the only way to discover the most mysterious realm of all - the kingdom of "no-Self".
Anecdotes? about Buddhism??
http://www.talespinner.net/Para7.htm
http://www.cresourcei.org/freedom.html
http://www.ussc.alltheweb.com/cgi-bin/search?offset=30&type=all&query=The+Power+of+the+Human+Paradox&exec=FAST+Search
Ye Olde Consciousness Shoppe - see paradox.htm or the search above ... {all from a message at Chopra forum that caught my eye ...)
Also did a candle meditation for first time in ages - it IS quite symbolic in terms of giving off heat and light and yet only "alive" while there is fuel to burn - and easily snuffed out!
Virtual candle? - {Search at
alltheweb.com}
chimes?
Online Books Page - I looked up Ovid and Metamorphoses
www.goodweekend.com.au
Perfection - site has links etc to places like wowzone which has poetry & stuff also ...
Ties that bind - The author also wrote about Sai Baba
http://www.mydirect.com/web/html/mycommunity/extra/digicam/
Message # 51267 at Chopra Forum
Plus added a couple to Inspiration Peak Forums - in their quotes section - "do unto others" & "Cast the first stone" & "Love thy enemy" & why & Alan article as below ...
JUMANJI ROSWELL TOPIARY
Info about Spirit Webring & Random site? in the webring
Footy Facts Updates for software?
Interesting Newsletter & some meditations/visualisations
Excerpt from one of Alan's articles -
When I telephoned my friend Jack, his wife told me, "Jack isn't available at the moment-- he's sleeping for world peace." Sleeping for world peace. Hmmm. Has sort of a nice ring to it. Maybe it's a wise path to cultivate. Sometimes the most powerful action you can take toward solving a problem is to step back and allow the healing power of nature to take its course. If you try to fix something from a position of fear, anger, confusion, victimization, or self-righteousness, you will not be effective. You tap into greater strength by letting go than acting out of anxiety. Buddha said, "Don't just do something--stand there."
Ram Dass underscored the importance of the energy we imbue in our actions. "You may be marching for world peace," he suggests, "but if you are immersed in anger, hatred, or divisiveness, you are sending out a set of vibrations that is just causing more war."
... When we sleep deeply, our soul returns to Spirit, and we are directly in communion and communication with the mind of God. Much physical, emotional, and mental healing occurs during sleep that we do not obtain when we are immersed in the activities of the world. No kidding, sleeping may ultimately be your greatest contribution to world peace. When you take care of your soul, you bring a whole and happy person to your loved ones, your work, the world, and, most important, yourself.
Full article is Here
Inspiration Peak Forums - should send a list of poetry/other sites ...
Feature articles at Convergence website
Article on James Twyman
More Book reviews - including Alan Cohen who wrote that fabulous piece "Are you as happy as your dog?"
more links than you'd ever need ...
Random Link ? and can add your page to their database?
http://www2.4anything.com/ - another search engine ...
Responding to an enquiry about CWG, I found a few more links/excerpts/reviews -
Helped pick me up after a very flat coupla days ...
From CWG -
Hey, I'm all for enlightenment! Why don't we end this chapter with a joke?
Good idea. You got one?
No, but you do. Tell the one about the little girl drawing a picture.
Oh, yes, that one. Okay. Well a Mommy came into the kitchen one day to find her little girl at the table, crayons everywhere, deeply concentrating on a freehand picture she was creating. "My, what are you so busy drawing?" the Mommy asked. "It's a picture of God, Mommy" the beautiful girl replied, eyes shining. "Oh honey, that's so sweet, the Mommy said, trying to be helpful. "But, you know, noone really knows what God looks like." "Well," chirped the little girl, "if you'll just let me finish …"
That's a beautiful little joke. Do you know what's most beautiful? The little girl never doubted that she knew exactly how to draw Me!
Yes.
Now, I'll tell you a story and with that we can end this chapter.
Alright.
There once was a man who suddenly found himself spending hours each week writing a book. Day after day he would race to pad and pen -–sometimes in the middle of the night – to capture each new inspiration. Finally, someone asked him what he was up to. "Oh," he replied "I'm writing down a very long conversation I'm having with God."
"That's very sweet," his friend indulged him, "but, you know, noone really knows for sure what God would say." "Well," the man grinned, "if you'll just let me finish."
PLus The Real Patch Adams
Spirit wants us to know that we have got to throw away that part of us that says, 'I have to know what the future is. I have to know where I am going and when I will get there.' - Lee Carroll
From Chopra Forum -
Discovery Health - your Mental Health
From Inspiration Peak forum - about the color of the sky
{sounds like a lyric from Yes and
Close to the Edge}
7 Natural Wonders of the world (one family's view - 2 are in Australia)
Half an idea for a poem - aint written one in several weeks - something about my current infinite loop of awareness and eternity holds no fears for me as I've alreay been in here forever.
Posted a question at the Forum at Inspiration Peak - about learning FROM children rather than focusing on "teaching" them to become like us ...
*** Should type a few into separate file! - kids.htm - remind me to do so! ***
... I did ...
{Though a scanner would be nice as the kids own handwriting adds much charm to the overall feel of the book}
After reading it - several times I burst into laughter at the bustop! Few books can make you do that. Anyway, after reading it, a devastatingly simple questiion popped into my head. the sort of question you'd normally expect only a child could ask ... "Why doesn't everybody love everybody?" If you ask that as an adult you're likely to be regarded as a trifle odd but it is a valid question and who could fully explain why things are as they are rather than as we can imagine.
Should do a websearch ...
Quote from Richard Bach - something along the lines of "living as if every thought & word & deed was being broadcast to the entire world {and in a very real sense it is}
Click for original quote - I have expanded on what he actually said ... hmm ...
How to really help people? - by waking them up or enlightening them - not by reinforcing their illusions - even if the waking up process is a bit traumatic at first ... {could develop that line of thought a little more - that's one motivation for Buddhists to attain perfect enlightenment so that they may return & help others do likewise - Shantideva - who is also mentioned in The Good Heart}
Paul Wilson site - author of all those "calm" books.
Gave me a chance to at least read some of The Good Heart and what I have read so far is wonderful. There seem to be endless ways of saying "the same thing" but some resonate more deeply - and again it can depend largely on where-I'm-at when reading it - or even the surrounding company/vibes ...
Here are a couple of quotes -
Contemplation is the simple enjoyment of the truth - Thomas AquinasAt the centre of our being is a place of pure light, a place untouched by sin or illusion - Thomas Merton
But it's the Dalai Lama's interpretation of the gospel in universal terms that is quite wonderful.
Also stopped into "Book Now" in Bendigo - I could spend a week in such a shop - Spike Milligan - Craft - Art - Louise Hay - Thomas Merton - David Stewart -
Louise Hay - australian connections too.
The Abbey of Gethsemani - many Thomas Merton links
{Ties in nicely with Chopra Forum, so i sent a link to them}
Eternity Online & for more links
http://www.members.home.com/lhennig/ - goon show MP3 page
Theory of Everything by Michio Kaku - Nice story about carp in a fishpond ... quote first part at Forum ... (DOC file) "Click on prayer wheel" for full story
Top 100 pages at Fortune city.
Another Literatus quote -
"Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none."
More quotes at Literatus
Sent message to Inspiration Peak Forums - about sunsets.
Of course you constantly the lesser thought, the smaller idea, the tiniest concept of your power, to say nothing of Me and Mine. You've been taught to.
My God, how can I undo the teaching
A good question, and addressed to just the right person!You can undo the teaching by reading and re-reading this book. Over and over again, read it. Until you undersatnd every passage. When you can quote its passages to others, when you can bring its passage to mind in the midst of the darkest hour, then you will have "undone the teaching".
...
There are no "shoulds" or "shouldnt's" in God's world. Do what you want to do. Do what reflects you, what re-presents you as a grander version of your Self. If you want to feel bad, feel bad
But judge not, neither condemn. For you know not why a thing occurs nor to what end
And remember this: that which you condemn will condemn you, and that which you judge you will one day become.
Yet, bless all - for all is the creation of God.
Click for interview
Zing - Online community with photo albums and electronic greeting cards.
Deepak Chopra interview with Larry King about How to know God
A few more ideas -
{Yes, one day i will weave all these strands into one (vaguely) coherent work ...
"What do I think? I have no opinion either way. If you clutter your mind up with too many opinions there's no room for it to move."
"Oh please ... I'm NO MORE special than anyone else. It's just that at our normal everyday levels of awareness and consciousness we do tend (love) to categorise. It's a tough habit to break."
Interesting discussion about whether people experiencing "hallucinations" (I prefer the word "visions") are psychotic or are they exercising faculties the rest of the population have yet to awaken ... "We're not crazy. We're just in touch with something eceryone lese is not YET aware of. We're just a little bit ahead of the rest. Yet I can fully understand the fear/disbelief. I have lived in fear myself until recently - it is not a pleasant place to live. In fact, if you are carrying around fear of any description, you are not really living, you are in fact dying ... {Oh, that little section was perfectly worded as I soaked in the bath. Oh well ...}
Also a discussion of the "lifestyle" most modern folk lead. In the hectic rush of being in the mainstream, there is precious little time to be reflective or contemplative. That's why poeple are doing "crazy" things. They have lost touch with themselves. You could argue quite strongly that they are the ones who are living a delusion. (And I have so argued in the past)
{Vivid descriptions in Phoenix Rising about astral travel and encountering spirits and visions of what the future holds ... may type more excerpts if I can be bothered ... (no pun intended) Also the description of her past-lives and those who she thought were her "ancestors" were indeed herself!
Did some more art - soft pastels - without even trying (at a conscious level anyway) I created a "face" in the sand of a seaside landscape - much like the "face on mars" ...
I keep having these thoughts which seem to come from "nowhere". So, I just record them for interest's sake -
Viewed through ordinary levels of consciousness, the world will never make any sense. So, you have two choices. One is to live in fear and ignorance. The other is to make some attempt to access other levels or awareness/consciousness. A good analogy is trying to explain the Thory of Relativity to a five-year-old. The explanation may be perfectly coherent and lucid but the 5YO is quite incapable of understanding it just yet. The child's intelligence and knowledge needs to expand and grow through several stages until it can begin to comprehend the explanation. So, in 10 or 15 years, they may understand it better than the person giving the explanation. However, if they happen to spend those 15 years in an environment where no formal learning takes place and they will be no closer to understanding it. At five-years-old they are in fact incapable of even imagining the levels of knowledge and understanding and awareness that are available.
"I honestly believe the truth resides inside EACH of us ... if we just stop distracting ourselves long enough to get in touch with it."
Reading more of Phoenix Rising. Even after all the books I have read and been amazed by in the past year, this one really grabbed me. It explores quite a few of the themes in "ET 101" and "Native Wisdom for White Minds" about Native peoples and their loss of identity and religious practices. The descriptions of astral journies with the shaman are incredible.
It has a lot to say about those who charge outrageous amounts for "enlightenmnet" or guidance. That got me thinking that it could be the "poorest" members of this society who may be the MOST ready and receptive as they have not been willing or able to "adapt" to this dysfunctional paradigm. "From a very early age, there was this voice in my head saying 'What? This is the way people live? You have GOT to be kidding me! It's ridiculous. I'm expected to conform to that? Get real, that just is NOT going to happen.' And in the theoretical situation of being asked to choose conformity or death, I'd have no hesitation choosing the second option. Conformity is merely a slower and more horrible way to die."
I am sure there will come a DAY when we look back on this period of human history and ask HOW did anyone stay sane AT ALL. It is an insane way to live. {I wonder if I should put that little section into the Newsletter}
I did do some excerpts of Phoenix Rising
Close To The Edge lyrics
Should also update homestead & forutne city sites ... or not ...
A couple of note from yesterday which I forgot to record - "I make no apology for saying these things. If 'normality' means living with fear, worry, mistrust and judgement of others and clinging to an uninspired and impoverished picture of reality then I have no desire to be normal. I also have fond expectations for everyone to experience something far grander than that which we currently call 'normality'.
