Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality.
- A Course in Miracles
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
quote by Baal Shem-Tov (1700 - 1760)
From every human being there rises a light that reaches straight to heaven. And when two human souls that are destined for each other find one another, their streams of light flow together and a single brighter light goes forth from their united being.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
quote from The Eloquence of Living, by Vimala Thakar
Only human beings living in freedom can create a new society, a new dimension of consciousness in which the tenderness of love and compassion can flower in each human heart.
The Eloquence of Living: Meeting Life With Freshness, Fearlessness, and Compassion
The Eloquence of Living: Meeting Life With Freshness, Fearlessness, and Compassion
from Satsang with Tyohar
Let my silence touch you. Only if we meet in this silent space, the magic happens. If we meet on the surface, on the mind frequency, it is a dull meeting. Satsang (meeting with the truth) can happen only if you can allow me to reflect your silence, your utter silence, where nothing is moving; no hopes, no expectations, no anticipation for something to happen, no judgment about what is happening or protection from it, nothing. When you simply become Present, Empty. I have nothing to give you but this invitation, to Be here with me, in this space which is beyond the mind.
For more info on Tyohar, see http://www.pachamama.com/
For more info on Tyohar, see http://www.pachamama.com/
from the Mundaka Upanishads
Self is everywhere, shining forth from all beings,
vaster than the vast, subtler than the most subtle,
unreachable, yet nearer than breath, than heartbeat.
Eye cannot see it, ear cannot hear it nor tongue
utter it; only in deep absorption can the mind,
grown pure and silent, merge with the formless truth.
He who finds it is free; he has found himself;
he has solved the great riddle; his heart is forever at peace.
Whole, he enters the Whole. His personal self
returns to its radiant, intimate, deathless source.
As rivers lose name and form when they disappear
into the sea, the sage leaves behind all traces
when he disappears into the light. Perceiving the truth,
he becomes the truth; he passes beyond all suffering,
beyond death; all the knots of his heart are loosed.
vaster than the vast, subtler than the most subtle,
unreachable, yet nearer than breath, than heartbeat.
Eye cannot see it, ear cannot hear it nor tongue
utter it; only in deep absorption can the mind,
grown pure and silent, merge with the formless truth.
He who finds it is free; he has found himself;
he has solved the great riddle; his heart is forever at peace.
Whole, he enters the Whole. His personal self
returns to its radiant, intimate, deathless source.
As rivers lose name and form when they disappear
into the sea, the sage leaves behind all traces
when he disappears into the light. Perceiving the truth,
he becomes the truth; he passes beyond all suffering,
beyond death; all the knots of his heart are loosed.
You Are Christ's Hands
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out
Christ's compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.
- Saint Teresa of Avila
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out
Christ's compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.
- Saint Teresa of Avila
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Two by Basho
Sitting silently, doing nothing,
Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The temple bell stops
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.
Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The temple bell stops
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars,
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
attributed to Max Ehrmann, 1927
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars,
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
attributed to Max Ehrmann, 1927
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Our Deepest Fear, by Marianne Williamson
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to manifest the glory of God within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to manifest the glory of God within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Aloha and Namaste
Aloha in the Hawaiian language means affection, love, peace, compassion, mercy, goodbye and hello, among other sentiments of a similar nature. The word aloha derives from the Hawaiian words also meaning "presence," "front," "face," or "share"; and ha, meaning "breath of life" or "essence of life." In ancient times - and to this day - Hawaiians put their foreheads together and say "alo," and then breathe out say "ha," thus literally facing and exchanging their life's breath.
Namaste in the Indian language means "I honour the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honour the place in you which is of Love, of Truth, of Light and of Peace; when you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One."
from http://www.aloha-namaste.com/
Namaste in the Indian language means "I honour the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honour the place in you which is of Love, of Truth, of Light and of Peace; when you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One."
from http://www.aloha-namaste.com/
from Osho
Man creates his own confusion just because he goes on rejecting himself, condemning himself, not accepting himself. Then a chain of confusion, inner chaos and misery is created. Why don't you accept yourrself as you are?
Chinese wisdom
Greed makes man poor in this life, for the abundance of this world does not make him rich. Happy is he who is without sickness, and rich who is without debt.
a quote by Dostoevsky
Love all that has been created by God, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf and every ray of light. Love the beasts and the birds, love the plants, love every separate fragment. If you love each separate fragment, you will understand the mystery of the whole resting in God.
excerpts from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche
He who will one day teach men to fly will have moved all boundary stones; the boundary stones themselves will fly up into the air before him, and he will rebaptize the earth - "the light one."
The ostrich runs faster than the fastest horse, but even he buries his head gravely in the grave earth; even so, the man who has not yet learned to fly. Earth and life seem grave to him; and thus the spirit of gravity wants it. But whoever would become light and a bird must love himself: thus I teach.
Not, to be sure, with the love of the wilting and wasting; for among those even self-love stinks. One must learn to love oneself - thus I teach - with a wholesome and healthy love, so that one can bear to be with oneself and need not roam...
And verily, this is no command for today and tomorrow, to learn to love oneself. Rather, it is of all arts the subtlest, the most cunning, the ultimate, and the most patient. For whatever is his own is well concealed from the owner; and of all treasures, it is our own that we dig up last...
And verily, much that is our own is also a grave burden! And much that is inside man is like an oyster: nauseating and slippery and hard to grasp, so that a noble shell with a noble embellishment must plead for it. But this art too one must learn: to have a shell and shiny sheen and shrewd blindness. Moreover, one is deceived about many things in man because many a shell is shabby and sad and altogether too much shell. Much hidden graciousness and strength is never guessed; the most exquisite delicacies find no tasters. Women know this - the most exquisite do: a little fatter, a little slimmer - oh, how much destiny lies in so little!...
Verily, I also do not like those who consider everything good and this world the best. Such men I call the omni-satisfied. Omni-satisfaction, which knows how to taste everything, that is not the best taste. I honor the recalcitrant choosy tongues and stomachs, which have learned to say "I" and "yes" and "no."
...and the most revolting human animal that I found I baptized "parasite": it did not want to love and yet it wanted to live on love...
Cursed I call those too who must always wait; they offend my taste: all the publicans and shopkeepers and kings and other land- and storekeepers. Verily, I too have learned to wait - thoroughly - but only to wait for myself. And above all I learned to stand and walk and run and jump and climb and dance.
By many ways, in many ways, I reached my truth: it was not on one ladder that I climbed to the height where my eye roams over my distance...
A trying and questioning was my every move; and verily, one must also learn to answer such questioning. That, however, is my taste - not good, not bad, but my taste of which I am no longer ashamed and which I have no wish to hide.
"This is my way; where is yours?" - thus I answered those who asked me "the way." For the way - that does not exist.
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
The ostrich runs faster than the fastest horse, but even he buries his head gravely in the grave earth; even so, the man who has not yet learned to fly. Earth and life seem grave to him; and thus the spirit of gravity wants it. But whoever would become light and a bird must love himself: thus I teach.
Not, to be sure, with the love of the wilting and wasting; for among those even self-love stinks. One must learn to love oneself - thus I teach - with a wholesome and healthy love, so that one can bear to be with oneself and need not roam...
And verily, this is no command for today and tomorrow, to learn to love oneself. Rather, it is of all arts the subtlest, the most cunning, the ultimate, and the most patient. For whatever is his own is well concealed from the owner; and of all treasures, it is our own that we dig up last...
And verily, much that is our own is also a grave burden! And much that is inside man is like an oyster: nauseating and slippery and hard to grasp, so that a noble shell with a noble embellishment must plead for it. But this art too one must learn: to have a shell and shiny sheen and shrewd blindness. Moreover, one is deceived about many things in man because many a shell is shabby and sad and altogether too much shell. Much hidden graciousness and strength is never guessed; the most exquisite delicacies find no tasters. Women know this - the most exquisite do: a little fatter, a little slimmer - oh, how much destiny lies in so little!...
Verily, I also do not like those who consider everything good and this world the best. Such men I call the omni-satisfied. Omni-satisfaction, which knows how to taste everything, that is not the best taste. I honor the recalcitrant choosy tongues and stomachs, which have learned to say "I" and "yes" and "no."
...and the most revolting human animal that I found I baptized "parasite": it did not want to love and yet it wanted to live on love...
Cursed I call those too who must always wait; they offend my taste: all the publicans and shopkeepers and kings and other land- and storekeepers. Verily, I too have learned to wait - thoroughly - but only to wait for myself. And above all I learned to stand and walk and run and jump and climb and dance.
By many ways, in many ways, I reached my truth: it was not on one ladder that I climbed to the height where my eye roams over my distance...
A trying and questioning was my every move; and verily, one must also learn to answer such questioning. That, however, is my taste - not good, not bad, but my taste of which I am no longer ashamed and which I have no wish to hide.
"This is my way; where is yours?" - thus I answered those who asked me "the way." For the way - that does not exist.
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
on Maturity
The test of maturity, for nations as well as individuals, is not the increase in power, but the increase of self-understanding, self-control, self direction and self-transcendance. For in a mature society, man himself, and not his machines or his organizations, is the chief work of art.
- Lewis Mumford
- Lewis Mumford
selections from The Me Nobody Knows
Windy windy windy skys
deep blue fallen over my eyes.
The clouds so white
as the sun is bright
The sea is so blue in place
as the wind blows in your face
The birds so loud and clear
as if you feel a soft hand
in the air.
- N.W., Age 15
Snowflakes fall with grace
And cover city's dirt
Why do you leave so soon?
Little Bird alone
In a branch of snowy pine
Please do not be so sad
- N.T., Age 14
When I first get up in the morning I feel fresh and it seems like it would be a good day to me. But after I get in school, things change and they seem to turn into problems for me. And by the end of the day I don't even feel like I'm young. I feel tired.
Victor Y., Age 13
Spring turns into
Summer my hate into like
And Fall comes once again.
- C.S., Age 14
The Hopeless Tree
There was a man waiting under a baby apple tree. He was waiting for an apple to grow on it. He would just sit there and wait and wait but it never grew. He watered it every day but it just didn't grow. No matter what he did, it did not grow. So the man got discouraged and gave up hope for the tree. He wanted to cut it down. So one day he decided to do it. He said he would do it on a Sunday afternoon, rain or snow. So on Sunday there was a fog and he could not see the tree and so he did not cut it down.
The following Sunday a baby apple was hanging on it.
- Curtis M., Age 14
deep blue fallen over my eyes.
The clouds so white
as the sun is bright
The sea is so blue in place
as the wind blows in your face
The birds so loud and clear
as if you feel a soft hand
in the air.
- N.W., Age 15
Snowflakes fall with grace
And cover city's dirt
Why do you leave so soon?
Little Bird alone
In a branch of snowy pine
Please do not be so sad
- N.T., Age 14
When I first get up in the morning I feel fresh and it seems like it would be a good day to me. But after I get in school, things change and they seem to turn into problems for me. And by the end of the day I don't even feel like I'm young. I feel tired.
Victor Y., Age 13
Spring turns into
Summer my hate into like
And Fall comes once again.
- C.S., Age 14
The Hopeless Tree
There was a man waiting under a baby apple tree. He was waiting for an apple to grow on it. He would just sit there and wait and wait but it never grew. He watered it every day but it just didn't grow. No matter what he did, it did not grow. So the man got discouraged and gave up hope for the tree. He wanted to cut it down. So one day he decided to do it. He said he would do it on a Sunday afternoon, rain or snow. So on Sunday there was a fog and he could not see the tree and so he did not cut it down.
The following Sunday a baby apple was hanging on it.
- Curtis M., Age 14
on Money, Integrity and Independence
He that is without money might as well be buried in a rice tub with his mouth sewed up.
- Chinese Proverb
There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no independence quite so important, as living within your means.
- Calvin Coolidge
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing what they could and should do for themselves.
- Abraham Lincoln
- Chinese Proverb
There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no independence quite so important, as living within your means.
- Calvin Coolidge
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing what they could and should do for themselves.
- Abraham Lincoln
on Discipline
There is nothing so disobedient as an undisciplined mind, and there is nothing so obedient as a disciplined mind.
- The Buddha
Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.
- Julie Andrews
- The Buddha
Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.
- Julie Andrews
quote by Shunryu Suzuki
Just to be there in the corner of the garden is enough. There is no special path which is true.
excerpt from Ox-Cart Man, by Donald Hall
and in May they planted potatoes, turnips, and cabbages,
while apple blossoms bloomed and fell,
while bees woke up, starting to make new honey,
and geese squawked in the barnyard,
dropping feathers as soft as clouds.
while apple blossoms bloomed and fell,
while bees woke up, starting to make new honey,
and geese squawked in the barnyard,
dropping feathers as soft as clouds.
When the Sun Rose, by Barbara Helen Berger
When the sun rose today, a friend came to visit me.
She came in a carriage bright as the sun.
Even the stones in the road were shining.
Her lion stopped at my gate.
Then she got out of her carriage and came to my door.
I opened it and said, "Come in!"
The lion came in with her.
I was afraid.
Yet his feet were quiet as sunlight on the floor.
And my whole playhouse was warm.
We sat down and had some honeycake and tea.
The lion had blueberries with cream.
Then our dolls traded dresses.
The lion purred.
And we made rainbows all day.
Then my friend had to say goodbye.
Her carriage was gold as sunset.
"Will you come again?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "I promise."
All the way, I watched her going home.
Even the stones had long shadows.
Now it is dark.
My friend is gone.
But she will keep her promise, I know,
for the rainbow we made still shines on the wall.
And my house is full of roses.
She came in a carriage bright as the sun.
Even the stones in the road were shining.
Her lion stopped at my gate.
Then she got out of her carriage and came to my door.
I opened it and said, "Come in!"
The lion came in with her.
I was afraid.
Yet his feet were quiet as sunlight on the floor.
And my whole playhouse was warm.
We sat down and had some honeycake and tea.
The lion had blueberries with cream.
Then our dolls traded dresses.
The lion purred.
And we made rainbows all day.
Then my friend had to say goodbye.
Her carriage was gold as sunset.
"Will you come again?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "I promise."
All the way, I watched her going home.
Even the stones had long shadows.
Now it is dark.
My friend is gone.
But she will keep her promise, I know,
for the rainbow we made still shines on the wall.
And my house is full of roses.
Monday, June 28, 2010
an ancient Chinese adage
When parents and children combine efforts,
Mountains are fashioned into gems;
When elder and younger children are harmonious,
The earth is changed into gold.
Mountains are fashioned into gems;
When elder and younger children are harmonious,
The earth is changed into gold.
Work Can Be Fun
The thing I recall most from my father is that working wasn't working, it was fun.
- Gertrude Ramsey Crain, founder, Crain Communications (fortune estimated over $300 million)
- Gertrude Ramsey Crain, founder, Crain Communications (fortune estimated over $300 million)
quote by Pearl S. Buck
Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up.
quote by William James
The greatest revolution in our generation is that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds can change the outer aspects of their lives.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
from The Voice for Love
To watch another struggle or experience pain is an opportunity
to open your heart and allow God's love to pour forth,
unconditionally and without reservation.
Allow your love to wash away the pain, not only of your brothers and sisters,
but of the pain you feel as well in watching them suffer.
- an inspirational quote emailed from http://www.thevoiceforlove.com/
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
from the play Our Town, by Thorton Wilder
Emily: It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back - up the hill - to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by world. Good-by, Grover's Corner's . . . Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking . . . and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths . . . and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do human beings ever realize life while they live it? - every, every minute?
on Adulthood
We will never have a firm grasp of how to raise children until we have come to some collective understanding of what it means, morally as well as occupationally, to be an adult. One of the things that the dropouts and other misfits of the 60s were trying to tell the grown-up world was that the available models of adulthood were not acceptable - at least not to young people who had learned to distinguish the worthy from the absurd.
- Barbara Ehrenreich, reviewing Bruno Bettleheim's book A Good Enough Parent, New York Times Book Review, May 24, 1987
- Barbara Ehrenreich, reviewing Bruno Bettleheim's book A Good Enough Parent, New York Times Book Review, May 24, 1987
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Happiness, by Dale Carnegie
Happiness does not depend on who you are or what you have; it depends soley on what you think.
selections from the book: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
bel far niente: the beauty of doing nothing
She said to me once, while regarding herself in a mirror, "Admittedly, I am not the one who looks fantastic in everything, but still I cannot help loving myself."
"You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not." - Epictetus
Yoga is about self-mastery and the dedicated effort to haul your attention away from your endless brooding over the past and your nonstop worrying about the future so that you can seek, instead, a place of eternal presence from which you may regard yourself and your surroundings with poise. Only from that point of even-mindedness will the true nature of the world (and yourself) be revealed to you. True Yogis, from their seat of equipoise, see all this world as an equal manifestation of God's creative energy - men, women, children, turnips, bedbugs, coral: it's all God in disguise.
One of the boys spends all day scrubbing beside me, lecturing me earnestly on how to best perform my work here: "Take seriously. Make punctual. Be cool and easy. Remember - everything you do, you do for God. And everything God does, He do for you."
Look for God, suggests my Guru. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.
So I stood up and did a handstand on my Guru's roof, to celebrate the notion of liberation. I felt the dusty tiles under my hands. I felt my own strength and balance. I felt the easy night breeze on the palms of my bare feet. This kind of thing - a spontaneous handstand - isn't something a disembodied cool blue soul can do, but a human being can do it. We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands.
I close my eyes and let the mantra come. I climb down that ladder into my own hub of stillness. When I get there, I can feel the world halt, the way I always wanted it to halt when I was nine years old and panicking about the relentlessness of time. In my heart, the clock stops and the calendar pages quit flying off the wall. I sit in silent wonder at all I understand. I am not actively praying. I have become a prayer.
He keeps his body strong, he says, by meditating every night before sleep and by pulling the healthy energy of the universe into his core. He says that the human body is made of nothing more or less than the five elements of all creation - water, fire, wind, sky and earth - and all you have to do is concentrate on this reality during meditation and you will receive energy from all of these sources and you will stay strong. "The microcosm becomes the macrocosm. You - microcosm - will become same as universe - macrocosm."
God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now.
* * *
She said to me once, while regarding herself in a mirror, "Admittedly, I am not the one who looks fantastic in everything, but still I cannot help loving myself."
* * *
"You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not." - Epictetus
* * *
Yoga is about self-mastery and the dedicated effort to haul your attention away from your endless brooding over the past and your nonstop worrying about the future so that you can seek, instead, a place of eternal presence from which you may regard yourself and your surroundings with poise. Only from that point of even-mindedness will the true nature of the world (and yourself) be revealed to you. True Yogis, from their seat of equipoise, see all this world as an equal manifestation of God's creative energy - men, women, children, turnips, bedbugs, coral: it's all God in disguise.
* * *
One of the boys spends all day scrubbing beside me, lecturing me earnestly on how to best perform my work here: "Take seriously. Make punctual. Be cool and easy. Remember - everything you do, you do for God. And everything God does, He do for you."
* * *
Look for God, suggests my Guru. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.
* * *
So I stood up and did a handstand on my Guru's roof, to celebrate the notion of liberation. I felt the dusty tiles under my hands. I felt my own strength and balance. I felt the easy night breeze on the palms of my bare feet. This kind of thing - a spontaneous handstand - isn't something a disembodied cool blue soul can do, but a human being can do it. We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands.
* * *
I close my eyes and let the mantra come. I climb down that ladder into my own hub of stillness. When I get there, I can feel the world halt, the way I always wanted it to halt when I was nine years old and panicking about the relentlessness of time. In my heart, the clock stops and the calendar pages quit flying off the wall. I sit in silent wonder at all I understand. I am not actively praying. I have become a prayer.
* * *
He keeps his body strong, he says, by meditating every night before sleep and by pulling the healthy energy of the universe into his core. He says that the human body is made of nothing more or less than the five elements of all creation - water, fire, wind, sky and earth - and all you have to do is concentrate on this reality during meditation and you will receive energy from all of these sources and you will stay strong. "The microcosm becomes the macrocosm. You - microcosm - will become same as universe - macrocosm."
* * *
God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now.
Four in All, by Nina Payne (2001)
eyes ears nose mouth
east west north south
oats wheat corn rye
sun moon stars sky
floor table chair bed
yellow green blue red
one two three four
roof window chimney door
bird fish bear snake
ocean river puddle lake
fork plat knife spoon
morning evening midnight noon
earth air fire water
mother father son daughter
east west north south
oats wheat corn rye
sun moon stars sky
floor table chair bed
yellow green blue red
one two three four
roof window chimney door
bird fish bear snake
ocean river puddle lake
fork plat knife spoon
morning evening midnight noon
earth air fire water
mother father son daughter
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Suddenly one day
Suddenly one day everything is empty like space, and you are aware of one principle pervading all the 10,000 things. You know then that your heart is so vast that it can never be measured.
- Daikaku
- Daikaku
Your Body
Your body is an extension of basic goodness.
It is the closest implement, or tool,
that you have to express basic goodness,
so appreciating your body is very important.
- Chogyam Trungpa
How to Spend an Hour
If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently and replace it tenderly in its Master's presence. And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back and place it again in Our Lord's presence, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.
- Saint Francis de Sales
- Saint Francis de Sales
Albert Einstein
Out of clutter, find simplicity
From Dischord, find Harmony.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
From Dischord, find Harmony.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Again and again some people in the crowd wake up,
They have no ground in the crowd,
And they emerge according to much broader laws.
They carry strange customs with them
And demand room for bold gestures.
The future speaks ruthlessly through them.
They have no ground in the crowd,
And they emerge according to much broader laws.
They carry strange customs with them
And demand room for bold gestures.
The future speaks ruthlessly through them.
on being yourself
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
- Goethe
When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.
- Lao-Tzu
Healing may not be so much about getting better as about letting go of everything that isn't you - all of the expectations, all of the beliefs - and becoming who you are.
- Rachel Naomi Remen
When you are not trying to become anybody else, when you accept yourself, then you simply relax into what you are, . . . and grace and harmony and splendor arise . . . the tremendous beauty of being yourself.
- Tishan
- Goethe
When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.
- Lao-Tzu
Healing may not be so much about getting better as about letting go of everything that isn't you - all of the expectations, all of the beliefs - and becoming who you are.
- Rachel Naomi Remen
When you are not trying to become anybody else, when you accept yourself, then you simply relax into what you are, . . . and grace and harmony and splendor arise . . . the tremendous beauty of being yourself.
- Tishan
The Preface, from The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde (first published in 1891)
The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or
a new material his impression of beautiful things.
a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but
the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is
an unpardonable mannerism of style.
an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbols do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art if quite useless.
Friday, May 28, 2010
An Apache Blessing
May the sun
bring you new energy by day,
may the moon
softly restore you by night,
may the rain
wash away your worries
may the breeze
blow new strength into your being.
May you walk
gently through the world and know
its beauty all the days of your life.
bring you new energy by day,
may the moon
softly restore you by night,
may the rain
wash away your worries
may the breeze
blow new strength into your being.
May you walk
gently through the world and know
its beauty all the days of your life.
A Morning Prayer, by Marianne Williamson
Dear God,
Thank You for this new day,
its beauty and its light.
Thank You for my chance to begin again.
Free me from the limitations
of yesterday.
Today may I be reborn.
May I become more fully a
reflection of Your radiance.
Give me strength and compassion
and courage and wisdom.
Show me the light in
myself and others.
May I recognize the good
that is available everywhere.
May I be, this day, an instrument
of love and healing.
Lead me into gentle pastures.
Give me deep peace that
I might serve You most deeply.
Amen.
Thank You for this new day,
its beauty and its light.
Thank You for my chance to begin again.
Free me from the limitations
of yesterday.
Today may I be reborn.
May I become more fully a
reflection of Your radiance.
Give me strength and compassion
and courage and wisdom.
Show me the light in
myself and others.
May I recognize the good
that is available everywhere.
May I be, this day, an instrument
of love and healing.
Lead me into gentle pastures.
Give me deep peace that
I might serve You most deeply.
Amen.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Ancient Celtic Prayer to the Nine-Fold Elements
I arise today
through strength of heaven,
light of sun,
radiance of moon,
splendour of fire,
speed of lightening,
swiftness of wind,
depth of sea,
stability of earth,
firmness of rock.
through strength of heaven,
light of sun,
radiance of moon,
splendour of fire,
speed of lightening,
swiftness of wind,
depth of sea,
stability of earth,
firmness of rock.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Trees, a poem by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1913)
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
This Is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
William Carlos Williams, Selected Poems (1212 - 1962)
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
William Carlos Williams, Selected Poems (1212 - 1962)
The Light of Smiles
I will light the match of smiles. My gloom veil will disappear. I shall behold my soul in the light of my smiles, hidden behind the accumulated darkness of ages. When I find myself, I shall race through all hearts with the torch of my soul-smiles. My heart will smile first, then my eyes and my face. Every body-part will shine in the light of smiles.
I will run amid the thickets of melancholy hearts and make a bonfire of all sorrows. I am the irresistible fire of smiles. I will fan myself with the breeze of God-joy and blaze my way through the darkness of all minds. My smiles will convey His smiles and whoever meets me will catch a whiff of my divine joy. I will carry fragrant purifying torches of smiles for all hearts.
from Metaphysical Meditations by Paramahansa Yogananda (1982).
I will run amid the thickets of melancholy hearts and make a bonfire of all sorrows. I am the irresistible fire of smiles. I will fan myself with the breeze of God-joy and blaze my way through the darkness of all minds. My smiles will convey His smiles and whoever meets me will catch a whiff of my divine joy. I will carry fragrant purifying torches of smiles for all hearts.
from Metaphysical Meditations by Paramahansa Yogananda (1982).
An Attitude Adjustment Admonishment, delivered in the language of Love
Change of attitude can come in the twinkling of an eye. You can be down in the depth of despair one moment and in seventh heaven the next, so change and change quickly and dance and sing through this day hand in hand with Me. Let us do what has to be done with joy and thanksgiving and deepest love.
Channeled guidance through Eileen Caddy of Findhorn
Channeled guidance through Eileen Caddy of Findhorn
Thursday, May 6, 2010
The Gate Keepers
Gatekeepers are people who live a life at the edge between two worlds - the world of the village and the world of spirit. Though they do not marry in this world, they say they have partners in other dimensions.
Everybody in the village respects [them] because without gatekeepers, there is no access to other worlds. Most people in the West define themselves and others by sexual orientation. This way of looking at gatekeepers will kill the spirit of the gatekeeper. Gatekeepers in the village are able to do their job simply because of strong spiritual connection, and also their ability to direct their sexual energy not to other people but to spirit.
The gatekeepers stand on the threshold of the gender line. They are mediators between the two genders. They make sure that there is peace and balance between women and men. If the two genders are in conflict and the whole village is caught in it, the gatekeepers are the ones to bring peace. Gatekeepers do not take sides. They simply act as "the sword of truth and integrity."
[One] group of gatekeepers has the responsibility of overseeing all the gates. . . . They have one foot in all the other worlds and the other foot here. This is why the vibration of their body is totally different from others. They also have access to other-dimensional entities such as the kontombile, small beings who are very magical and knowledgeable. They are known as leprechauns in the Irish tradition.
I once heard that one of the reasons why gatekeepers are able to open gates to other dimensions is in the way they use their sexual energy. Their ability to focus their sexual energy in a particular way allows them to open and close different gates.
In the village they are not seen as the other [like gays in the West]. They are not forced to create a separate community in order to survive. People do not put a negative label on them; they are regarded no differently than any other child of the village. They are born gatekeepers, with specific purposes, and are encouraged to fulfill the role they're born to in the interests of the community.
- excerpts from The Spirit of Intimacy: Ancient African Teachings in the Ways of Relationships by Sobonfu Some (1997).
Everybody in the village respects [them] because without gatekeepers, there is no access to other worlds. Most people in the West define themselves and others by sexual orientation. This way of looking at gatekeepers will kill the spirit of the gatekeeper. Gatekeepers in the village are able to do their job simply because of strong spiritual connection, and also their ability to direct their sexual energy not to other people but to spirit.
The gatekeepers stand on the threshold of the gender line. They are mediators between the two genders. They make sure that there is peace and balance between women and men. If the two genders are in conflict and the whole village is caught in it, the gatekeepers are the ones to bring peace. Gatekeepers do not take sides. They simply act as "the sword of truth and integrity."
[One] group of gatekeepers has the responsibility of overseeing all the gates. . . . They have one foot in all the other worlds and the other foot here. This is why the vibration of their body is totally different from others. They also have access to other-dimensional entities such as the kontombile, small beings who are very magical and knowledgeable. They are known as leprechauns in the Irish tradition.
I once heard that one of the reasons why gatekeepers are able to open gates to other dimensions is in the way they use their sexual energy. Their ability to focus their sexual energy in a particular way allows them to open and close different gates.
In the village they are not seen as the other [like gays in the West]. They are not forced to create a separate community in order to survive. People do not put a negative label on them; they are regarded no differently than any other child of the village. They are born gatekeepers, with specific purposes, and are encouraged to fulfill the role they're born to in the interests of the community.
- excerpts from The Spirit of Intimacy: Ancient African Teachings in the Ways of Relationships by Sobonfu Some (1997).
Sunday, April 25, 2010
No Heave or Hanging Tongue
What makes a modern dancer great? In "Private Domain" (Knopf, 1987), the choreographer Paul Taylor tells us what he admired about Carolyn Adams, who was in his dance company for 17 years.
When you're able to get dancers, even ones as fine as Carolyn, to do a third of what you see in your head, that's a very good average. Whatever the role, her dancing was unmannered and wondrous. To put it poetically, she was an elegant nectar laced with warm delicacy, easy and effortless. To put it less poetically, she never heaved, let her tongue hand out, or even sweated. Her neck was without noticeable tendons, as was the rest of her, and she was one of those dancers who jump from the small bones of the foot without any understandable preparation. ... Both on- and offstage she gave the impression of being about the size and weight of something you could lift with one finger and drop into an eggshell. She was able to pack more steps into a second than most dancers could execute in a full minute, and she made this seem as if nothing much had happened.
[from a The New York Times clipping, undated, probably 1987]
When you're able to get dancers, even ones as fine as Carolyn, to do a third of what you see in your head, that's a very good average. Whatever the role, her dancing was unmannered and wondrous. To put it poetically, she was an elegant nectar laced with warm delicacy, easy and effortless. To put it less poetically, she never heaved, let her tongue hand out, or even sweated. Her neck was without noticeable tendons, as was the rest of her, and she was one of those dancers who jump from the small bones of the foot without any understandable preparation. ... Both on- and offstage she gave the impression of being about the size and weight of something you could lift with one finger and drop into an eggshell. She was able to pack more steps into a second than most dancers could execute in a full minute, and she made this seem as if nothing much had happened.
[from a The New York Times clipping, undated, probably 1987]
The Touch, a poem by Anne Sexton
For months my hand had been sealed off
in a tin box. Nothing was there but subway railings.
Perhaps it is bruised, I thought,
and that is why they have locked it up.
But when I looked in it lay there quietly.
You could tell time by this, I thought,
like a clock, by its five knuckles
and the thin underground veins.
It lay there like an unconscious woman
fed by tubes she know not of.
The hand had collapsed,
a small wood pigeon
that had gone into seclusion.
I turned it over and the palm was old,
its lines traced like fine needlepoint
and stitched up into the fingers.
It was fat and soft and blind in places.
Nothing but vulnerable.
And all this is metaphor.
An ordinary hand -- just lonely
for something to touch
that touches back.
The dog won't do it.
Her tail wags in the swamp for a frog.
I'm no better than a case of dog food.
She owns her own hunger.
My sisters won't do it.
They live in school except for buttons
and tears running down like lemonade.
My father won't do it.
He comes with the house and even at night
he lives in a machine made by my mother
and well oiled by his job, his job.
The trouble is
that I'd let my gestures freeze.
The trouble was not
in the kitchen or the tulips
but only in my head, my head.
Then all this became history.
Your hand found mine.
Life rushed to my fingers like a blood clot.
Oh, my carpenter,
the fingers are rebuilt.
They dance in yours.
They dance in the attic and in Vienna.
My hand is alive all over America.
Not even death will stop it,
death shedding her blood.
Nothing will stop it, for this is the kingdom
and the kingdom come.
in a tin box. Nothing was there but subway railings.
Perhaps it is bruised, I thought,
and that is why they have locked it up.
But when I looked in it lay there quietly.
You could tell time by this, I thought,
like a clock, by its five knuckles
and the thin underground veins.
It lay there like an unconscious woman
fed by tubes she know not of.
The hand had collapsed,
a small wood pigeon
that had gone into seclusion.
I turned it over and the palm was old,
its lines traced like fine needlepoint
and stitched up into the fingers.
It was fat and soft and blind in places.
Nothing but vulnerable.
And all this is metaphor.
An ordinary hand -- just lonely
for something to touch
that touches back.
The dog won't do it.
Her tail wags in the swamp for a frog.
I'm no better than a case of dog food.
She owns her own hunger.
My sisters won't do it.
They live in school except for buttons
and tears running down like lemonade.
My father won't do it.
He comes with the house and even at night
he lives in a machine made by my mother
and well oiled by his job, his job.
The trouble is
that I'd let my gestures freeze.
The trouble was not
in the kitchen or the tulips
but only in my head, my head.
Then all this became history.
Your hand found mine.
Life rushed to my fingers like a blood clot.
Oh, my carpenter,
the fingers are rebuilt.
They dance in yours.
They dance in the attic and in Vienna.
My hand is alive all over America.
Not even death will stop it,
death shedding her blood.
Nothing will stop it, for this is the kingdom
and the kingdom come.
Endings and Beginnings
We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring would be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time ... What we call the beginning is often the end and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
- T.S. Eliot
Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.
- Proverb
There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.
- found on an Avon calendar
- T.S. Eliot
* * *
Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.
- Proverb
* * *
There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.
- found on an Avon calendar
Sunday, April 18, 2010
on the Beginnings of Microfinance
Below is the Introduction to the book, Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty, in which its author, visionary educator and founder of Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus, tells the story of how he started micro-lending.
In the year 1974 Bangladesh fell into the grip of famine.
The university where I taught and served as head of the Economics Department was located in the southeastern extremity of the country, and at first we did not pay much attention to the newspaper stories of death and starvation in the remote villages of the north. But then skeleton-like people began showing up in the railway stations and bus stations of the capital, Dhaka. Soon this trickle became a flood. Hungry people were everywhere. Often they sat so still that one could not be sure whether they were alive or dead. They all looked alike: men, women, children. Old people looked like children, and children looked like old people.
The government opened gruel kitchens. But every new gruel kitchen ran out of rice. newspaper reporters tried to warn the nation of the extent of the famine. Research institutions collected statistics on the sources and causes of the sudden migration to the cities. Religious organizations mobilized groups to pick up the dead bodies from the streets and bury them with the proper rites. But soon the simple act of collecting the dead became a larger task than these groups were equipped to handle.
The starving people did not chant any slogans. They did not demand anything from us well-fed city folk. They simply lay down very quietly on our doorsteps and waited to die.
There are many ways for people to die, but somehow dying of starvation is the most unacceptable of all. It happens in slow motion. Second by second, the distance between life and death becomes smaller and smaller, until the two are in such close proximity that one can hardly tell the difference. Like sleep, death by starvation happens so quietly, so inexorably, one does not even sense it happening. And all for lack of a handful of rice at each meal. In this world of plenty, a tiny baby, who does not yet understand the mystery of the world, is allowed to cry and cry and finally fall asleep without the milk she needs to survive. The next day she may not have the strength to continue living.
I used to feel a thrill at teaching my studens the elegant economic theories that could supposedly cure societal problems of all types. But in 1974, I started to dread my own lectures. What good were all my complex theories when people were dying of starvation on the sidewalks and porches across from my lecture hall? My lessons were like the American movies where the good guys always win. But when I emerged from the comfort fo the classroom, I was faced with the reality of the city streets. Here good guys were mercilessly beaten and trampled. Daily life was getting worse, and the poor wre growing even poorer.
Nothing in the economic theories I taught reflected the life around me. How could I go on telling my students make-believe stories in the name of economics? I wanted to become a fugitive from academic life. I needed to run away from these theories and from my textboods and discover the real-life economics of a poor person's existence.
I was lucky that the village of Jobra happened to be close to the campus. In 1958, Field Marshall Ayub Khan, then president of Pakistan, had taken power in a military coup. Because of his fear of rebellious students, he decreed that all new universities be situated away from urban centers. his fear of political agitation meant that the new Chittagong University, where I was teaching, was built in a hilly section of the rural Chittagong District, next to Jobra village.
The proximity of Jobra made it a perfect choice for my new course of study. I decided I would become a student all over again, and the people of Jobra would be my professors. I vowed to learn as much as possible about the village. Traditional universities had created an enormous distance between their students and the reality of everyday life in Bangladesh. Instead of traditional book learning, I wanted to teach my university students how to understand the life of one single poor person. When you hold the world in your palm and inspect it only from a bird's eye view, you tend to become arrogant--you do not realize that things get blurred when seen from an enormous distance. I opted instead for "the worm's eye view." I hoped that if I studied poverty at close range, I would understand it more keenly.
My repeated trips to the villages around the Chittagong University campus led me to discoveries that were essential to establishing the Grameen Bank. The poor taught me an entirely new economics. I learned about the problems that they face from their own perspective. I tried a great number of things. Some worked. Others did not. One that worked well was to offer people tiny loans for self-employment. These loans provided a starting point for cottage industries and other income-generating activities that used the skills the borrowers already had.
I never imagined that my micro-lending program would be the basis for a nationwide "bank for the poor" serving 2.5 million people or that it would be adapted in more than one hundred countries spanning five continents. I was only trying to relieve my guilt and satisfy my desire to be useful to a few starving human beings. But it did not stop with a few people. Those who borrowed and survived would not let it. And after a while, neither would I.
In the year 1974 Bangladesh fell into the grip of famine.
The university where I taught and served as head of the Economics Department was located in the southeastern extremity of the country, and at first we did not pay much attention to the newspaper stories of death and starvation in the remote villages of the north. But then skeleton-like people began showing up in the railway stations and bus stations of the capital, Dhaka. Soon this trickle became a flood. Hungry people were everywhere. Often they sat so still that one could not be sure whether they were alive or dead. They all looked alike: men, women, children. Old people looked like children, and children looked like old people.
The government opened gruel kitchens. But every new gruel kitchen ran out of rice. newspaper reporters tried to warn the nation of the extent of the famine. Research institutions collected statistics on the sources and causes of the sudden migration to the cities. Religious organizations mobilized groups to pick up the dead bodies from the streets and bury them with the proper rites. But soon the simple act of collecting the dead became a larger task than these groups were equipped to handle.
The starving people did not chant any slogans. They did not demand anything from us well-fed city folk. They simply lay down very quietly on our doorsteps and waited to die.
There are many ways for people to die, but somehow dying of starvation is the most unacceptable of all. It happens in slow motion. Second by second, the distance between life and death becomes smaller and smaller, until the two are in such close proximity that one can hardly tell the difference. Like sleep, death by starvation happens so quietly, so inexorably, one does not even sense it happening. And all for lack of a handful of rice at each meal. In this world of plenty, a tiny baby, who does not yet understand the mystery of the world, is allowed to cry and cry and finally fall asleep without the milk she needs to survive. The next day she may not have the strength to continue living.
I used to feel a thrill at teaching my studens the elegant economic theories that could supposedly cure societal problems of all types. But in 1974, I started to dread my own lectures. What good were all my complex theories when people were dying of starvation on the sidewalks and porches across from my lecture hall? My lessons were like the American movies where the good guys always win. But when I emerged from the comfort fo the classroom, I was faced with the reality of the city streets. Here good guys were mercilessly beaten and trampled. Daily life was getting worse, and the poor wre growing even poorer.
Nothing in the economic theories I taught reflected the life around me. How could I go on telling my students make-believe stories in the name of economics? I wanted to become a fugitive from academic life. I needed to run away from these theories and from my textboods and discover the real-life economics of a poor person's existence.
I was lucky that the village of Jobra happened to be close to the campus. In 1958, Field Marshall Ayub Khan, then president of Pakistan, had taken power in a military coup. Because of his fear of rebellious students, he decreed that all new universities be situated away from urban centers. his fear of political agitation meant that the new Chittagong University, where I was teaching, was built in a hilly section of the rural Chittagong District, next to Jobra village.
The proximity of Jobra made it a perfect choice for my new course of study. I decided I would become a student all over again, and the people of Jobra would be my professors. I vowed to learn as much as possible about the village. Traditional universities had created an enormous distance between their students and the reality of everyday life in Bangladesh. Instead of traditional book learning, I wanted to teach my university students how to understand the life of one single poor person. When you hold the world in your palm and inspect it only from a bird's eye view, you tend to become arrogant--you do not realize that things get blurred when seen from an enormous distance. I opted instead for "the worm's eye view." I hoped that if I studied poverty at close range, I would understand it more keenly.
My repeated trips to the villages around the Chittagong University campus led me to discoveries that were essential to establishing the Grameen Bank. The poor taught me an entirely new economics. I learned about the problems that they face from their own perspective. I tried a great number of things. Some worked. Others did not. One that worked well was to offer people tiny loans for self-employment. These loans provided a starting point for cottage industries and other income-generating activities that used the skills the borrowers already had.
I never imagined that my micro-lending program would be the basis for a nationwide "bank for the poor" serving 2.5 million people or that it would be adapted in more than one hundred countries spanning five continents. I was only trying to relieve my guilt and satisfy my desire to be useful to a few starving human beings. But it did not stop with a few people. Those who borrowed and survived would not let it. And after a while, neither would I.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Life is Action, Love is Action, Prayer is Action: Channeled Guidance through Eileen Caddy of Findhorn
Over and over again I ask you to live a life, to demonstrate what you are living. Life is action, love is action, prayer is action; words are empty and fruitless without action. One small action of love can do far, far more for a soul than all the most beautiful words in the world. Be still, know Me, find Me and then go forth and live and reveal to all those you come into contact with what it means to be in direct contact with Me, not by many words but by the way you live.
God is Love: a quote by Meister Eckhart
If anyone should ask me what God is, I should answer: God is love, and so altogether lovely that creatures all essay to love his loveliness, whether they do so knowingly or unbeknownst, in joy or sorrow.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Dream Theory in Malaya, by Kilton Stewart, from the book, Altered States of Consciousness, edited by Charles Tart (1969)
The simplest anxiety or terror dream I found among the Senoi was the falling dream. When the Senoi child reports a falling dream, the adult answers with enthusiasm, "That is a wonderful dream, one of the best dreams a man can have. Where did you fall to, and what did you discover?" He makes the same comment when the child reports a climbing, traveling, flying, or soaring dream. The child at first answers as he would in our society, that it did not seem so wonderful, and that he was so frightened that he awoke before he had fallen anywhere. "That is a mistake," answers the adult-authority. "Everything you do in a dream has a purpose, beyond your understanding while you are asleep. You must relax and enjoy yourself when you fall in a dream. Falling is the quickest way to get in contact with the powers of the spirit world, the powers laid open to you through your dreams. Soon, when you have a falling dream, you will remember what I am saying and as you do, you will feel that you are traveling to the source of the power which has caused you to fall. The falling spirits love you. They are attracting you to their land and you have but to relax and remain asleep in order to come to grips with them. When you meet them, you may be frightened of their terrific power, but go on. When you think you are dying in a dream, you are only receiving the powers of the otherworld, your own spiritual power which has been turned against you, and which now wishes to become one with you if you will accept it." The astonishing thing is that over a period of time, with this type of social interaction, praise, or criticism, imperative, and advice, the dream which starts out with fear of falling changes into the joy of flying. This happens to everyone in the Senoi society. That which was an indwelling fear or anxiety, becomes an indwelling joy or act of will; that which was ill esteem toward the forces which caused the child to fall in his dream, becomes good will towards the denizens of the dream world, because he relaxes in his dream and finds pleasureable adventures, rather that waking up with a clammy skin and crawling scalp.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Multiple Personalities Can Operate Totally Differently in the Same Body - an excerpt from the book Happiness Is A Choice by Barry Neil Kaufman
Our beliefs about the world and ourselves have profound ramifications, affecting all that we embrace around us and all that evolves within us. During the last decade, the National Institute for Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (NINCDS) conducted in-depth studies of people exhibiting multiple personalities. Some facts catalogued as part of the research leaped out at me and tickled my imagination. They demonstrated clearly the impact of our convictions and attitudes.
One woman, who had the capacity to display three distinct personalities, had three menstrual periods each month, one for each personality.
A man exhibiting multiple personas required completely different eyeglass prescriptions for each. In the morning, after assuming one personality, he was clinically nearsighted. At noon, after becoming the next person he wanted to be, he needed new glasses to compensate for farsightedness. Each subsequent persona required yet another prescription.
Another man, whose repertoire included nine distinct personalities, suffered a severe and, at times, life-threatening allergic reaction to citrus fruits. Any ingestion of citric acid would cause eight of his nine personalities to have hives, convulsions and seizures. His ninth personality, however, had a fetish for citrus fruits. While assuming this persona, he could consume enormous quantities of oranges and grapefruits without the slightest bodily disturbance.
If any one of us decided to see ourselves as many people within one bodily structure, then we could apparently create personalities so distinct that each would have its own physiology and could, perhaps, transform in seconds on a molecular as well as a cellular level. Such bits and pieces of information, as those from the NINCDS study, dance like excited children in my brain. I am awed by the wondrous possibilities they suggest!
One woman, who had the capacity to display three distinct personalities, had three menstrual periods each month, one for each personality.
A man exhibiting multiple personas required completely different eyeglass prescriptions for each. In the morning, after assuming one personality, he was clinically nearsighted. At noon, after becoming the next person he wanted to be, he needed new glasses to compensate for farsightedness. Each subsequent persona required yet another prescription.
Another man, whose repertoire included nine distinct personalities, suffered a severe and, at times, life-threatening allergic reaction to citrus fruits. Any ingestion of citric acid would cause eight of his nine personalities to have hives, convulsions and seizures. His ninth personality, however, had a fetish for citrus fruits. While assuming this persona, he could consume enormous quantities of oranges and grapefruits without the slightest bodily disturbance.
If any one of us decided to see ourselves as many people within one bodily structure, then we could apparently create personalities so distinct that each would have its own physiology and could, perhaps, transform in seconds on a molecular as well as a cellular level. Such bits and pieces of information, as those from the NINCDS study, dance like excited children in my brain. I am awed by the wondrous possibilities they suggest!
An Unexpected Healing Story from Diet and Nutrition by Rudolf Ballentine
The story is told of an Irishman lying on his deathbed who was asked by his physician whether he had a last wish. Rallying enough to reply, the dying man responded, "Yes. I would like a cold pork pie and a bottle of stout." His wife shuddered, sure that it would kill him, but the doctor took her aside and gently reminded her that since her husband could not, in any case, recover it would be best to let him have this last wish fulfilled. So a friend was dispatched to the corner pub and soon returned with the pie and stout. The patient swallowed it down almost in one gulp whereup he stood up looking much improved. He then proceeded to make a rapid recovery.
Friday, April 2, 2010
A Paragraph of Poetic Prose from The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski
Thin remnants of moonlight permeated the woods. Sweet fern arced throat-high over the old logging path, cloaking blackberry canes hidden like saw blades in sheaths. Spray of dark sumac. Shafts of birch and aspen, faintly luminescing. Overhead, a pale and narrowing crack divided the forest canopy, marking their way more clearly than any earthly thing. For fear of jutting branches, he held his hands across his face and let the blackberry thorns rip his clothes. Now and then he stopped and clapped for the dogs. They came and snuffled nose and lip against his palm and vanished again, so sure in the dark. He paused. Peered after them. Shadow upon shadow, all of it. He swung his foot forward and began again. All around, fireflies glowed their radium bellies. The voices calling after them had long since faded into the creak of tree trunks flexing in the night breeze like the timbers of a vast ship. They hadn't circled; he couldn't have said how he knew. The direction of the wind, perhaps, or the westering cast of the moonlight. When a stand of birches glowed blue where he expected a gap he understood the path had fizzled out or they'd lost it.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Anais Nin, on the way we grow
We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells and constellations.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Bruno Bettleheim comments on the fairy tale Rapunzel, in his book, "The Uses of Enchantment"
In the story, after Rapunzel's banishment into the desert, the time comes when she is no longer taken care of by her substitute mother, nor the prince by his parents. Both of them now have to learn to take care of themselves, even in the most adverse circumstances. Their relative immaturity is suggested by their having given up hope -- not trusting the future really means not trusting oneself. That is why neither the prince nor Rapunzel is able to search with determination for the other. He, we are told, "wandered blindly through the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries, and did nothing but moan and cry because he had lost his beloved." Nor are we told that Rapunzel did much of a positive nature; she too lived in misery and moaned and decried her fate. We must assume, nevertheless, that it was for both a period of growing, of finding themselves, an era of recovery. At its end they are ready not only to rescue each other, but to make a good life, one for the other.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be not the slave of your own past.
Plunge into the sublime seas, dive
deep and swim far, so you shall come
back with self-respect, with new power,
with an advanced experience that shall
explain and overlook the old.
Plunge into the sublime seas, dive
deep and swim far, so you shall come
back with self-respect, with new power,
with an advanced experience that shall
explain and overlook the old.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Stillness as an antidote to overwork
Be still and receptive to life. The more still you can become, the more receptive you are, for it is in the stillness that you can hear My still, small voice. It is in the stillness that you become aware of My wonders all around you. You become very sensitive to the things that matter in life, and in this state of sensitivity doors can be flung wide open and anything can happen. You must seek and find periods of peace and stillness, no matter how busy a person you are, for they need not be long periods. You will find those few moments in silent communion with Me will work wonders in everything you do. Instead of rushing into a project, or doing something because it has to be done, your whole attitude towards whatever you undertake will be one of benediction, praise and thanksgiving. Because your attitude and approach are right, only the very best can come from it and bring blessings to all those souls concerned with it.
from Opening Doors Within, channeled guidance from Eileen Caddy
For more about Eileen Caddy, see: http://www.findhorn.org/
from Opening Doors Within, channeled guidance from Eileen Caddy
For more about Eileen Caddy, see: http://www.findhorn.org/
on Poetry
It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.
from Asphodel, That Greeny Flower, by William Carlos Williams
(Thanks to Barbara Boudon for this one)
from Asphodel, That Greeny Flower, by William Carlos Williams
(Thanks to Barbara Boudon for this one)
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Spiritual Work
You are always doing spiritual work. To know whether you are doing it properly, watch your feelings. Are you becoming more and more easeful? More and more peaceful? Are you lessening your worries? Do you always feel happy? If it bothers you more and more, then you are not doing it right. It's not the action that is important, but how you do it.
To decide whether you are doing the work in a spiritual way or not, ask yourself: "Am I maintaining my peace while doing this?" If the answer is "No," then you are doing something wrong. Every job should make you happy, jubilant. You should enjoy it, whatever it is, and feel like doing more. You should forget yourself while you are doing it. Work should be fun, not a burden. If you become heavy while doing it, then you are doing it as a labor. Even if you look for a thank you, you are looking for some reward. When you do something for a reward, it's labor. It's not service. Labor means you do it to get it. Service means you just do it, and forget it.
- Sri Swami Satchidanandaji Maharaj
To decide whether you are doing the work in a spiritual way or not, ask yourself: "Am I maintaining my peace while doing this?" If the answer is "No," then you are doing something wrong. Every job should make you happy, jubilant. You should enjoy it, whatever it is, and feel like doing more. You should forget yourself while you are doing it. Work should be fun, not a burden. If you become heavy while doing it, then you are doing it as a labor. Even if you look for a thank you, you are looking for some reward. When you do something for a reward, it's labor. It's not service. Labor means you do it to get it. Service means you just do it, and forget it.
- Sri Swami Satchidanandaji Maharaj
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
on Love
There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer;
No disease that enough love will not heal;
No door that enough love will not open;
No gulf that enough love will not bridge;
No wall that enough love will not throw down;
No sin that enough love will not redeem. . . .
It makes no difference how deeply seated
may be the trouble,
How hopeless the outlook,
How muddled the tangle,
How great the mistake,
a sufficient realization of love
will dissolve it all. . .
if only you could love enough
you would be the happiest
and most powerful being in the world.
- Emmett Fox
No disease that enough love will not heal;
No door that enough love will not open;
No gulf that enough love will not bridge;
No wall that enough love will not throw down;
No sin that enough love will not redeem. . . .
It makes no difference how deeply seated
may be the trouble,
How hopeless the outlook,
How muddled the tangle,
How great the mistake,
a sufficient realization of love
will dissolve it all. . .
if only you could love enough
you would be the happiest
and most powerful being in the world.
- Emmett Fox
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Quote by Charles Dickens
I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.
Quote by Thich Nhat Hanh
By nourishing awareness in the present moment,
You can avoid causing suffering to yourself and those around you.
The way you look at others, your smile, and your small acts of caring can create happiness.
You can avoid causing suffering to yourself and those around you.
The way you look at others, your smile, and your small acts of caring can create happiness.
My Father, a poem by Yehuda Amichai
The memory of my father is
wrapped up in white paper,
like sandwiches taken for
a day at work.
Just as a magician takes
towers and rabbits out of
his hat, he drew love
from his small body,
and the rivers of his hands
overflowed with good deeds.
wrapped up in white paper,
like sandwiches taken for
a day at work.
Just as a magician takes
towers and rabbits out of
his hat, he drew love
from his small body,
and the rivers of his hands
overflowed with good deeds.
Two Geese Poems
The Journey
by David Whyte, from The House of Belonging, Many Rivers Press, 2004
Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again
painting their black silhouettes
on an open sky.
Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across
the heavens
so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.
Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that
first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart
Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out
someone has written
something new
in the ashes
of your life.
You are not leaving
you are arriving.
*****************************
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
by David Whyte, from The House of Belonging, Many Rivers Press, 2004
Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again
painting their black silhouettes
on an open sky.
Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across
the heavens
so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.
Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that
first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart
Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out
someone has written
something new
in the ashes
of your life.
You are not leaving
you are arriving.
*****************************
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Transformation and the Inspired Heart
Selected quotes from: The Inspired Heart: An Artist's Journey of Transformation by Jerry Wennstrom (2002)
* * * * * * * * * * * *
We cannot impersonate true integrity.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Enlightenment is not a grand finale that leaves us blissfully risen, Buddha-like, above the suffering of the world. It is deep and unconditional surrender to what already exists and total trust in the larger inherent intelligence, which is willing to lead the way. To accomplish this is to die to everything we think is our personal identity, however intelligent, successful, and noble we think it may be.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Eating could potentially become an instinctual, living prayer, the miracle we perform daily to keep us from death.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
By taking responsibility for what is manageable in our lives and tending the small things with reverence, we can relinquish the impossible attempt to play god to our larger creation. There is great freedom in knowing that nothing is ours to hold or identify with.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Everything counts and fits into place. The way we get out of bed in the morning becomes as important as the moment of creating an inspired new work of art....High Art becomes the art of all things, of whispers from God in all directions.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
A time may come when you are asked to let go of everything you think you are and all that you think you possess. If you can give yourself to this process, what will emerge will be a truer self in a truer world. All will be well. All that you had hoped for, all that is most important to you, all that seemed to be impossible or gone forever will be sanctified and returned to you.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
for more about Jerry Wennstrom, see: http://www.handsofalchemy.com/
* * * * * * * * * * * *
We cannot impersonate true integrity.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Enlightenment is not a grand finale that leaves us blissfully risen, Buddha-like, above the suffering of the world. It is deep and unconditional surrender to what already exists and total trust in the larger inherent intelligence, which is willing to lead the way. To accomplish this is to die to everything we think is our personal identity, however intelligent, successful, and noble we think it may be.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Eating could potentially become an instinctual, living prayer, the miracle we perform daily to keep us from death.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
By taking responsibility for what is manageable in our lives and tending the small things with reverence, we can relinquish the impossible attempt to play god to our larger creation. There is great freedom in knowing that nothing is ours to hold or identify with.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Everything counts and fits into place. The way we get out of bed in the morning becomes as important as the moment of creating an inspired new work of art....High Art becomes the art of all things, of whispers from God in all directions.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
A time may come when you are asked to let go of everything you think you are and all that you think you possess. If you can give yourself to this process, what will emerge will be a truer self in a truer world. All will be well. All that you had hoped for, all that is most important to you, all that seemed to be impossible or gone forever will be sanctified and returned to you.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
for more about Jerry Wennstrom, see: http://www.handsofalchemy.com/
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