The Philosopshy Blog

The Bystander

2011-12-07T20:41:00.000-08:00

While everyone else

Is so busy striving,

The lone traveler

Is at ease by himself.

He's been living outside of convention

For a long time now;

In his pouch there is nothing at all.

When he walks,

He takes a cane for a companion;

When he talks,

He has the rocks for an audience.

If you ask him what his religion is,

When hungry it's a bowl of rice.

- Wen-siang (1210-1280)

Labels & Slogans

2011-12-05T22:01:00.000-08:00

Because you grasp labels and slogans,
You are hindered by those labels and slogans,
Both those used in ordinary life and those
Considered sacred.
Thus they obstruct your perception of objective truth,
And you cannot understand clearly.

- Linji (d. 867)

Big Bank & dark matter

2011-12-01T00:36:00.001-08:00

Even as a modern creation myth, Big Bang is awe-inspiring: imagine a moment before the birth of Time, when Space was nothing, when the Universe was not even a seed inside a Singularity. Then, with a mighty surge, all heaven broke loose.

That was nearly 13.7 billion years ago. Since then, the universe has been expanding and cooling, and within the expanding universe, massive clouds of gas have been pulled together by Mother Gravity to form stars and galaxies. The material for this - from giant planets to tiniest diatoms - is embedded in a sea of dark matter which can only be detected by the gravity that helped in the creation by pulling things together.

If all this sounds like a most unlikely coincidence on a truly cosmic scale, it is! As the visionary theorist Fred Hoyle pointed out, if gravity had been slightly weaker, it might never have been able to crush the Sun's core sufficiently to ignite the nuclear furnace that creates sunlight.

Had it been wee bit stronger, the Sun might have burnt off all its fuel billions of years ago. Plants and people could never have risen on the planet.

Such a chain of reasoning led to Hoyle's carbon coincidence or cosmic connection: all the heavy elements in our body, ranging from carbon to iron, were forged inside distant stars in an exquisitely orchestrated process; we were literally the children of stars!

Sceptics like Victor Stenger, however, like to pick holes in the fine-tuning argument. Different conditions might have spawned completely different forms of Goldilocks and her bears. But we still don't know why.

The Bucket List, things to do before U kick the bucket !

2011-07-06T00:37:00.001-07:00

A 'bucket list' is a list  of things you want to do before dying. The term refers to the Rob Reiner  movie by the same name in which two terminally-ill men go on a road  trip to do the things they most wanted to do before they kicked the  bucket. Things like going skydiving, climbing the Pyramids, dining on  the French Riviera, visiting the Taj Mahal, riding a motorcycle on the  Great Wall of China, etc.          

By  contrast, bucketlist.org is a non-profit networking site that encourages  people to upload their personal items to complete before they too die.  It's based on the John Lennon premise that life is what happens to you  while you're busy making other plans. Sample wishes: swim with a  dolphin, be an extra in a film, send a message in a bottle, teach an  illiterate person to read, experience weightlessness, let someone feed  you peeled seedless grapes, etc. 

http://www.bucketlist.org

Knowledge Accumulation : Futility

2011-06-27T22:33:00.000-07:00

What a pain, these people with so much wisdom!
Even the Buddhas have trouble converting them.
They keep the sutra pages turning,
But never turn their mind;

Ten thousand volumes cram their bookshelves,
All for nothing!
They've sunk into the pit of fame and profit,
Day and night a prey to disquiet and fear.
Their hearts in the end care nothing for sincerity
But moment to moment plot some clever scheme.

- Gensei (1623-1668

The book in your heat !

2011-06-23T23:25:00.001-07:00

In every human heart
There is one volume
Of the book of Truth,
But all is packed away
On the shelves, pages here
And pages there.
In every human heart
There is one score
For the music of Truth,
But all is buried
Under popular songs
And glamorous dances.
The person who would study
Should sweep away externals
And immediately seek
What has been there
From the beginning.
Only then will he be
Able to put this Truth to use.

- Hung Ying-ming

liberation and search

2011-06-11T01:11:00.001-07:00

When you are free and independent, you are not bound by anything, so you do not seek liberation.

Consummating the process of Zen, you become unified.

Then there are no mundane things outside of Buddhism, and there is no Buddhism outside of mundane things.

- Yuanwu

Jon Kary : Nature of Absolute Reality

2011-06-09T01:46:00.000-07:00

The proofs and evidences for the Reality of the 'Divine Referent' (most commonly called 'God') are three:

1.) The Existence and Experience of Consciousness (the Miracle of Awareness);

2.) The Universal Movement toward Ideal (the Transcendent Flow of Life); and,

3.) The Pervasive Thirst for Absolute (the Mystery of Grace).

However, just as the presence of a shadow implies the existence and shape of a Form, as well as the Light that causes Its cast, the shadow itself is identical with neither.

So also, the interpretations, symbols, and representations of the Divine (Absolute), while valuable, can only fail to encompass Its Essence and Entirety.

We can either lose our chronic dependence upon the 'symbols of our selves', or lose our Connection to the True. Either way produces a kind of death. Only the first death leads to Life, while the later form can only promise the struggle and pervasive incompleteness of mere survival.

The Greatest Blessing of our Existence is that the Choice is always available to us- but we Ourselves must Make It.

That is where it all Begins; We cannot Be Born otherwise.

In order to successfully Travel the Path of Truth, we must first Cease the chase for illusions.

When we Arrive at a Sense of our own Emptiness, there are three possible responses: Cover it over, struggle to fill it, or Realize the Reality of Its Essential Nature.

Only One of those responses Manifests Liberation- the others always lead away.

Ultimately, there is no way to be Authentically Established without first being Uprooted.

Self-Transformative Awakening- and thus Life- is inevitably traumatic (and the more significant the Movement, the more jarring it is), it is the Way that we Heal which makes the Critical Difference.

This is the Meaning of Life and the Purpose of Existence.

Search for No Other.

To sin is to separate and depart from the Objective. To Live is to Pursue the Perfection of Aim.

No matter how well we may think we understand, no matter how clearly we think we see, or how profoundly we believe- we do not truly Know until Experience is absorbed Deep within the Marrow of our very Existence, Founded within the very Heart of This Body Universal-

Be Awake, and Be At Peace.

One can survive without Love; but one cannot Live without It.

Water and air are necessary for survival, but Love is the Essential Quality defining the presence of Life.

Love and Consciousness are the Inhalation and Exhalation of the Process of Existence:

Breathe Deep, Breathe True, Breathe Always-

And never fear to Be That,

for Nothing Remains to fear.

(Daily Zen) Ways of the Masters

2011-06-08T06:25:00.000-07:00

The ancient masters slept without dreams and woke up without worries.
Their food was plain.
Their breath came from deep inside them.
They didn't cling to life, weren't anxious about death.
They emerged without desire and reentered without resistance.
They came easily; they went easily.
They didn't forget where they were from; they didn't ask where they were going.
They took everything as it came, gladly, and walked into death without fear.
They accepted life as a gift, and they handed it back gratefully,

- Chuang-tzu

'Still' ing

2011-06-08T06:23:00.001-07:00

Just still the thoughts in your mind. It is good to do this right in the midst of disturbance. When you are working on this, penetrate the heights and the depths.

- Yuan wu (1063-1135)

spotless beauty ( zen)

2011-06-08T06:21:00.001-07:00

It is all pervading, spotless beauty;
It is the self-existence and uncreated
Absolute
Then how can it even be a matter
Of discussion that the real Buddha
Has no mouth and preaches no dharma,
Or that real hearing requires no ears,
For who could hear it?
Ah, it is a jewel beyond all price.

- Huang-po (d. 850)

Ways of Ancient Masters

2011-06-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

The ancient masters slept without dreams and woke up without worries.

Their food was plain.

Their breath came from deep inside them.

They didn't cling to life, weren't anxious about death.

They emerged without desire and re-entered without resistance.

They came easily; they went easily.

They didn't forget where they were from; they didn't ask where they were going.

They took everything as it came, gladly, and walked into death without fear.

They accepted life as a gift, and they handed it back gratefully,

- Chuang-tzu

Hiffingtonpost article : " A Living Universe " ( with book link)

2011-05-24T02:00:00.000-07:00

Jon Kary posted this article link on Face book, from which I got. I shared this on my profile page.

Why We Need to Believe in a Living Universe

A common assumption of the modern world is that we live in a universe comprised almost entirely of inert matter and empty space. Regarding the universe as dead at its foundations is basic to the industrial revolution: It makes sense to exploit what appears dead for the benefit of what seems most alive -- ourselves. This assumption is now being questioned as a more ancient view is reconsidered. Plato put it this way: "The universe is a single living creature that encompasses all living creatures within it."

Is the universe alive or dead? We can explore this fundamental question by turning to both science and the world's wisdom traditions. Science now regards our universe as: 1) almost entirely invisible (96 percent of the known universe is comprised of invisible energy and matter), 2) completely unified and able to communicate with itself instantaneously in non-local ways that transcend the limits of the speed of light, 3) sustained by the flow-through of an unimaginably vast amount of energy, and 4) free at its deepest, quantum levels. While not proving the universe is alive, these and other attributes from science do point strongly in that direction.

When we turn to the world's wisdom traditions and ask how they regard the universe, we find a stunning consensus that the universe is a continuously regenerated, living presence:

"God is creating the entire universe, fully and totally, in this present now. Everything God created ...God creates now all at once."
-- Meister Eckhart, Christian mystic

"My solemn proclamation is that a new universe is created every moment."
-- D.T. Suzuki, Zen teacher

"The Tao is the sustaining Life-force and the mother of all things; from it, all things rise and fall without cease."
-- Tao Te Ching, Taoism

"God keeps a firm hold on heavens and earth, preventing them from vanishing away."
-- Islam, Koran

"Evolution presupposes creation ...creation is an everlasting process -- a creation continua."
-- Pope John Paul II

These quotes just begin to describe the profound aliveness of the universe as seen through the lens of the world's wisdom traditions.

What difference does it make if the universe is dead or alive at its foundations? When children are starving, climate is destabilizing, oil is dwindling, and population is growing, why put our attention here? Here are a few reasons why aliveness makes a profound difference:

Consumerism or Simplicity? Materialism is a rational response to living in a dead universe. In a material universe, consumerism offers a source of identity and a measure of significance and accomplishment. Where do I find pleasure in a non-living universe? In material things. How do I know that I amount to anything? By how many things I have accumulated. How should I relate to the world? By taking advantage of that which is dead on behalf of the living. Consumerism and exploitation are natural outcomes of a dead universe perspective. However, if we view the foundations of the universe as being intensely alive, then it makes sense to minimize material clutter and needless busyness and develop the areas where we feel most alive -- in nurturing relationships, caring communities, creative expressions, time in nature, and service to others.

Indifferent or Welcoming? If we regard the universe as dead at its foundations, then feelings of existential alienation, anxiety, dread, and fear are understandable. Why seek communion with the cold indifference of lifeless matter and empty space? If we relax, we will simply sink into existential despair. However in a living universe feelings of subtle connection, curiosity, and gratitude are understandable. We see ourselves as participants in a cosmic garden of life that has been patiently developing over billions of years. A living universe perspective invites us to shift from indifference, fear, and cynicism to curiosity, love, and awe.

Biological or Bio-Cosmic? Are we no more than a bundle of chemical and neurological interactions? If so, the boundaries of our being are defined by the extent of our physical body. However, in a living universe, our physical existence is permeated and sustained by an aliveness that is inseparable from the larger universe. Seeing ourselves as part of the unbroken fabric of creation awakens our sense of connection with, and compassion for, the totality of life. We recognize our bodies as precious, biodegradable vehicles for acquiring ever-deepening experiences of aliveness.

Separate or Inter-Connected? If we are no more than biological entities, then it makes sense to see ourselves as disconnected from the suffering of other living beings. However, if we are all swimming in the same ocean of subtle aliveness, then it makes sense that we would each have a direct experience of communion with, and concern for, the well-being of others. If we share the same matrix of existence, then the rest of life already touches me, co-creating the field of aliveness within which I exist.

Pull Apart or Pull Together? If we see the universe as mostly barren and devoid of life, then it is natural to see our time on earth as primarily a struggle for material existence, and it makes sense that we humans would pull apart in conflict. However, if we see the universe as intensely alive and our journey here as one of discovery and learning, then it makes sense that we would pull together in cooperation in order to realize this magnificent potential.

Our view of the universe as either dead or alive creates the context within which we understand who we are and where we are going. Where a dead-universe perspective generates alienation, environmental destruction, and despair, a living-universe perspective generates feelings of communion, stewardship, and the promise of a higher pathway for humanity. Although the idea of a living universe has ancient roots in human experience, it is now radically new as the frontiers of modern science cut away superstition and reveal the authentic mystery, subtlety, and aliveness of our cosmic home.

This Blogger's Books from ( amazon book linx)

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Universe-Where-Are-Going/dp/1576759695%3FSubscriptionId%3D0JJEH4PKQM4ZHS8QY102%26tag%3Dthehuffingtop-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1576759695

The Path and purpose of Life

2011-05-22T11:39:00.003-07:00

The Path

Soul Sign

To follow The Path in life is to take the soul journey; it is consciously becoming the soul that you are in essence and infusing your personality with its beautiful, loving energies.

Reflection

The experiences in following the Path and becoming the soul in actuality are very diverse so that it often appears that there are many paths to wholeness. The form the Path takes varies, but the essence is the same, just as all humans appear differently but are essentially one.

Identify and describe your Path. Does it give you meaning and purpose in your life?

Soul Expresses Quality

2011-05-22T11:39:00.001-07:00

Soul Expresses Quality

Soul Sign

Soul always serves with a quality of consciousness that is supportive and loving.

Reflection

Without soul consciousness, there is no vehicle for service. Even if our intentions are good, but do not come from soul, the most we can do is act, but without real quality. Without soul consciousness our actions do not come from the soul nor do they respond to the soul of those being served. In short, our ‘service’ is soulless. This means that the service is motivated by personality desires, judgments and feelings, and our action is in some way a projection of what is needed rather than an accurate reading of what the soul of the other truly requires for its immediate expression.

Personality based service has expectations attached to it; there is a desire to get something out of it - good feelings, love, appreciation, gratitude, praise, indebtedness, equality, superiority, satisfaction, etc.

What do you do that you call service? Is it soul based or personality based?

Lethargy of custom blocks the soul !

2011-05-22T11:38:00.001-07:00

The Lethargy of Custom Blocks Soul

Soul Sign

Soul is always new, always fresh, always in the present, and never repetitive. So to be soul oriented and soul centered in our daily life we need to let go of our repetitive ways of experiencing life.

Reflection

To be willing to shift our perspectives and identity to soul we need to risk being open and vulnerable, to have adventures outwardly and inwardly, to shake ourselves up from the lethargy of custom and our habitual ways of perceiving and interpreting. Let soul inspire you.

Identify some area of life where you appear to be stuck or always repetitive and try to shift perspectives to a soul level where you see other, more authentic ways, of being and experiencing.

2 Sutras from Osho

2011-05-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

People often make me feel stupid, how can I change this?*
** ** ** **

First Sutra : " Take responsibility for your Life ! "
--------------------------------------------------------------*The ordinary mind always throws the responsibility on somebody else. It is
always the other who is making you suffer. Your wife is making you suffer,
your husband is making you suffer, your parents are making you suffer, your
children are making you suffer, or the financial system of the society,
capitalism, communism, fascism, the prevalent political ideology, the social
structure, or fate, karma, God...you name it!

People have millions of ways to shirk responsibility. But the moment you say
somebody else — X, Y, Z — is making you suffer, then you cannot do anything
to change it. What can you do?

When the society changes and communism comes
and there is a classless world, then everybody will be happy. Before it, it
is not possible. How can you be happy in a society which is poor? And how
can you be happy in a society which is dominated by the capitalists? How can
you be happy with a society which is bureaucratic? How can you be happy with
a society which does not allow you freedom?

Excuses and excuses and excuses — excuses just to avoid one single insight
that “I am responsible for myself. Nobody else is responsible for me; it is
absolutely and utterly my responsibility. Whatsoever I am, I am my own
creation.” This is the meaning of the sutra.

Drive all blame into one

And that one is you.

Once this insight settles:

“I am responsible for my life — for all my suffering, for my pain, for all
that has happened to me and is happening to me — I have chosen it this way;
these are the seeds that I sowed and now I am reaping the crop; I am
responsible **— once this insight becomes a natural understanding in you,
then everything else is simple. Then life starts taking a new turn, starts
moving into a new dimension. That dimension is conversion, revolution,
mutation — because once I know I am responsible, I also know that I can drop
it any moment I decide to. Nobody can prevent me from dropping it.

Can anybody prevent you from dropping your misery, from transforming your
misery into bliss? Nobody. Even if you are in a jail, chained, imprisoned,
nobody can imprison YOU; your soul still remains free. Of course you have a
very limited situation, but even in that limited situation you can sing a
song. You can either cry tears of helplessness or you can sing a song. Even
with chains on your feet you can dance; then even the sound of the chains
will have a melody to it.

Next sutra: Be grateful to everyone

Atisha is really very very scientific. First he says: Take the whole
responsibility on yourself. Secondly he says: Be grateful to everyone. Now
that nobody is responsible for your misery except you — if the misery is all
your own doing, then what is left?

Be grateful to everyone

Because everybody is creating a space for you to be transformed — even those
who think they are obstructing you, even those whom you think are enemies.

Your friends, your enemies, good people and bad people, favorable
circumstances, unfavorable circumstances — all together they are creating
the context in which you can be transformed and become a Buddha. Be grateful
to all — to those who have helped, to those who have hindered, to those who
have been indifferent. Be grateful to all, because all together they are
creating the context in which Buddhas are born, in which you can become a
Buddha. *

*Osho, The Book of Wisdom, Talk #5*
* *

Enlightenment from ' The Goose is out " ( source Mick Quinn face book )

2011-04-25T10:32:00.000-07:00

One of the paradoxes in Buddhism and Taoism is the declaration that one who is enlightened doesn’t describe “it,” and one who describes “it” is not enlightened !

Yet there are libraries of books where personal experiences are described, and past and modern teachers describe certain personal experiences to share with students. In the sense that enlightenment is only experiential and cannot be adequately described in words, that it is beyond words and beyond human concepts, yes, it is true that whatever it is can only be experienced. How then, does anyone know what it is, and how do we recognize one who has had the experience?

“The Goose is Out,” by W. J. Gabb was published in 1956 by The Buddhist Society. Not many of these books are still around, and I was lucky to find a few weeks ago a used volume at a reasonable price from Amazon. Besides the author’s words making me laugh, Gabb wrote something about enlightenment that I want to share. Since this was written in 1956, the gender used is male. Gabb also wrote under the pseudonym “Tokusan,” which name he created from the names of two “amiable Zen lunatics who lived about a thousand years ago.” This is what Gabb said to a spiritual seeker (at page 34):

“I told him, a man is only aware of light by seeing the surface which light illuminates; light itself is invisible. Also, he is only aware of self through his senses and emotions and mind; self itself is unknowable.

In the same way a man is not conscious of enlightenment save through observation of his actions and thoughts, and by noticing the influence he radiates on the world around him, his impact on the not-self.

“He is enlightened who is accustomed to seek for the soul of any given situation and who knows the accompanying experience of the immediacy of response. He knows that life is friendly and he has made his peace with pain.

He co-operates with Brahman in a spirit of intimacy and not of obligation and he knows the tranquility which comes of constant recollection of the nature and degree of this intimacy.

He permits himself to be absorbed in the Eternal as It presents Itself in the different incidents of daily life. He finds the Divine in the Life he serves as it manifests in form, as a problem to be solved or as an unexpected guest …”

This resonates for me. As I’ve said elsewhere, I keep by my workspace a card with Albert Schweitzer’s words: “Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.”

Something good and wise can be repeated daily. What I’ve been taught and am still learning and have experienced is that every person has this capacity and that every encounter has the potential for a mutual transmission.

By: Daniel D. Woo

No Death NO God ?

2011-03-24T00:06:00.000-07:00

From an unbeliever's point of view, it could be argued that the sum of all religion arises from the realisation of the inevitability of death and our fear of it. That, since like all animals we're also governed by evolutionary forces which instinctively makes us abhor absolute destruction, we create scenarios that take the edge off such an annihilation event - even if it lies way in the future.

From this perspective, therefore, it's easy to see why people have variously visualised things like immortal souls, life after death, heaven and hell, karmic reincarnation, etc - and of course, a purpose behind it all which is usually enshrined in the being and substance of a Creator.

Yet, even as we speak some very serious science is beginning to envisage another kind of scenario where human longevity is not only prolonged to unimagined lengths but the concept of death itself is abolished. In fact in The Age of Spiritual Machines, futurist Ray Kurzweil has even suggested that the coming generation could be the last one experiencing terminal death. Would immortality render faith meaningless?

If such a thing were to happen, it would be one the greatest revolutions of the mind that human beings have had. A complex and collective experience that has been part of our lives since the dawn of consciousness and which effectively makes us different from animals might suddenly have no reason to endure any longer. The real test of our humanity then would be to see if morality still persists in the absence of a godhead.

Mick Quinn Uncommon Path quotes

2011-03-09T22:51:00.000-08:00

"Your interest in awakening is a precious commodity. Protect and nurture it because curiosity can easily transmute to cynicism. Shield it from the voices of the skeptics."

"What can look and feel like a path of genuine development is often a hologram of progress that is well within the confines of what the ego considers safe for its own survival."

"Your words either support or degrade the conditions for awakened living."

"Awakened love is to care about the spiritual development of another person more than you care about any other aspect of the relationship itself."

"The natural development of our awareness peaks and stops in our second decade at about the average level of the culture into which we were born."

"When an external stimulus stirs a deeply felt emotional response in you, you are being offered an opportunity to dissolve unconsciousness."

"Grace is the unmerited assistance from the essence of life."

"In so–called advanced societies, death is starved or its place at the dinner table and those who dare mention it are often asked to lighten up."

"Did you know that before the invention of trains, clocks in different parts of the same country were rarely synchronized? There was simply no need for the time to be consistent."

"The ego wants you to believe that you are a fully engaged spiritual seeker."

"The ability to be Present is dependent on being mindful about the content of your mind. Such mental activity simply does not matter yo your awakening."

"Many lives are like karmic wave pools, where people spend the majority of their times repairing the painful repercussions of their inherited intentions while making more at the same time."

"Refusing to share the little–mind in conversation is the greatest gift you can give another human being."

"Those relationships that are critical to your liberation are referred to as relevant relationships."

"At the time of decision–making, the ego–mind presents your values, but according to itsarrangements. This is how the ego controls your future."

"Assigning your highest priority in life ends all seeking."

"Meditation does not cure your shadow, nor is it supposed to."

Jon Kary's site link on conscious universe

2011-03-07T01:15:00.001-08:00

Jon Kary gives quite useful links to other spiritual web sites. Here is one on conscious universe and entangled minds. Read in fursath.

http://deanradin.com/NewWeb/TCUindex.html

Mukul Sharma page on ' Speaking Tree'.

2011-03-06T21:02:00.001-08:00

Mr.Mukul Sharma, apart from writing wonderful articles, is also a regular contributor ( and, shall we call, ' voracious writer' ? Or ' copious writer' ? ) to ' Speaking Tree' from Time of India.

I read a couple of his articles which had great depth.

Mr.Mukul Sharma Page on Speaking Tree is ' here'.

http://www.speakingtree.in/peoples.php?keyword=Mukul%20Sharma&search_type=articles

Mukul Sharma page on ' Speaking Tree'.

2011-03-06T21:02:00.000-08:00

Mr.Mukul Sharma, apart from writing wonderful articles, is also a regular contributor ( and, shall we call, ' voracious writer' ? Or ' copious writer' ? ) to ' Speaking Tree' from Time of India.

I read a couple of his articles which had great depth.

Mr.Mukul Sharma Page on Speaking Tree is ' here'.

http://www.speakingtree.in/peoples.php?keyword=Mukul%20Sharma&search_type=articles

check for Drift and Procrastination !

2011-01-31T04:41:00.000-08:00

Check drift and procrastination

Posted on January 24, 2011 Author: K Vijayaraghavan View 10
Truths that are only too obvious to common sense are not often given their due attention because this ‘common sense’ is not always that common! Simple issues stand out, as if calling for attention — attainment of good physical health and fitness too; being aware of conflicts within and thus commencing one’s journey to harmony; learning to be consistent and focused; pre-empting the fallouts of past bad karmathrough the power of present good karma; obtaining the habit of right speech and also divining when to be silent; realising that ‘minutae’ are vital and also that small things ‘add up’ to contribute finally to highly significant end results.
The above are the overall principles on which guidelines abound to guide one on, by application depending on each person’s individuality, even if the process be only gradual and in stages (shanaihi, shanaihi). Nevertheless, true completion to one’s quest is obtained only when certain other specific and vital issues are also attended to. One such is that involving drift and procrastination. Adi Shankara in his Bhaja Govindam laments such a state of drift into aimlessness. He points out how childhood is spent in play and youth in sensual longings. Middle age is spent in making a living and for accumulation. Old age, thus, has to be spent only in repentance! Patanjali in his Yoga Sutra (1,30) lists pramada (procrastination) as one of the 10 obstacles to yoga. Modern management concepts too warn of this ‘thief of time’ (to use the phrase of Edward Young). Living in the dynamic present is the way to ensure that one takes lessons from the immortal lines of John Dryden in his poem, Aurangzeb, where he notes how the hope that “tomorrow will repay” finally proves to be illusory as this ‘tomorrow’ is often “falser than the former day”! Supreme pieces of wisdom evolved through observation, analysis, inference and application are available for all those who are eager and open minded. These serve finally to reveal the state within, through awareness of the infirmities within and realisation of the inadequacy of the approach adopted thus far. Acquiring this seeking and abiding self-honesty itself is more than half the battle won. True change management naturally follows and the obstacles, including drift and procrastination, cannot only be minimised but also reversed!

Clarity within & Time Management

2011-01-31T04:33:00.000-08:00

Clarity within and time management

Author: K Vijayaraghavan

Drift and procrastination and the consequent listlessness and drag can be counted as the major causes for poor time management. Often, this state within manifests without as hurry, frenzy and busy-bee living.

The concerned persons constantly complain of the problem of "no time". Some even go to the extent of finding alibis and excuses for inaction in the claim that their "commitments" and "problems" are more than those of others! Such exhibitions are classic examples of drowning oneself in mere "activities" instead of doing so in real "action"!

Analysis of such pathetic state of affairs would reveal the causes of this malady. These would vary from case to case.

Tendencies to escapism from having to face oneself square on; morbid obsession to impress others by becoming a "workaholic" through managing to find something to be occupied with always; lack of assertiveness, ending living by others' priorities, trying to please all, though, finally ending up pleasing none; inability to plan, organise, control and review the list would go on thus.

The unfortunate victim would be afflicted by one or more of such "bugs"! In short, the situation is that of three ‘Cs’ within (confusion, clutter and conflict), which invariably lead to three ‘Ds’ (drag, delay and deferment). Healthy and frank analysis and synthesis would enable the seeker to apply brakes when and where necessary, weed out those needless issues, not necessary for his own pursuit and thus focus only on those which matter.

This, truly, is the process of casting away too many "irons in the fire" and thus arriving at the answer to the inner query, "Quo Vadis?" and in consequence, progressing to knowing one's work upon this earth (swadharma).

This process, when persisted with intelligently, would lead, naturally also to that supreme freedom that freedom from the three "Cs" and the three "Ds" and various other afflicting aberrations.

The Bhagavad Gita, referring (2,45; 5-3, 25) to conflicts (dwanda), also conceives (5-27, 28) of being thus liberated (mukta) from various "enemies within".

This liberation and clarity also lead to the portals of those virtues of briskness, efficiency, effectiveness and joie de vivre. In these lie the capacity to pack much real work into one's limited time. This joyful clarity, and this alone, is worthy time management!

seeing beyond colours : hearing beyond sound

2011-01-30T09:54:00.001-08:00

The subtlety of seeing and hearing
Transcends mere colors and sounds.
The whole affair functions
Without leaving traces,
And mirrors without obscurations.
Very naturally mind and dharmas
Emerge and harmonize.

- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157)

The Soul Journey - interconnectedness of all things

2011-01-26T04:47:00.000-08:00

Interconnectedness of All Things

Soul Sign

Soul perception enables us to see the interconnectedness of all things, and to know that no existing thing has an independent existence.

Reflection

Our physical senses are designed to give us the perception that things exist independently and separate so that we can focus on particulars and specifically ground the universal energies for practical living. The particulars are expressions of universal realities. But without the soul perspective of universal interconnectedness we lose the meaning of the specifics and have no sense of priorities based on universal values.

Examine some aspects of your life that seem isolated or meaningless, and meditate on the truth that these aspects are part of the oneness of life. Let this reflection reveal their meaning or purpose.

Nature of Buddha mind

2011-01-18T01:09:00.000-08:00

Buddhas don't save buddhas. If you use your mind to look for a buddha, you won't see the buddha. As long as you look for a buddha somewhere else, you'll never see that your own mind is the buddha. And don't use a buddha to worship a buddha. And don't use the mind to invoke a buddha. Buddhas don't recite sutras. Buddhas don't keep precepts. And buddhas don't break precepts. Buddhas don't keep or break anything. Buddhas don't do good or evil.

- Bodhidharma (d. 533)

Worlds in a small hut

2011-01-16T20:59:00.000-08:00

In this small hut
Are worlds beyond number
Living here alone
I have endless company
Already I have
Attained the essence
How could I dare
To want something higher?

- Muso Soseki (1275-1351)

Value of Ego

2011-01-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

The ego for what it’s worth

There’s probably no word in the entirety of religious teachings or spiritual literature which is more looked down upon, considered base or reviled than the word ‘ego’. Very quickly we learn that it’s the principle cause of all suffering, the fount of human frailty and pride and something that stifles any move towards greater worth. The ego prophesies negative futures, the ego wants to feel superior and special, the ego has to be right all the time and, what’s more, the reason it’s a continuous hindrance to any spiritual development is because it obscures the true quality of consciousness like a veil. Even evil seems to pale in front of it. How difficult is it to see then that the ego has to be done away with and demolished as soon as possible?

The overwhelming majority of animals, however, have no such problems to contend with because there’s no awareness in them of any distinct self; an ‘I’ that resides and operates independently from somewhere inside . And although a lot of them possess a fair amount of brain, there’s little evidence of a mind there that’s capable of differentiating one brain from another to cause any particular animal to believe it’s unique and separate from another of the same kind. In fact, we like to think they can’t even think of such things. Are they the lucky ones who are already on the road to self-salvation ?

On the other hand, it has come to light in recent times that there are some species such as bottlenosed dolphins, apes, elephants and the European magpie that also possess a sense of personal identity like we do; who are aware of themselves as separate and exclusive beings . For, unlike other animals who, when confronted by a mirror image, believe the reflection is another animal and become hostile, affectionate or indifferent, these animals start preening and grooming themselves. So, should we think the dolphin, for instance , to be also on the road to perdition unless it starts undertaking the long and arduous process of getting rid of its nascent self — it’s emergent ego?

Perhaps we need to revisit the ego and find out how it came to be and what its purpose is, if any.

If life is existentially meaningless then this quest is obviously meaningless too but if our being in the world is a directed instance then something must have a reason for allowing such a seriously flawed attribute to permeate us with the potential to impede any self-enhancement.

' When Spirit is Willing ! '

2011-01-09T06:02:00.000-08:00

When the Spirit is willing
-------------------------------------
Posted on January 7, 2011 | Author: Mukul Sharma |

Spirit is one of two small wheeled robots sent to Mars in 2003 to explore its surface and search for clues to past water activity. Its expected lifetime was supposed to be about three months but it's far exceeded this limit with 2011 marking the seventh year on the Red Planet.

And even though Spirit is stuck and seems to be out of power, handlers think it can still be used. Spirit was also supposed to travel about a kilometre at most but has logged nearly seven till date.

Beth Meleski is a self-admitted stay-at-home mother of three who writes about education, politics and the people in her neighbourhood on her personal blog. Using Spirit as an example she's managed to create a fusion of science and humanity by showing what we can learn from its journey.Early in 2006 Spirit's right front wheel developed problems and ultimately stopped working.

Engineers overseeing its operations on Earth however developed an ingenious alternative solution: make the machine travel backwards. It worked for three years without a hitch. Moral of the story by Beth Meleski: "When you can't go forward anymore, try turning around and backing up."Not only did the technique work but the new driving method became auseful if unexpected tool.

The dragging effect of the unusable wheel abraded the surface and exposed underlying areas of the Martian soil that would otherwise not have been accessible for study, including large snow packs that once existed for long enough on Mars to dissolve certain minerals.

Moral: "Unexpected circumstances can lead to great outcomes".Finally in 2009 Spirit got stuck in sand and couldn't extricate itself despite all efforts. Yet there's hope. Scientists have determined that Spirit's instruments and engineering cameras continue to function and it could in future be used as a stationary laboratory.

Moral: "If you're stuck in one place, do what you can from there."And finally Meleski writes: "About nine months ago, Spirit stopped transmitting data… In the meantime, it seems that when energy is low, the only sensible thing to do is to shut down and take a snooze".

Her moral: "Sometimes, it's best to just take a little nap".The latest is, with spring on Mars in full swing Nasa is taking advantage of the Martian season's ever-longer periods of daylight to try to reawaken its stuck rover after months of silence. For although it's dormant, the Spirit may not be dead.

interlude meditation site : work as mediation & mindfulness !

2011-01-03T00:02:00.001-08:00

About interlude meditation. About work as meditation. On how to bring quality of attentiveness to work and daily chores and mundane activities.

Source : This link was first posted by Jon Kary on Facebook. One of the benefits of Facebook.

http://www.interluderetreat.com/meditate/chop.htm

Home page of the same book.

http://www.interluderetreat.com/index.html

This one has thought for the day. Archieves on thought for the day. Weekly meditations etc.

Visit in fursath. One of your top priorities.

Flip side of bad faith

2011-01-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

The flip side of bad faith

Posted on December 31, 2010 | Author: Mukul Sharma |

Reputed scientists sometimes conduct some seriously problematic and borderline ethical experiments too.

Little Albert for instance was only eight months old in 1920 when the renowned behavioural psychologist John B Watson tested him to see if a baby's innate fear of sudden loud sounds could be generalised to otherwise benign objects.

Earlier, Pavlov had already demonstrated that dogs salivated not only on the appearance of food but with any associated stimulus which preceded it such as a bell being rung.

Accordingly, Watson first exposed the infant to a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, masks with and without hair, cotton wool, burning newspapers, etc. Albert showed no fear toward any of these items.

Later, however, every time a white rat was placed next to the child and he was about to reach for it, Watson would make a loud sound behind his back by striking a suspended steel bar with a hammer just as the baby touched the rat.

This would, of course, startle the kid and it would cry out in distress. After a period of repeated pairings of rat with sound it was found that the baby would cry out in distress even when the rat was presented without the sound being made.

Not only that, thereafter its fear became generalised to several furry objects such as a dog, a sealskin coat and even when Watson appeared in front of him wearing aSanta Claus outfit.

Apparently Watson had planned to desensitise Albert and see if he could be made normal again but that never happened since the child had to be taken away after a few months.

Knowing how early experiences of childhood trauma can often leave significant subconscious traces, it’s not unreasonable to assume that Albert might have been left deliberately handicapped with a set of irrational fears for the rest of his life.

Does an experiment like this (and there have been several some far more shamelessly unethical) erode the spirit of technology or the core values of science in general?

Does it diminish the discoveries and inventions made by scientists that have enriched the lives of millions and given us prosperity?

Do a few charlatans, hoaxers and phoney godmen busy bottomfeeding in the name of religion detract from the faith of the rest of the believers who find solace and justification for their ‘unscientific’ existence which to them would appear meaningless otherwise?

Some meeting grounds begin with a negation.

6 characteristics of Buddhist Humanism

2010-12-26T09:04:00.000-08:00

From :

http://www.mahabodhi.net/index.html

Buddhist Humanism is a philosophy which encompasses all Buddhist teachings from the time of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, to that of the present day. The goal of Buddhist Humanism is expressed within the Bodhisattva ideal, by becoming an energetic, enlightened, and endearing person dedicated to the welfare and liberation of all sentient beings.

Buddhist Humanism focuses more on issues of the world, the suffering which occurs, rather than on how to leave the world behind; on caring for the living, rather than the dead; on benefiting others, rather than benefiting oneself; and on universal liberation, rather than cultivation for only oneself.

Buddhist Humanism has six characteristics:

Humanism - The Buddha was neither a spirit, coming and going without leaving a trace, nor was he a figment of one’s imagination. The Buddha was a living human being. Just like the rest of us, he had parents, a family, and he lived a life. It was through his human existence that he showed his supreme wisdom of compassion, ethical responsibility, and prajna-wisdom. Thus, he is a Buddha who was also a human being.

Emphasis on Daily Life - The Buddha placed great importance on daily life as spiritual practice. He provided guidance on everything, from how to eat, dress, work, and live, to how to walk, stand, sit, and sleep. He gave clear directions on every aspect of life, from relations among family members and between friends to how we should conduct ourselves in the social and political arenas.

Altruism - The Buddha was born into this world to teach, to provide an example, and to bring joy to all beings. He nurtured all beings, for he always had the best interests of others in his mind and heart. In short, his every thought, word, and action arose from a heart filled with deep care and concern for others.

Joyfulness - The Buddhist teachings give people joy. Through the limitless compassion of his heart, the Buddha aimed to relieve the suffering of all beings and to give them joy.

Timeliness - The Buddha was born for a great reason: to build a special relationship with all of us who live in this world. Although the Buddha lived over 2,500 years ago and has already entered nirvana, he left the seed of liberation for all subsequent generations. Even today, the Buddha’s ideals and teachings serve as a timely and relevant guide for all faiths and traditions.

Universality - The entire life of the Buddha can be characterized through the Buddha’s spirit of wanting to liberate all living beings, without exclusion. The Buddha loved beings of all forms, whether they were animals or humans, male or female, young or old, Buddhist or not.

Taking control of an ' illusion'

2010-10-17T05:59:00.000-07:00

Taking control of an illusion

Posted on October 5, 2010 | Author: Mukul Sharma |

Is the self — as in the thing whichis‘me’,whichapparently is in charge of things that are ‘mine’ — really an illusion, as a lot of enlightened mystics, Eastern faith systems and sages down the ages have been telling us?

Much of the resistance to this concept springs from ingrained, reinforced habits and deep personal feelings of experiencing a self which seems to be very much there all the time and being very much in control of all our conscious decisions, ideation and

Lately, however, a few chinks in this armoury are beginning to get noticed by scientists.

As mentioned here earlier, in a series of experiments spanning the 1980s the psychologist and consciousness researcher, Benjamin Libet demonstrated that unconscious electrical processes in the brain actually precede people’s conscious decisions.

Subjects hooked up to instruments were instructed to carry out a simple motor action such as pressing a switch and then told to record when they first became aware of the wish or urge to do so.

When Libet compared the actual time of the start of brain activity with the time the subjects reported their awareness of wanting to act, he was surprised to find a lag of several milliseconds.

As of 2008, other researchers have found that in some cases, brain activity precedes a subject’s awareness by up to seven seconds.

Materialist philosophers have interpreted these results as bolstering their long-standing claim that consciousness — that is, the mind, self or ‘me’ — is merely an epiphenomenon or byproduct of the brain which only retrospectively creates a scenario of being in command and that we possess no real free will as such.

But in that case, how does one follow the wise counsel to get rid of the illusion of self if there’s no one there to do the ridding?

That’s where Libet’s experiments come in again.

He also found that although the brain is responsible for initiating an action because our consciousness is too slow to do so, it’s still fast enough to have the power to ‘veto’ that action — something called ‘free wont’.

Meaning, it appears there’s someone in the saddle after all holding the reins.

So, even if the brain does generate an epiphenomenon that creates the illusion of being in control — an illusion we blindly embrace — we still have the power to reject that as merely a chimera. Just like the enlightened have been telling us all along.

Depth of property rights

2010-10-01T02:39:00.000-07:00

The depth of property rites
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| Author: Mukul Sharma

There's something very sad and self-defeating about possessing things. Take land.

Forget the bigger picture about how we’re all going to die and take nothing with us — definitely not a large chunk of real estate — but how much of what we think we possess do we really?

Like, what part of that freehold actually belongs to us? The answer is, it depends.

On the surface, for instance, the flat two dimensional area of a hundred or thousand square metres is certainly ours to enjoy for as long as our lineage produces progeny but what about depth?

How deep do our property rights go? Well, the cheerless answer to this is, very little. In fact about 0.00002% of the Earth’s diameter.

In other words, if gold, fossil or aburied meteorite is lying plumb under the master bedroom at a depth of a hundred metres it can’t usually be claimed by anyone because, depending on the jurisdiction or mineral rights involved, that part of land belongs to someone else which is usually the government.

It makes sense. Otherwise, because the earth is round one would eventually infringe on someone else’s property on the antipodal side of the globe.

Fortunately, this is not much of an issue because we cannot possibly explore that deep. Yet people like to think that what they mean by owning property is owning it to the centre of the planet.

Sadly, this misguided feeling of absolute territoriality has overlapped into other modes of tenure too.

Slave-owners, lovers and parents, for example, have for thousands of years continuously laboured under the delusion that their serfs, mates or offspring are totally theirs to the depths of other’s being — until, of course, they’re brought rudely back to the surface of the skin when uprisings occur, infidelities abound and children rebel.

Yet very few learn that what we actually think we own is a projected flat outer surface and perhaps to a few millimetres below — if that — and that what lies way underneath can’t be claimed as ours because it’s not in our jurisdiction even metaphorically and never will be.

This, too, makes sense, else we would be infringing on a much larger whole which the person undeniably is and which also involves many others coming in from different directions.

Again, this isn’t much of an issue because no one can possibly explore that deep. And we should be thankful for that because very often we ourselves happen to be the other person.

Accidental Spirituality aka Divine Madness

2010-10-01T02:37:00.000-07:00

An utterly sane madness

| Author: Mukul Sharma |

Findings published in the latest issue of Neurone indicate that damage to the back part of the brain induces people to become more aware of themselves and boosts their spiritual thinking. Researchers from the University of Udine in Italy interviewed 88 people with brain tumours of various severities before and after their surgeries and later mapped the exact area of the brain that was operated on. They found that those who had operations performed on the left and right posterior parietal regions of the brain were significantly more likely to be rated as having a“stable personality dimension related to transcendental self-referential awareness” after their surgery than those whose operations were performed on other areas of the brain.

Aside from the induced spirituality, the team’s study also noticed differences in the way the patients dealt with their illnesses following their surgeries. Those who had lost posterior parietal tissue, for example, were now less troubled by their cancers and their own mortality while those who had had their anterior portion removed tended to react more bitterly and were less able to accept their condition.

Does this mean those who develop a sense of oneness with the universe and exhibit heightened self awareness are in some way brain damaged? Could it also be true that that mysticism and madness are somehow related — a skewed view that a lot of people from various cultures have long held? After all, the study’s lead researcher did not suggest that this was a great way for inducing a spiritual dimension in people; rather, he was of the opinion that further research along such lines could one day lead to new strategies for treating at least some forms of mental illness.

Another way of looking at it, however, is to think of spirituality as an emergent phenomenon arising from latent tendencies lying dormant in us which can sometimes accidentally or artificially be triggered by tumours. This would mean those who consciously or unconsciously make an effort to be connected to nature, lost in the moment, detached from time or just feel like everything in existence is one single organism are also somehow altering their brains in the process. And altering it in ways that evolution never intended or could without the occasional pathology of cancer. It’s hardly insane thinking; if anything, it’s a divine madness.

'Beware of Bear Hug' Vithal C Nadkarni

2010-09-29T01:25:00.000-07:00

'Beware' of bear hug

Posted on September 29, 2010 | Author: Vithalc Nadkarni | View 3

Billy Pilgrim is a soldier ‘unstuck in time’ in Kurt Vonnegut’s classic Slaughterhouse-Five. As a result he experiences events past and future in a repetitive, non-linear manner without chronological or narrative sequence.

That means Billy’s life-cart can start before its horse does — because his life does not necessarily end with death; he can relive the experience of his death, before its time, an experience that is often mingled with his other life experiences.

In sharp contrast are the aliens known as Tralfamadorians. They kidnap Billy and ultimately teach him the ‘secret’ of time as a fourth dimension of the world, where everything exists simultaneously and where everyone is always alive.

The Tralfamadorians strongly believe in predestination. They say they cannot choose to change anything about their fates, but can choose to concentrate upon any moment in their lives, and Billy becomes convinced of the veracity of their theories.

Furthermore, what you choose to remember and recall can also be a matter of conscious choice. Masters of mindfulness meditation say that awareness awakens us from the trance of automaticity or merely reactive behaviour.

But this is more easily said than done. “For we are so mesmerised by our ideas about the world (and ourselves) that we tend to miss out on much of our direct sensory experience, says Buddhist teacher-psychotherapist Tara Brach.

“Even when we are aware of feeling a strong breeze, the sound of rain on the roof, a fragrance in the air, we rarely remain with the experience long enough to inhabit it fully,” she writes in her best-seller — Embracing your life with the heart of a Buddha: Radical Acceptance.

“In most moments we have overlay of inner dialogue that comments on what is happening and plans what we might do next.” Brach cites the example of greeting a friend with a hug, where “our moments of physical contact become blurred by our computations about how long to embrace or what we are going to say when we are done. We rush through the hug, not fully present”.

Your columnist experienced this when Mata Amritanandamayi gave him an embrace of compassion.

Instead of listening to what she kept whispering in his ear in his mother tongue: mogache por maje (my beloved child) he was more worried about where and how to place his hands! Did one do that with one’s own mother? Release followed in a flash.

man becoming machine : embeddeed technology

2010-08-04T00:48:00.000-07:00

In the harmony of machines

Posted on August 3, 2010 | Author: Mukul Sharma |

Here's irony indeed: earthworms, eagles and orangutans are examples of creatures that seem to be in harmony with themselves and everything around them. They are born, give birth, kill or get killed and ultimately go individually extinct without ever bothering to reflect — or having the capacity to do so — on such activity with the kind of perfect equanimity attained by those who are enlightened. Alas, if only Arjuna could have been shown the way a cockroach lives, some 18 profound chapters of an annotated sermon on the momentous battle might have been avoided.

That’s because we who aren’t just biological machines and happen to be gifted with a delicacy of awareness are not so lucky. Doomed to constant introspection, we fret to death on thoughts, words and deeds because there’s something called humanness that is more than mere animal that has evolved in us.

But, somehow, that humanity hasn’t turned out to be enough; something obviously seems to have been lost along the way. Else, why would we be told by those who are wise to not be wholly fulfilled by our everyday existence and exhorted to bettering our being?

There is, however, a flip side to this existential angst. All that inner wrangling has given birth to some of our best poetry and painting along with the greatest in literature, music, song and sculpture. It has also created societies, systems of governance, economic structures and founded religions and mythology.

And, just as importantly, it has given rise to an overarching curiosity about the worlds we inhabit so that we no longer stand in fear and awe of the unknown but understand how things work and make them work for us instead. We think such magnificent tools of science have also defined us away from animals forever.

Nothing wrong with that and more power to us, but now we are told the future lies in the melding of man with mechanisms wherein implants, electrodes and computer-brain interfaces with digital data uploads to the brain and downloads to disc are inevitable.

Yet, whether you internalise a tool or externalise out into it, you risk becoming the tool as much as the tool risks becoming you in the process of creating this higher order tool. The only possible danger is that we could then devolve into something resembling biological machines all over again, living in harmony with ourselves and everything around us. Would that be worth it?

Sorites problem or problem of the Heap

2010-07-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

It was then that it became apparent to me that these dilemmas – and indeed, many others – are manifestations of a more general problem that affects certain kinds of decision-making. They are all instances of the so-called ‘Sorites’ problem, or ‘the problem of the heap’. The problem is this: if you have a heap of pebbles, and you start removing pebbles one at a time, exactly at what point does the heap cease to be a heap? The heap I want to employ to illustrate this problem is the heap of hair that used to adorn my head, before time weeded my cranium.

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Photographic evidence shows that in 1980 I had a full head of hair, while in 1990 I was bald. It follows from this that some time in the 1980s I became bald. However, it seems impossible – or daft – to state when it was I crossed the boundary – to say, for example, that I became bald at 8:30 p.m. on 27th August 1987. And yet there must have been a moment between the two dates when I became bald, otherwise I would not have arrived at the state of being bald by the time 1990 came. The fundamental problem is that of mapping a dichotomous distinction – not-bald versus bald – on to what is essentially a continuous process of hair loss.

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When we try to apply ethical principles to the slippery material of everyday life, we are all of us in the uncomfortable position of having to dichotomise over a continuum.

Is Morality an Evolutionary Trait ?

2010-07-31T10:14:00.000-07:00

Cooperate and be damned?
Author: Mukul Sharma |

Where does morality come from? For the majority of people who are believers, it comes from God because God is the ultimate good and, therefore, He must have created us with the ability to know right from wrong — as opposed to animals who we assume don’t have this judgemental acumen.

But then along came Darwin and the moral naturalists who felt that such a discerning sensibility was an evolutionary handme-down established by such social creatures as bees, pack-hunting wild dogs and monkeys who cooperate towards a common goal for the betterment of their group or community.

Or, as David Brooks puts in a recent New York Times op-ed, “By the time humans came around, evolution had forged a pretty firm foundation for a moral sense… we have natural receptors that help us recognise fairness and cruelty.”

He then quotes a study where six-month-old babies were shown photographs of a figure struggling up a hill along with another figure helping him and a third hindering. Apparently, even these early infants demonstrated their preference for the helper over the hinderer.

It’s a short detour from there to altruism, sacrifice and the search for value within the environment of cooperation. Yet, there’s a problem: cooperation doesn’t axiomatically culminate in goodness or value.

The unbelievable degree of teamwork achieved by George Clooney’s gang of casino robbers in Ocean’s Eleven is something that would put whole generations of termites to shame, but does that mean what they did was right?

The Nazis collaborated like a fine-tuned orchestra in running their concentration camps for a ‘final solution’, but is genocide right?

Is there a shred of morality here? Cooperation might have evolutionary value, but is not necessarily principled on ethics because it’s ultimately limited in scope. Survival of the fittest may be transformed into survival of the ‘goodest’, but only in a very restrictive sense where the greater good is conveniently left out.

On the other hand, take a man who says he will not kill any animal for food even if that animal happens to be an accidental germ. Such a person is actually bucking every evolutionary attribute in him that predicates the kind of meal his species intakes. Others may think he’s completely nuts, but no one in his right mind believes he’s a bad person or in any way evil. So much for evolution explaining our morality

short meditation module for Teens !

2010-06-27T04:49:00.000-07:00

Secret of teen power
Posted on June 27, 2010 | Author: Vithal C Nadkarni | View 4

JOHN Selby's The Cool Way to Calmspecifically offers meditation for high school students as a non-religious method for calming emotions,clearing the mind,and feeling good in the body.It's contrary to the stereotype of a bearded guru meditating in some far-off cave in the Himalayan wilderness,he clarifies.He was lucky enough to grow up in a town in California where a wonderful meditation teacher called Jiddu Krishnamurti spent half of each year.So by the time he got to high school he had a starting notion of how to take charge of his own mind and to use the powerful tool of meditation to help him through his teen years.
Selby says his short-form'meditation method for teenagers is something one can do anywhere,anytime while taking a walk,sitting in class,playing sports or being out on a date.It's supposed to be something one can do anytime;whenever one wants to calm down,to get clear to be able to enjoy life.

What's more nobody needs to even know that you are meditating,he reassures: All they'll see is that right in the middle of being upset or confused or otherwise emotionally and mentally a mess,you're able to somehow quickly regain your composure,let go of upset feelings,and attain a sense of personal balance and power that allows you to perform at your optimum,relate with strength and compassion,and in general succeed in whatever you're doing at the moment.

In the first four chapters,the book goes back and forth between life scenes of high-schoolers trying to apply meditation to their lives.These stories are punctuated by short explanatory paragraphs.Selby has also experimented with what he calls the modular' meditation method,where each meditation module stands on its own as a short but complete unit.When these are put together in the proper order,the seven meditation modules also work as a whole as one flows from theme to theme,being taken deeper and deeper with each modular addition.

So are you ready to start Without making any effort,experience the change inside when you begin to turn your inner focus of attention directly toward the physical sensation you're feeling even right now,of the air flowing in,and flowing out of your nose or mouth as you breathe, he exhorts.Just tune into your breathing with all your mind's power of attention,and watch six breaths come and go;be open to a new experience and change!

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Buddha's ban on yogic powers !

2010-06-12T06:18:00.000-07:00

White magic of exchange
12 Jun 2010, 0505 hrs IST,Vithal C Nadkarni,ET Bureau

The Buddha and his disciples were once waiting for the boatman near the Ganges when a Yogi came by striding and gave them a pitying look only to walk on the water to cross the river. The bewildered disciples looked to the Buddha but he did not respond. Later, as they crossed the river in a sailboat, the Buddha asked the sailor how much he charged to take his retinue across and the boatman mentioned a paltry sum.

The Buddha then told his disciples that the yogi who had meditated for most of his life to learn how to tread water had wasted his life to learn a cheap trick and he went on to bind his followers to a modest code of conduct that never "showed off" siddhis or "miraculous" powers to impress people.

Buddha's ban on siddhis: If you want true liberation give up these powers; only then is the seed of evil destroyed as the individual ego merges with the universal one.

Intriguingly, the Buddha's own personal name, Siddhartha, is based on the root-word Siddha' and literally means "he whose aim is accomplished". He distinguishes between two types of powers: the garden variety of siddhis, which include all those forces of the conditioned world that transform or energise the elements.

These should include modern 'miracles' such as airplanes, satellites, telephones, computers and internet that transform elements. Buddha's second category has extraordinary siddhis or the ability to open beings up for liberating and enlightening truths. Again include secular siddhisof modern age, the byproduct of hundreds of years of continuing improvement. That's the theme of The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley.

Economic progress is an evolutionary phenomenon, he argues , which occurs in an undirected bottoms-up way as a result of the selective survival of ideas and technologies. What makes it work is exchange, today's supreme dharma.

Vignaana Bhairava Tantra Link

2010-05-25T00:58:00.000-07:00

Instinctively, I was searching for Christopher Calder, the man who wrote wonderful stuff on Meditation on home.att.net/`meditation. But that page is not visible or taken off the att.net web site, perhaps owing to controversies.

Then, I ' googled' for Christopher Calder. There were some meditation related web sites and blogs he posted his writings on. Here is on. And here, there is the much sought after, and less available
"Osho's discourses on Vignana Bhairava Tantra', the book of secrets, 112 in all.

http://www.meditationiseasy.com/mCorner/techniques/Vigyan_bhairav_tantra/introduction.htm

4 debts we are born with

2010-05-19T05:12:00.000-07:00

The great human debt
,Tejinder Narang,

We may be rich and famous but mega debtors we are. It is not a financial or a monetary liability but a very subtle debt that is debited the moment we are born. The arrears need to be squared off during this lifetime through Dharma, the principle of righteousness as recorded in all religious scriptures. Our scriptures mention four types of debts (karza or rinn in Hindi) that a man must settle in life.

Pitri rinn (debt to parent): As small children we are weaklings — need attention and support all time. We are reared by our parents /elders with love and affection. As we grow up and turn out to be stronger, parents age and become physically weak. We are therefore obliged to attend to their welfare in old age. Even if a person gives charities of million of dollars, but neglects old parents/elders — Pitri debt is not paid off.

Dev rinn (debt to gods): The gods mean the five elements of Nature; the life sustaining forces — water, air, fire, earth, ether (intelligence) and all that is edible. They are the energies of life in this world and it becomes obligatory upon all men that they contribute to the welfare of this material plane, including one's family and society , by moral integrity and sense of discrimination. All the positive contribution that is made in this world by all of us means mitigation of debit of Dev rinn.

Guru rinn (debt to master): Spiritual mentor who leads us to the path of spirituality or moksha. In this life riddled with maya and illusion, master leads us from spiritual darkness to enlightenment. We have to pay off this debt by bhakti — meditation and living a life as instructed by him.

Brham rinn (debt to lord): At birth, life is purity personified and full of innocence. After childhood — when we acquire worldly knowledge, power of reasoning and logic , manipulation of intellect and mind — we get debased from the spiritual point of view. The life of spotlessness gets spotted. Debt to lord is created. This can be reimbursed by being pure again.

It is through the grace of guru that spiritual sheet can be made spotless. Arrears to lord can be repaid by bhakti blessed by guru. Said Jesus, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me”.

Guru Nanak Sahib describes the essence of divine realisation in one word — ‘Gurprasad' — the one realised through grace (prasad) of guru.

Discovering your 'Swa Dharma'

2010-05-14T22:15:00.000-07:00

Truly follow your ‘truest interest’ !
---------------------------------------------

Discovering one’s ‘truest interest’ , swadharma or that field where one’s talents can be put to best use — this is the privilege of the fortunate few. Most persons — even those who desire to excel and who may also have a fair idea of where their talents truly lie — often become conformists, driven by various forces within and without. They become ‘square pegs in round holes’ or vice versa.

Even with regard to many cases, where the aspirant musters the needed courage and conviction to actually put his talents to best use, certain practical impediments could arise. One is with regard to those cases, where the seeker could himself feel that after all, wisdom and light had dawned on him a bit too late.

In the above regard, various true-life examples would serve to motivate and inspire. Rukmini Devi, the great Bharatanatyam exponent, had her first exposure to dance — that too to Russian ballet — when she was well over 20 years of age. Only in her 30th year, she first witnessed a Bharatanatyam performance.

However, the fire within soon lit itself into flames of great creativity , with her founding the great school of dance and music — Kalakshetra — and also going on to give virtuoso performances and choreographing great dance dramas. The rest is history.

Somerset Maugham’s portrayal of the life of the great artist Paul Gauguin, through his character , Charles Strickland, is also a reminder to many that often it is never too late.

Another issue, which could deter even the realised soul, would be the stark realities of mundane living and various commitments and obligations , which one could get entangled in. It is in this regard that various exhortations to persistence would spring to life, not as mere writings, but as practical tools to be applied for tangible results.

Clarity of priorities through that abiding wish power (iccha sakthi), exhortations, as in the Bible (Mathew: 7-7 ,8 and Luke: 11-9 ,10) that for one who knocks , it shall be opened and he that seeks shall find — these would uplift the sagging spirit “when things seem worst” or when “everything goes dead wrong” . Problems have a way of disappearing in such situations!

Indeed, the resourceful, persistent and the privileged seeker combines within himself all the necessary virtues that would enable him not only to discover his ‘true interest’ but also to work upon and follow this truly to its ultimate fulfillment!

Ed & Deb Shapiro's ' Be the Change ! '

2010-05-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

Pain flowers kind fruit

In the days of the Buddha, a group of monks wanted to get far away from the madding crowds of cities like Pataliputra to meditate. The Buddha promised them such a place in a forested glade where they could live and work on their liberation undisturbed by human distractions.

The monks went to the tranquil forest laden with fruit and fresh water springs and settled down to meditate. However, unbeknown to the monks there lived a gang of tree spirits in that very patch of wood.

The sprites were most upset about the monks coming and making themselves at home in their beloved sacred grove of trees. Now as you know, trees spirits can be extremely mean and menacing when they want to scare someone out of their wits! So they did everything in their power to spook off the monks from their meditation seats.
The poor monks hurried back to the Tathagata and complained loudly about the antics of the tree spirits.

They requested the Buddha to recommend another, safer haven for meditation. But that wasn’t to be. “Instead the Buddha taught them a meditation practice of loving kindness, or metta in Pali ,” write the eminent self-development experts Ed and Deb Shapiro in Be the change: How meditation can transform you and the world, “which develops loving kindness toward everyone, including ourselves and our enemies . And then he sent them back to the forest. His famous last words were this ` is the only protection you will need.’”

Thinking the Buddha must be wanting to test them, the monks grudgingly went back to the glade, sat down and began practising what the Master had taught and it worked! The tree spirits no longer had any effect. For all their antics, the meditators just kept sitting there and beaming out loving kindness.

The moral of the story: the spirits were won over by the waves of compassion radiating from the robed ones and, far from chasing the bonzes away, the same nasties that once had been so ferocious now became docile disciples!

According to the Shapiros the tree spirits stand for everything that goes on in our minds — all the doubts, fears, anger and negativities — that keep addling our minds. The Buddha’s point was that loving kindness has the power to overcome all manner of inner monsters and to lead us to a true heart opening, to prove that love is stronger than any opposing force. Seeing and knowing pain, we embrace and actualise kindness.

Mind of a Sage : Zen 12.May.2010

2010-05-12T02:52:00.000-07:00

May 12, 2010
---------------------------
I enjoy my lifelong path
Between misty vines and rocky caves
In the wilds there's room to spare
And time to accompany clouds
The road doesn't reach the world
Only the mindless can climb
I sit alone nights on a couch of stone
And the round moon comes up
Cold Mountain

- Han Shan

-----------------------------------------------------
May 9, 2010

The mind of the sage is
Empty and calm,
Profoundly calm,
Dealing with the world
Harmoniously
Like bellows taking in air,
Like pipes containing music.

- Chen Ting-Van

----------------------------------------------

May 12, 2010
---------------------------
I enjoy my lifelong path
Between misty vines and rocky caves
In the wilds there's room to spare
And time to accompany clouds
The road doesn't reach the world
Only the mindless can climb
I sit alone nights on a couch of stone
And the round moon comes up
Cold Mountain

- Han Shan

-----------------------------------------------------

May 5, 2010

Rain

I've heard that Sagara's rain, like truth,
Delights each heaven in different shape,
And now here's proof: I watch the rain
Stamp rings on water, shower jewels on lilies.

- Kokan shiren (1278-1346)
-----------------------------------------------------------

A short hisotry of delusion

2010-05-11T05:02:00.000-07:00

A short history of delusion
,Mukul Sharma,
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The rise of behaviourism last century rose as a reaction against what mainstream scientists perceived psychology to be till then: a waffling kind of soft pseudo-science whose practitioners had gone woolly in the head and were generally faffing around the place.

Luckily for them, however, Pavlov had just shown dogs could be made to salivate not just by the sight of food but even by some stimulus that was associated with food. Here at last was some solid empirical methodology ! Meaning, in order for psychology not to be seen as a fringe member of the elite hard science club, they realised their theories needed to be supported by experimental data obtained through careful and controlled observation and measurement of behaviour.

Then they started going over the top. They became concerned mainly with observable external activity since only these could be scientifically quantified — as opposed to internal events like thinking, judgment, feelings, etc, which were subjective and could not.

Maintaining there was no difference between the learning which takes place in humans and that in other animals they concluded all behaviour, no matter how complex, could be reduced to a simple stimulus-response association. In other words, when we are born our minds are a blank slate and everything thereafter is learnt from the environment through the process of conditioning.

“Give me a dozen healthy infants , well-formed and my own specified world to bring them up in,” declared John Watson, a man who dominated behavioural psychology at one time, “and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select — doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents , penchants, tendencies, abilities , vocations, and race of his ancestors.”

Finally, they denied the entire existence of anything like mind, free will or consciousness even though each of them had memories , made decisions and dreamt on a regular basis. This instantly devalued what should have been considered senior and of primary importance. And while it may sound ludicrous, it's believed, promoted and applied in many theories and methods used in society today. Is it any wonder then why, instead of embracing a proper, empowering and correct philosophy, totalitarians simply adore modern psychology?

(cosmix) Very simple ' creation' story !

2010-05-04T02:28:00.000-07:00

A very simple creation story
-------------------------------

Scientists rubbish the creationists' argument about the origin of life, and human beings in particular, along two fronts: the practical and the theoretical. The first refers to the paleontological evidence and the second to the theory of evolution.

While the practical refutation is pretty watertight with fossil and other geologic records abounding, the case for evolution can sometimes be perceived as resting on shakier ground with creationists constantly trying to pick holes in some still not fully understood aspects of evolution.

But now it seems science has finally managed to win on that front too. It's because of an ongoing experiment called Avida, developed at the Digital Evolution Laboratory at Michigan State University in the US.

Avida is an artificial life software platform which is designed to study the evolutionary biology of self-replicating and evolving computer programs or digital organisms that starts with the representation of a simple life form and then applies Darwin's laws to it.

The program allows these life forms to mutate with the inferior mutations dying out and the superior ones surviving. Over the years, Avida has shown that the mechanics of evolution can by itself provide a race of creatures with an ever-improving gene pool that slowly improves a species to a very high level. And this happens not by divine intervention, but by simple chance as a blind response to a hostile environment.

As Robert Pennock, a philosopher at Michigan State puts it: “Avida is not a simulation of evolution; it is an instance of it. All the core parts of the Darwinian process are there. These things replicate , they mutate, they are competing with one another. The very process of natural selection is happening there.”

So it appears evolution is a powerful and validated mechanism. But consider this scenario. What if an Avida like experiment was allowed to continue till it produced an artificial life form that became sentient in the end like us? If such entities could think, it's not improbable that they too might one day ascribe their development to evolution and not to some designer working behind the scenes.

They would be right of course yet they would also be wrong. For we know don't we that they actually arose from the minds of a bunch of scientists in a university lab during the course of a long-term experiment . Just another argument.

7 Traits of Success

2010-04-29T05:49:00.000-07:00

Savour success, and thus enhance it
----------------------------------------------------
26 Apr 2010, 0758 hrs IST,K VIJAYARAGHAVAN,

* god
* Maxwell Maltz

Just as understanding the seven ‘failure traits’ , (as conceived of by Dr Maxwell Maltz in his book, Psychocybernetics ) enables the seeker to minimise failures in life, analysis of the seven ‘success traits’ enables him to understand these better for beneficial results.

The first of these traits, as elaborated by Dr Maltz is ‘sense of direction’ . He stresses on moving forward to particular objectives and goals evolved for oneself and observes , “Functionally , a man is somewhat like a bicycle , maintaining its poise, as long as it goes forward, becoming shaky once it is balanced still” . Indeed, it is necessary to develop a “nostalgia for the future” , with something to work and hope for!

About the second trait, ‘understanding’ , Dr Maltz points out to the fact that each person is made in his own way and thus would act and react differently. Adding opinion to facts, attributing motives, jumping into conclusions, ‘rationalising’ things — these would all take back seats, when this understanding and maturity reign.

Confronting, instead of dodging problems, is verily ‘courage’ — the third ‘success’ trait. Risking failure while moving forward is better than standing ‘on the spot’ , because even mistakes can be corrected by the “corrective mechanism” within. Similarly, the trait of ‘charity’ is a sublime manifestation, conceiving everyone as a “child of God, a unique individuality, which deserves some dignity and respect” .

‘Esteem’ , the fifth virtue, is that fulfilment, “an appreciation of yourself for what you are” . Similarly, ‘self confidence’ stems from remembering past occasions of success too and not just failures, thus enabling the ‘success mechanism’ to take over. Dr Maltz prescribes, “Use errors and mistakes as a way to learning — then dismiss them from your mind” .

The last of the ‘success traits’ is ‘self acceptance’ — on accepting and identifying one’s faults and errors as well as strengths and assets. Dr Maltz concludes on this self acceptance, “Accept yourself. Be yourself, without turning your back upon it or refusing to recognise it” .

Analysis by Dr Maxwell Maltz of the ‘success mechanism’ enables the seeker first to understand various issues concerning accomplishment of success. Savouring this feeling also thus enhances the experience . This verily, obtains more and more success, for, nothing succeeds like success!

"If U love someone, set him / her free "

2010-04-13T04:49:00.000-07:00

Another way is to hold on
13 Apr 2010, 0614 hrs IST,Mukul Sharma
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Much has been written about letting go. How its self-purging and cathartic qualities can release us from the coils of bondage, attachment and suffering. And how we only imagine that things are really ours when, in fact, our friends, lovers, spouses and children are not because they belong only to themselves.

Also, how possessive and controlling friendships and relationships can be as harmful as outright neglect.

Unfortunately , it all started many hundreds of years ago with a slightly chicken-soupy Chinese proverb that tries unfairly to smack of Zen: If you love something set it free; if it comes back to you it's yours, if it doesn't it never was.

Firstly, it often proves nothing of the kind. What if you decide to check out your pet cat's take on you and leave it in the outskirts on the other side of town and it manages to find its way back (cats can frequently do this)? Not only is it a ghastly experiment to perform on a bewildered animal but are you going to repeat it every time the ownership blues descend? Secondly, it can often be tragic.

Try suddenly setting your lover free one day and he or she will in all probability end up wondering what the hell you're trying to achieve and, believing you're nuts, may move away from what could have been fruitful or rewarding. How long will you wait for the person to return? Till you're with a permanent someone else?

Thirdly, with some people it just doesn't work.

Writer Allison Wilcox says letting go begins with the cutting of the umbilical cord and ends when you hand over the keys of your car. Maybe, but it doesn't work in reverse. Parents, for instance, never believe they can be set free. For them, the question of coming back simply doesn't arise.

Okay, so maybe there's a far more refined metaphor operating here. But, isn't it still too drastic an action to take just to be certain about something ? As the social philosopher Erich Fromm, author of Escape From Freedom puts it, “The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning” — something the Buddha too realised many years earlier when he evolved to the Middle Way that rejected disassociation and, instead, meant remaining involved with others.

Could it be time then to overhaul the tacky saw and replace it with something in the same spirit? Like for instance: If you love something, hold on to it; if it remains with you it's yours, if it sets itself free it never was.

Zen: Nature's Cycle

2010-04-08T01:13:00.001-07:00

Who isn't happy when it rains during drought?
Everyone washes off the dirt.

Every leaf of grass opens its eyes and dances,
Every flower drinks and is refreshed.
Farmers in raincoats are busy in the fields,
Herb-gatherers have no time to rest.
Watching this natural course of events,
I marvel at the innocence of the universe.

- Naong Haegun (1320-1376)

Right Perspective and acquiring Merit ! ( Bill Bodri)

2010-04-07T00:30:00.001-07:00

There is a famous story in the annals of Zen regarding the Zen
student Yang-Shan Hui-chi and his master Kuei-shan Ling-yu. Yang-
Shan had attained the Tao, and asked his master the following
question: "I know the things of one period, so where should I
practice?"

In the vernacular of the time, Yang-shan had said that he had gained
the initials stage of self-realization. He had verified the truth
of enlightenment teachings due to personal experiences from his
meditation work, and now he wanted to know how he should continue
practicing … how he should handle his mental states, conduct himself
in the world, perform his religious duties, and how he should
continue to cultivate realization now that he had seen the Tao. Due
to his cultivation he had attained an experience of emptiness and
non-ego, so he had achieved the spiritual attainment of "direct
vision" or awakening and verified teachings on the Tao. Now he
wanted to know what to do to progress further.

Master Kuei-shan replied, "All that's important is that your eye is
correct. I won't talk about your practice."

Naturally these only were the words for a highly gifted student, as
Kuei-shan was known as the "little Shakyamuni." But they tell us
that the most important thing in spiritual practice is arriving at
the point where you experientially realize the Tao to see that
everything is empty of reality and thereby attain the right view
and correct understanding of the ultimate spiritual path. Once you
attain the right view, with wisdom you will be able to guide
yourself correctly on the rest of the cultivation road as long as
you stick to the proper principles. Once your perception of Truth is
correct -- once you have the correct understanding of enlightenment
teachings because you've experienced it due to your spiritual
efforts -- your other cultivation work will tend to stay on track
because you will keep them in line with the proper understanding.

However, if you do not achieve the right view because you have not
attained a direct perception of the Truth, your spiritual practice
will tend to go wrong no matter how hard you work. Even if you study
hard, which you must do in order to help break through to
realization, study is not enough without direct experience because
that's the only thing that engenders the correct view. A Buddhist
scripture says, "If the orientation of mind is not correct, all
practices are in vain." The Fifth Patriarch of Zen said to the
Sixth Patriarch upon his awakening, "If you do not see fundamental
true nature, cultivating the Dharma will not benefit you."

Only after seeing the Tao are you said to be capable of truly
cultivating the spiritual path. Until you actually understand the
meaning of the spiritual path through a transcendental experience of
emptiness and non-ego, all your cultivation work is just a
preparation. After such a realization, however, you will really know
how to properly practice.

Even Tibetan esoteric masters say, "Only after recognizing [your]
intrinsic 'awareness-without-content' can the disciple practice
Mahamudra correctly. Until he has done so, he will find it difficult
to escape from the subject-object entanglement and to elevate his
mind to the state of non-distinction and non-attachment. To deepen
this illuminating-void Awareness, he should practice often the
essential instructions."

The right view, the result of spiritual awakening into the meaning
of empty awareness, non-ego and the ungraspable impermanence of
phenomena and mental states, is what will enable you to attain
enlightenment. It means understanding that there is no such thing
as an ego, that the phenomenal world is undependable, ungraspable
and incessantly changing like a dream, but that there is one
original nature that is the source of the awareness that shines
through all sentient beings (like one moon in the sky that is
reflected in a thousand puddles below).

This original nature is the absolute, fundamental, "one without a
second" ultimate source of both matter and mind, and the purpose of
spiritual cultivation is to experience obstruction-free, ignorance-
free, stainless union without affliction of that one true changeless
original nature that always was, is and will be.

What we call the conventional world is a series of endless energy
transformations that appear to the mind: lights, shapes, sounds,
tastes, texture, odors and thoughts. In terms of existence or
beingness, you are always and everywhere only ever experiencing your
own mind and its images. That's all you ever experience and that's
all you ever can experience. All these things happen within the
original nature; the original nature is at its root. That's your
true being and true life, not the limited tableau of consciousness
you take for self-experience and self-being.

Spiritual cultivation, or religious practice, is the process of
training to let go of any attachments to thoughts, mental
scenarios and the mental continuum of consciousness itself that you
take for experience while letting everything function freely. Along
this route of detachment from clinging to the images that arise in
the mind, which is one with the original nature, you can eventually
arrive at the one empty, pure original nature that shines through
consciousness or awareness to make all perception happen.

The body is not your true self. Your mind of thoughts, or
consciousness, is not your true self either because it also
constantly changes whereas the real self is permanent. What you
mistake as you are just images, consciousness, thoughts that flick
across the screen of awareness or empty consciousness, a primordial
property of the Self The world we experience is a dreamscape of
impermanent events and suffering where no one thing is defined by
itself. Rather, everything together defines everything else in one
giant web of interdependence. And yet since that too is known by the
mind, it IS the mind or original nature even though the panaroma
comes and goes and does not stay. Nirvana, the original nature, and
samaras - the dream world of conventional reality images, are one
and the same thing. Emptiness and interdependence are a unified
whole of One Taste.

Spiritual practice always begins with cultivating the right view of
what the ultimate objective is, and how to arrive there. One must
know the target or objective, and the errors of practice or
understanding that might stand in the way of its realization. When
you attain that direct union with the Supreme, we call it 'self-
realization" because it is realization of your true Self, which is
the one and same true Self for all sentient beings with
consciousness.

If you don't know the correct target and objectives of spiritual
practice - which are non-denominational principles common to all
true religions -- your spiritual practice is bound to be
ineffective. Lacking the right view (as well as correct practice or
sufficient practice), this is why most people never attain the Tao.
They want spiritual enlightenment but lacking the right view they
practice incorrectly and never reach attainment.

Only after we obtain the right view - from study combined with
spiritual practice to unveil the experience -- is it then safe to
cultivate the physical body to be more in tune with the original
state. The big danger in most spiritual traditions that focus on
cultivating the body and transforming its five elements - such as in
Taoism, yoga, esoteric Buddhism, tantra, paganism, western alchemy,
kaballah and others -- is that people attempt to cultivate the body
without having the right view. Lacking the right view, they never
succeed in the physical transformations they desire and never
attain enlightenment. They never detach from the concept of being a
body, so if the results are even moderately successful, they only
purify the physical body somewhat or produce a heavenly deity body
that is doomed to perish in time as well.

The big catastrophe of Vajrayana in Tibetan Buddhism, for instance,
is that most practitioners cultivate by playing with their chi
energies and attempt to bring consciousness into the body when it
is everywhere (after all, you are only ever experiencing your mind,
so everything you see is mind, or consciousness). Consequently they
emphasize the exact opposite of the Truth that the physical body
or any energetic or chi body is unreal and that the ultimate
original nature is empty of bodies, forms or attributes. It is all
only That. Only after seeing the Tao and attaining the right view
can one cultivate the sambhogakaya safely. The Zen school is perhaps
the most successful of all schools in existence because masters
ignore the body and gong-fu states entirely until they realize the
original nature, or "dharmakaya."

===

That aside, a related but unrelated issue. One of my Stages students
called me and said he was reading one of Master Nan's books where he
wrote, "Why is it, if you've been following discipline and putting
in meditation practice time, that you still don't have samadhi? Why
is that? It's because you haven't been working on your vows."

The path is all about behavior in the end, and the Zen school calls
that "carrying out vows." The three stages of the path in terms of
the Zen road are seeing the Tao (getting the right view),
cultivating realization and carrying out vows. We just talked about
seeing the Tao or getting the right view, and one reason people
don't succeed in that despite thei extensive study, desire and
committment to practice is that they haven't been making vows or
working on their vows. The Tao is everyone and you're only
interested in yourself ... so you think you can succeed? You need
merit to succeed on the spiritual road, plain and simple, and it
comes from compassionate acts to help others. Your vows are those
things regarding how you want to help the world ... what you say to
yourself you want to be able to do, sponsor, etc. when you get rich,
become a Buddha etc.

Well guess what? In terms of vows, you have to start NOW and not
wait until you are rich or a Buddha or Bodhisattva. That's how you
become a Buddha or Bodhisattva in the first place, because your past
deeds show it instead of good thoughts and mouthy intentions. If
you know you get angry easily, you try to cut off that habit now. If
you want to help orphans you donate now. If you, well, you get the
picture...

If you want to help people in a certain way "when you get rich" in
the future, well guess what -- riches almost never materialize for
folks. You're dreaming, so you're cheating yourself. You only get
rich from making merit, from making offerings, and you want to make
offerings AFTER you get rich. Sorry. That's why many Zen masters
would collect money for their temples fromt he poor -- because they
wanted them to have the chance to make merit, even if just a few
pennies.

So you must start giving NOW and then build. There is no perfect
time when you can give, there is only the present time to do your
part and from that small part, merit builds and you can finally
accomplish your vows or wishes ebcause of the merit you accumulated.
That's how it works. You don't wait for some perfect future but
start now from small beginnings. I wish it was some other way that
all those people with great intentions would get rich to be able to
do good things in the world but I've never seen it. It's always
those who act, even with small participation, who change things.

This brings up the concept of merit again, and once again one of my
favorite charities because it's one of the biggest Bangs for the
Buck I can find. I like the Red Cross, Heifer International, Accion,
Doctors Without Borders, Interplast and several other charities, but
especially HaitiWater.org. I'm greedy for merit so I look for th
biggest helpful BANG for my small dollar, hence I especially refer
people to HaitiWater.org as a great charity that helps literally
thousands of people for a hundred bucks (recently the numbers were
75,000 people per $100) and they just joined Global Challenge to
make it easier for you to help people in Haiti get access to clean
water after the devastating earthquake. Bill CLinton liked them so
much he mentioned them on stage at a Global Meeting in New York, and
that was before the earthquake. They are poised to be able to do
something no one else can -- make clean water available to people.
If you've ever been without water for a day, you know how important
this is. In this case, crucial since it's saving lives.

That's making BIG merit. The Tao school says you need 3,000 big
deeds of merit (such as saving one life) to be able to gain the
Tao. I don't believe in those exact numbers, but I do believe in
helping which my teacher stressed time and again, but only when it
was legitimate and especially when it solved a problem with a long
term solution, as done here. Right now these folks asked me to send
people to this site so the rest is up to you:

http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/cleanwater-for-400000-haitians/

Talk to you soon,

Bill

TopShape Publishing, LLC
1135 Terminal Way Reno, NV 89502

(metamorphosis) " Destiny is variable" (Oven Waters)

2010-03-08T10:24:00.000-08:00

Destiny is Variable

By Owen Waters
Excerpted from his book, Love, Light, Laughter: The New Spirituality, also available in ebook format.

In the Old Reality, things were seen as opposites - black or white, hot or cold, good or bad, this way or that way. In the expanded view of New Reality consciousness, life is seen in a unified way. Opposite sides of the coin are viewed, not as polar opposites, but rather as just being different aspects of the one coin.

In the New Reality view of the world, the opposite extremes of black and white become, instead, endless shades of gray. Hot and cold become variable degrees of warmth. Good and bad become different shades of human nature; free of the judgment, hate and fear that comes with Old Reality, polarized thinking.

In the Old Reality, destiny and free will were seen as mutually exclusive. The reasoning was that, if destiny exists, then it controls everything and, therefore, free will does not exist. On the other hand, you can prove that free will does exist by making a choice. So, as the thinking goes, if free will does exist, then there can be no destiny.

But, wait. Perhaps that choice of "free will" was really a pre-destined one. Perhaps the person was destined to make that choice all long, so the experience of choice was just an illusion. At this point, people usually give up on the whole question because it has turned into one of those brain teasers, like asking which came first - the chicken or the egg.

Brain teasers keep your mind in an endless loop until you try stepping back from the situation and seeing it in a wider perspective. The new, wider perspective allows for the inclusion of non-materialistic factors. In deciding whether the chicken or the egg came first, for example, you just have to step back and see that the Creator designed the chicken to be self-perpetuating.

When you step back and see destiny and free will from a wider perspective, you realize that nothing has to be absolute. If every event in your life were pre-ordained, there would be no such thing as free will or self-determination. As we do have free will, destiny cannot be fixed.

Destiny is therefore variable, not fixed. Destiny and free will both exist as interwoven facets of your life. Like threads in a tapestry, they interact with each other and blend to form the outcomes that are the events in your life.

Your destiny is created by plans that you made at a soul level of consciousness. Before you were born, you made your main plan for this life. Then, the minute you were born, the rules of the game demanded that you also get a case of amnesia about the whole arrangement. Such is the game of life in the physical realm.

However, at night when you go to sleep, you have the chance to visit the deepest levels of human consciousness and review how the original plan is unfolding and make changes to your plan if desired. When you return to your physical body and awake in the morning, amnesia strikes again. Within seconds of your conscious mind returning into your physical brain, you forget both the surface dreams and the deep experiences of the night.

Amnesia may be a part of the game we are playing in this life, but inner guidance is always available to anyone who pays attention to it. Your intuition is your link to your soul, or inner being, which is also linked to the rest of the universe and all levels of Creation.

You are never left alone to fumble in the darkness of a purely physical life. Your inner being is always there with you, expressing itself through the quiet whisperings of intuitive information. Thanks to this inner compass of knowing, you can always sense which choice feels right. You can always tell when your life is running on plan, and you can tell equally well if you've become temporarily distracted from your plan. You always have the means to be right on course, or get back on course, and explore the fascinating themes that make up your life plan.

The most productive use of free will is to explore your true potential within the themes of your life, thus gaining the greatest possible experience from your life plan.

Destiny is an influence that comes from your inner plan. There is nothing absolute about your destiny. It's a pressure which constantly seeks the best route to unfold into manifestation.

Free will provides the means to manifest that destiny in a way that provides the learning that you came here to acquire in this life.

Destiny is variable. It adapts to the circumstances of your life every second of the day. As destiny unfolds, you feel it within as a sense of being a part of the flow of life, of manifesting your potential in the way that you planned for this day and that you planned for this life.

Destiny is the plan. Free will is the action. Experience is the result.

That's what being human is all about.

(thesouljourney) ' What's New!?'

2009-12-25T10:27:00.000-08:00

What’s New?

Many people today suffer from neophilia – not a new disease, but a fascination with whatever is new. NEW is a word that gets an arousal within the brain. A new car! New and improved! How many different ways is this word used in advertising and in our search for value?

Novelty often rules as a substitute for value. Having lost the internal references for value, brainwashed by commercialism, we equate value with what is new or said to be new. We put an S on this word to describe what we call ‘the News.’

Of course not all people value the new – only those steeped in excessive consumerism. There are some cultures that even value the old – not because it is old, but because many things that are old have character and are rife with symbolic value. The old has a way of maintaining or establishing relationships – connections with culture, history, people and time.

When modern life lacks soul, the standards for what is of value are very superficial. Appearance means more than substance. The inner is neglected in favor of the outer. Image becomes a substitute for intrinsic worth. Status is sought from some external association rather than uniqueness and inherent worth.

When we see with the eyes of the soul we realize that new is not better than old, and that old is not better than new. We see beyond these superficial categories and recognize the inherent value and uniqueness of people and things.

Soul perspectives enable us to find the true value of everyone and everything. We can see through the hollowness of image and appearance that the magicians of the media create, allowing us to experience the substance and value of our own life and the true gifts that others have to give by simply being themselves.

Exercises:

1. What values attracted you to purchase or acquire some of the things you possess?

2. Examine some of the things in your life or possessions from the point of view of character, uniqueness and soul.

3. In what aspects of your life does the superficial dominate, and what effect does that have on your relationships with yourself and others?

Cosmix : Chandra Limit and Future of the Sun

2009-12-25T09:39:00.000-08:00

To make life more than matter
----------------------------------------------

Do things matter? Both believers and non-believers, conscious creatures, partly aware animals and almost totally insensate one-celled beings behave and live out their lives exactly as if it did. What's more, it seems to make no difference to the rest of the environment. Or, even if it does, there's nothing to show for it. Whether it's building intricate systems of political thought, raising leopard cubs and teaching them to hunt or flowing into pseudopodia to engulf a speck of nourishment, we do it with a mix of creativity, caution and élan to ensure as much success as we can under the circumstances. As if things like these really mattered a lot to us.

Yet the Sun which keeps pouring its life-sustaining juices out, and without which we wouldn't have been around to question such matters, is a physical process with a finite life of its own. In about five billion years from now it will have expanded outwards to many times its current diameter due to internal pressures till it billows beyond the orbit of Mars and vapourises all the inner planets in its path.

Much before that, however, its rising luminosity would have burnt the life out of all living beings and made Earth a completely barren and sterile world awaiting final destruction. Soul will of course shrink back in times to come but by then the ultimate destruction would have been irrevocably wreaked.

But it's also true that Earth would have by then returned to the same roots of nothingness it sprang from. Some five billion years ago there was no ground beneath our feet for us for instance to step on and be conscious, semi-conscious or inert. If at all our future world existed it was in the form of a whirling disc of dusty matter spinning around a newly formed star.

Uneven gravitational forces would slowly begin to ball it up till it became globular and then start a long process of cooling - adding, as it went, an atmosphere, water, breathable oxygen and, finally, in a one-off or universally mundane manner spawn that quality of being which is so different from the inanimate.

In short, we would get a life. One which is so fraught with the fragile that it's a wonder we make is so liveable without the thought of a past or future or wherever we came from or are going to. It's not important whether things matter or not. We must only insist that they should. Otherwise how would it have ever mattered?

(cosmix) A dynamic view of morality

2009-11-03T01:47:00.000-08:00

A dynamic view of morality
-------------------------------------------
Mukul Sharma,

A liberal scientific take on cloning says it represents a process which will, in time, allow scientists to create organs that are a perfect match
for those in need of a transplant. The cloned organ would be based on the recipient’s genetic material and would not require the use of debilitating therapies in order to suppress the individual’s immune system. There would also be no chance of rejection, which is almost always fatal. Therapeutic cloning therefore symbolises the ideal in organ transplantation as it would provide an unlimited source of replacement organs to anyone who needs them.

A humanist ethical view, on the other hand, would aver that cloning, including so-called therapeutic or experimental cloning, creates a new life without a father, and reduces a mother merely to the role of a provider of an almost emptied egg. Nonetheless, the result is still a new human life and the determination to destroy or limit its use to scientific research for therapeutic ends compounds further the moral issues involved rather than for the protection of mankind. As such, cloning embryonic human life under any condition crosses an ethical line and takes an irrevocable step from which science can never hope to turn back.

That last observation, however, is tautological because it goes without saying that with each new discovery which is ultimately verified, science can never hope to turn back to an earlier model of itself without regressing to a more archaic understanding of nature. Meaning, by definition, science cannot afford to be static; it has to move ahead and be progressive — even if this means learning from mistakes. Yet, importantly, not unlearning from them.

But what about morality now? Would cloning embryonic human life for instance cross an ethical line and take an irrevocable step from which morality too can never hope to turn back? Or is morality also — horrors! — progressive? As far as history is concerned it has repeatedly demonstrated that such is, in fact, the case.

Every founder of a new belief system has changed, reinterpreted or — in some circumstances — completely altered ethical guidelines and codes of physical and spiritual conduct to be followed by the faithful. It would appear then that barring perhaps some fundamentally foundational aspects of morality (as indeed in science) the rest of the stuff is, to put it mildly, “subject to further notice”.

Osho - on argumentative people...

2009-10-31T10:54:00.000-07:00

If you have lived A CHILDHOOD OF A DEEP SHOWERING OF LOVE AND TRUST on you, YOU GATHER A BEAUTIFUL SELF-IMAGE about yourself. And if your parents have been really in deep love with each other, and they were very happy in you -- because you are the culmination of their love, the crescendo of their love, the actualization of their love... If they were deep in love, then you are the song that is born out of their love. YOU ARE THE PROOF, THE EVIDENCE THAT THEY LOVED EACH OTHER. You are their creation: they feel happy about you. They accept you, and they accept the way you are. Even if they try to help you, they try to help you in a very loving way. Even if they say sometimes, "Don't do this," you don't feel offended and you don't feel insulted. In fact, you feel cared about. BUT WHEN THE LOVE IS MISSING and the father and mother go on saying, "Don't do this, and "Do this," by and by the child starts learning that, "I am not accepted as I am. If I do certain things, I am loved; if I don't do certain things, I am not loved -- if I do some other things, I am hated." SO HE STARTS SHRINKING. His pure being is not accepted and loved. The love is conditional, trust is lost. THEN HE WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO HAVE A BEAUTIFUL SELF-IMAGE. Because it is mother's eyes which reflect you for the first time. And if you can see happiness there -- a bliss, a thrill, a great ecstasy just watching you -- you know you are valuable, you know you have intrinsic value. Then it is very easy to trust, very easy to surrender -- because you are not afraid. BUT IF YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE WRONG, then you are always trying to prove that you are right. People become argumentative. ALL ARGUMENTATIVE PEOPLE basically are people who DON'T HAVE GOOD IMAGES OF THEMSELVES. They are very defensive, very touchy. If there is some argumentative person, and you say that, "This thing you have done wrong," he immediately jumps on you, becomes very angry. HE CANNOT EVEN TAKE A SMALL FRIENDLY CRITICISM. BUT IF HE HAS A GOOD IMAGE ABOUT HIMSELF he is ready to listen, he is ready to learn, he is ready to respect others' opinions -- maybe they are right. And even if they are right and he is wrong, he is not worried -- because that doesn't matter. He remains good in his own eyes. PEOPLE ARE TOUCHY -- THEY DON'T WANT CRITICISM, they don't want somebody to say to them to do this; they don't want somebody to say to them not to do that. And these people think they cannot surrender because they are very powerful. THEY ARE JUST ILL, NEUROTIC. ONLY A POWERFUL MAN OR WOMAN CAN SURRENDER -- weaklings, never. Because in surrender they think their weakness will be known to the whole world. They know they are weak, they know their inferiority complex, so they cannot bow down. It is difficult for them -- because bowing down will be accepting that they are inferior. ONLY A SUPERIOR PERSON CAN BOW DOWN, inferior persons can never bow down. They cannot respect anybody, because they don't respect themselves. They don't know what respect is, and they are always afraid of surrender -- because surrender means weakness to them. Remember it: SURRENDER IS POSSIBLE IF YOU ARE TREMENDOUSLY POWERFUL: you are not worried about surrender, you know that you can surrender and still you will not be weak. You can surrender, and you will not lose your willpower. In fact, by surrendering you are showing the greatest willpower there is. OSHO

The Beloved

Vol 2, Ch #4: Remember To Stop In The Middle

am in Buddha Hall

(cosmix) Pointless Universe

2009-10-14T05:47:00.001-07:00

The Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg famously said: "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless."

The first question that springs to mind is, if the universe is pointless — as in being a random or one-off event — then why should it seem comprehensible? Because anything comprehensible has to have a point to it.

Maybe not a point immediately or absolutely relating to transcendence, design, purpose or development towards an end but a purpose nevertheless. Mathematics, for instance, is comprehensible because it has rules and is not chaotic or random.

The same goes for physics. Perhaps the arts too since not all scribbling is aesthetic and experts can tell the difference between bad art and good. Just like other experts can differentiate between good math and bad.

The second question we need to consider is: what about biology? That's because the life sciences are not only just a part of any universe Professor Weinberg may have in mind, but ultimately involve human beings like him who, after all, are the only ones we know raising issues like this. No one of course would doubt the issue is comprehensible; but is it also pointless in that case?

Weinberg might argue then that at least he himself would seem pointless but the rules of biology would beg to differ. Life might have arisen randomly some three to four billion years ago on Earth or many billennia earlier in some other cosmic structure but once it got going here its "purpose" (yes "purpose" — blind or not, it doesn’t matter) was to keep going.

The cardinal rule which governed the first protein or RNA or whatever that organised itself out of the primordial elemental soup of just-right ingredients was to be able to reproduce. Where did it suddenly get that "point" from? Inanimate chemicals don't reproduce like that; animate ones do and the only time they don't any more is when they’ve died trying.

We don't necessarily have to invoke a divine hand as being the architect of such a rule; a little common sense will suffice. Meaning, in order for the universe to be truly pointless, it would have to be totally incomprehensible too. Which by Weinberg's own admission it doesn't appear to be.

The same logic then should also apply to its parts, including living systems arising in it. Actually, only if the professor had admitted he comprehended nothing would he have had a point.

(cosmix) "making up" 4 past, in actual, daily practice !

2009-10-12T03:12:00.000-07:00

'Making up' in actual practice
---------------------------------
K Vijayaraghavan, ET Bureau

Rightly was it said that the taste of the pudding is in its eating! Monologues and exhortations on ‘making up’ for past bad karma through present
good karma would assume meaning only when these are capable of practical interpretation through positive results that show in actual life, in the form of tangible changes for the better.

Repentance, through realisation of past mistakes and slip ups, would also bear fruit only when this is followed by adoption of new and changed ways of living, acting and thinking. Otherwise, such acts of remorse would only serve to further depress the spirit within. This would be akin to this situation conceived of by Whittier in his Maud Muller: “For all sad words of tongue and pen, /The saddest are these, It might have been.”

Dynamic and positive repentance along with simultaneous intelligent analysis, observation and inferences would, on the other hand, usher in that optimism, recognising that the past is, after all, a bucketful of ashes. This, verily, is also the practical application of the great Sutra of Patanjali (2, 16) that suffering, which would otherwise have ensued, can be pre-empted.

Swamy Satyananda Sarswati, in this regard, alludes to the analogy of the intelligent farmer, who, after discovering about and repenting over the improper techniques adopted thus far, changes his approach. Though the results of the immediate harvest cannot be changed, those of the future ones can. So is the case with every aspirant’s apparent drift in the past, which can be made up through realisation of specific and universally applicable rules to live by, leading to right and powerful action — karmasu kaushalam.

Thus, the actual practice of ‘making up’ commences from making the needed changes within — tendencies, mind sets, habits, paradigms, and perceptions, which had thus far impeded all progress towards freedom, life and light.

A highly practical guideline in this regard is found, as noted by Priyadarshana Jain, a scholar of Jainism, in Acharya Kundakunda’s Pravachana Sara (3, 38). This verse observes how an ignorant soul takes many years to destroy its bad karma through painful austerities, while a true jnani does this in a jiffy, through “exercising restraint of mind, body and speech.”

Indeed, the road map to the actual practice of ‘making up’ and thus being born to a new world is clear to the seeker who is prepared to open his eyes to sublime truths and indications, which beckon his spirit!

(cosmix) The same sense across the Universe !

2009-09-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

The same sense across the universe
--------------------------------

There are 100 billion galaxies in the known universe with an estimated 100 billion stars in each of them. Planets, which form parts of individual star systems such as our own solar system, are now thought to be perhaps as common as stars themselves. Already about 500 have been discovered in our galaxy. Life, which evolves on planets with an environment conducive to its development must, therefore, be common considering the number of planets in each galaxy also could work out to be close to 100 billion. Even if only a fraction of them can support life, that’s still millions of planets.

The question we need to ask is if any intelligent life among them would also be religious.

Religions have never raised this question but that’s because when they were formed no such science was known and, in the majority of cases, the Earth was thought to be the centre of the universe -— or at least, the only place that mattered in the cosmic scheme of things.

But now that the facts are available to everyone except the uninformed, have they still begun asking such questions?

Unfortunately, not really. Or if they have thought about it, it’s always been brought down to the automatic assumption that a godhead would obviously imbue such life with an inborn sense of divinity. This is a faithless copout.

Ironically, science has begun to address the same question.

Michael Mayer in a recent issue of Scientific American says humans can imagine the thoughts and intentions of others and imagine that they are different from their own. “The condition,” he writes, “is so fundamental to what it is to be human that it might be a necessary precondition to civilisation. It is a small step from imagining the mind of another person — even if you have no direct access to it — to imagining the mind of a deity.”

Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould even thought such an “agency detector” propensity — the ability to infer the presence of others — would have immense survival value. (It doesn’t matter if we can’t see a predator or prey, we still need to know whether they’re around.)

Thus, any intelligent life based on Darwinian principles would follow the same pattern if it was to function as part of a cohesive and progressive culture. Religiosity, it turns out, is going to be a pretty common phenomenon with any ETs we may yet encounter, notwithstanding their otherworldliness.

That’s saying a lot for God across the universe !!

(souljourney) Heaven and Hell

2009-07-19T23:42:00.000-07:00

Heaven and Hell

Heaven and Hell are psychological concepts and realities, as well as religious ideas. In one way they can be understood as images of the outcome of the Law of Cause and Effect or Karma. In a religious sense they are spoken of as reward or punishment for thoughts and actions.

In a deeper sense they are inner realities that emerge from the natural tendencies of the psyche to maintain balance and harmony. Whenever we think or act in ways that are contrary to our own well-being we suffer in some way because we are going contrary to our nature. When this occurs we are giving ourselves the message to rectify the situation.

When we think negative or destructive thoughts about ourselves, others or life situations, we put ourselves out of the stream of natural support that the universe and our psyche are designed to supply. When we blame, condemn or reject through lack of understanding or acceptance we isolate ourselves from meaningful learning and relationship. When we refuse to love those who need our love we block soul connection that automatically wants to reach out with compassion. When we destroy or abuse our natural environment we de-value the physical world that is the foundation of our own physical incarnation. When we do not care for our own physical health and well-being, we diminish our capability of expressing our life purpose in incarnation.

The accumulation of our disregard through ignorance, laziness or selfishness produces a natural back-lash that sends the signal that something needs to change. Some rectification of thought or action needs to take place because there is a lack of harmony.

The Law of Harmony is a natural law that flows out of Universal Order. This universal order is the basis of purpose. Everything that exists has a purpose to fulfill as part of life. In order to fulfill purpose harmony must exist. When harmony does not exist, the consequences are suffering. And if nothing is learned and changed then we eventually experience a life of hell. A self- created hell.

On the other hand when we are in harmony we allow the easier expression of soul to manifest through our thoughts and actions. We are ‘in the flow’. This not only feels good, but it enables us to more easily be compassionate and understanding toward others and our environment. We are motivated to be respectful and supportive. Our harmonious inner world is reflected in our relationships. We radiate positive and helpful energies. This is our heaven.

The choices we make all contribute to the creation of our own heaven or hell. And what we create we experience, and what we experience is also what we contribute to the world around us.

Exercises:

1. What choices do you make that consciously or unconsciously contribute to your own suffering or disharmony?

2. What choices can you make that would create more harmony in you life? Make those choices now.

(souljourney) Preparing to Die

2009-07-06T04:16:00.000-07:00

Preparing To Die

We need to balance our life before we die. In a sense that means we need to return to our soul base. Throughout our life we have often lived as though we were only an ego rather than soul. We need to allow our true inner self or soul to re-possess our personal nature before leaving this world. Nature helps us do this, but we can help our own nature if we understand what is necessary.

When we have acted contrary to our own needs in life, have not responded to soul impulses when capable of doing so, and have not accepted full responsibility for our actions and experiences, this state of affairs needs to be rectified. No one is exempt from this.

The most traditional practices for doing this include some type of honest self-disclosure and making an account of our life’s deeds and experiences. This has at times been formalized in different traditions as a confession. The result of this re- evaluation and accounting of our life ought to lead us into the healing process of forgiveness – self-forgiveness first of all, and forgiveness of others where applicable.

Forgiveness involves an acceptance of responsibility, an understanding of the need for the experiences we rejected in order to learn, and an appreciation for the opportunity to manifest soul more fully. Forgiveness is not saying that something was wrong and that we will now ignore it.

Forgiveness accepts and understands and appreciates that what has transpired was needed for learning or growth. Forgiveness flows from the wisdom and compassion of the soul within. One of the services we can provide others before they die, if they are still sufficiently present, is to help them do a life review and go through the process of forgiveness as needed.

An indication that not all is well or that we are not in harmony is our natural tendency to project onto others and life what we are not willing to take responsibility for. We blame others and life for what happens to us that we do not like or want. Whenever we project we make ourselves victims.

Whatever we project we take as external fact. However, the ultimate purpose of projection is that we can use it as a mirror so we can more easily see externalized our own unconscious realities. However, it takes wisdom to recognize it as our own, and to take it back and own it.

There is a natural, healthy process that occurs as we move towards death, provided that we allow ourselves to go through it. During this time the most critical rectification that soul is able to affect within our personality is to stop us from projecting. What happens as a result of this natural personality withdrawal from the outer world that accompanies our preparation for death is an internal re-balancing process within our psyche. We then tend to stop blaming others and stop victimizing ourselves. This is accompanied by a growing acceptance of self, of life… and of impending death.

The inner conflicts then diminish and soul, in a sense, absorbs the experiences of the life with gratitude – all the experiences, whether they were positive, negative, blissful or painful.

All experience is opportunity for greater inclusiveness, regardless of what we think of it or how we feel about it. Soul sees this and passes no judgement. It is the personality which judges itself, but when one is approaching death there is a wonderful opportunity to let go of this self-judgement and allow the natural soul influenced harmonizing and adjusting to be done within the psyche. The result is peace, and the ability to move through the deathing process with greater ease.

Exercises:

1. For what do you need to forgive yourself? Let go of the judgements and forgive yourself.

2.Whom do you need to forgive and thank for an experience that you found difficult to accept? Focus on the learning and growth that could result from such an experience.

(cosmix) Pointless universe ?

2009-07-01T05:21:00.000-07:00

(soul journey) The Next Step...

2009-05-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

The Next Step

How often have you asked: ‘what should I do?’

Soul is the bridge between spirit and form. It is the center of our being. It can only be experienced in the center of time – the present moment – between past and future. This center is also the only place in consciousness where we can exercise our deepest knowing and greatest love. In the expression of this center we are most powerful because we know our purpose and follow it.

When we stand within the consciousness of soul there are only two possible directions in which to look for taking the next step. One direction is toward the form side of reality – our daily life on the physical, emotional and mental planes. One of the significant tasks of soul is to ground the universal energies of spirit, to make them specific and functional. The questions might be:

1.- Do I need to be more practical, down to earth, efficient, or organized?

2.- Do I need to learn something about some practical area of life about which I do not have sufficient knowledge in order to act appropriately or make wise decisions?

3.- Is there some area of my daily life and well-being that I am neglecting – such as health or economy – which are potential hindrances to the smooth functioning of my life?

4. - Are there emotional issues that keep getting in the way of having loving relationships?

5.- Am I in denial about some personal realities that I am unwilling to face?

6.- Do I speak in a way that is constructive and helpful, or do I gossip and express myself negatively?

These kinds of questions are important because they address the areas of life where we need to express our purpose. This side of our life is always demanding our attention in one way or another. It is always asking us to improve relationships with others and with ourselves. This is essential. However, just addressing the form side of life, the practical, is not sufficient.

The next step might be in the direction toward spirit. What this means is that soul might be prompting us to deepen our awareness of the qualitative side of our life. We may be needing to add more quality or express some particular quality in some area of our practical life.

In this case, the questions might be:

1.- Do I need to focus more on the spiritual side of my life?

2.- Do I need to be more present?

3.- How can I manifest more love in this situation?

4.- What do I need to understand in order to fulfill purpose in this circumstance?

5.- How can I empower that person?

6.- What quality can I focus on that will bring about the finest results?

7.- What attitudes and actions would support my honouring the divine presence in this relationship?

The next step we need to take is always either toward the external and practical, or toward the inner and qualitative dimensions of our life. Every challenge in life, and therefore our purpose, always involves bridging the higher and lower, the inner and outer, the spirit and form that we are. By doing this we engage in the transformation of ourselves and life, we develop soul consciousness and express the soul self that we are. We know what we should do.

Exercises:

Practice making more appropriate choices and decisions by using the questions above on specific situations or relationships in your life.

(Osho) Awareness is Aliveness !

2009-03-01T04:26:00.000-08:00

You are alive only in the proportion that you are aware. Awareness is the difference between death and life.

Buddhas have a different definition. Their definition consists of awareness. They don't say you are alive because you can breathe, they say you are alive if you are awake.

Wakefulness is the way to life, says Buddha. Become more wakeful and you will become more alive.

Osho

JKquote : Awareness , outer->inner

2009-02-23T04:21:00.000-08:00

Out of this awareness there comes a clarity that is not induced . . .

If you sit on the bank of a river after a storm, you see the stream going by, carrying a great deal of debris. Similarly, you have to watch the movement of yourself -
following every thought,
every feeling,
every intention,
every motive - just watch it.

That watching is also listening; it is being aware with your eyes, with your ears, with your insight, of all the values that human beings have created, and by which you are conditioned, and it is only this state of total awareness that will end all seeking.

Please do listen to this. Most of us think that awareness is a mysterious something to be practiced, and that we should get together day after day to talk about awareness. Now, you don't come to awareness that way at all !!

But if you are aware of outward things -
the curve of a road,
the shape of a tree,
the color of another's dress,
the outline of the mountains against a blue sky,
the delicacy of a flower,
the pain on the face of a passerby,
the ignorance, the envy,
the jealousy of others,
the beauty of the earth - then, seeing all these outward things without condemnation, without choice, you can ride on the tide of inner awareness.

Then you will become aware of your own reactions, of your own pettiness, of your own jealousies. From the outward awareness you come to the inward, but if you are not aware of the outer you cannot possibly come to the inner.

When there is inward awareness of every activity of your mind and your body, when you are aware of your thoughts, of your feelings, both secret and open, conscious and unconscious, then out of this awareness there comes a clarity that is not induced, not put together by the mind.

And without that clarity you may do what you will, you may search the heavens and the earth and the deeps, but you will never find out what is true.

(cosmix) Choices are values ! Author Read Montague

2009-02-23T01:35:00.000-08:00

As our car moves over the Vashi bridge the landscape architect talks about the role played by first impressions in choice and creativity. Her imagination was stirred by an author named Read Montague. His first name sounds like a verb, she thought when she first saw the American neuroscientist’s book at a bookstall in downtown Mumbai.

The title Why Choose This Book? was as intriguing. Montague, who is currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, was tracking that slipperiest of beasts called choice. “The sneaky secret about choice is that it’s not about choice at all — it’s about value,” said the neuroscientist who directs an imaging lab at the Baylor College of Medicine. So could he ‘explain’ why someone roots for a Dark Venus such as Serena Williams while another pines for a blonde goddess called Maria Sharapova?

The act of choosing one action (or actor) over another follows directly from the way the brain values both the external world and the internal world — our thoughts, Montague elaborated. We need valuation because life is short and Time or Art are long! From such humble beginnings, life discovered subtle mechanisms of efficient valuation and embedded them in the human brain, he adds.

“The same mechanisms also constrain our choices and anchor them to our biological needs. Yet they also confer on us the freedom to choose, even to the point of denying our instincts for survival. What other species can and will die for an idea — even an idea read about in a book?” he asks rhetorically.

Dr Montague’s epiphany (as reported by his artistic fan) draws forth a quote in Punjabi from the restaurateur sitting in the back seat of the car. Ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh gave him the lyric composed by the Sufi Shaikh Ghulam Farid at the restaurant: “When someone calls Laila the love of Majnu’s life, dark, Majnu says, the caller does not have the discerning eye (teri ankh na vekhanwali),” the hotelier declaims. “The Vedas are white and so is the Quran, he goes on. (But) it’s the inky black that puts words of wisdom on white parchment. The Sufi Master too has eyes for Him who is beyond dark and light.”
The moral? “Don’t be swayed by superficialities.” As self-help guru Wayne Dyer says in his Power of Intention, if you’re unable to see and honour that same perfection in others, it’s impossible to know your own perfection. See yourself in all of humanity.

Amazon review for his book, link HERE !

(Cosmic)East Versus West - Salvation

2009-02-16T09:41:00.000-08:00

The awesome onus of being just us

Come to think of it, Judaeo-Christianity, the classical Greco-Roman religious worldview and Islam can actually make life easier. For, though we

may be prone to failings — we’re not irredeemable. There’s light at the end of the tunnel in the way of salvation if we seek it using the righteous path.

Meaning, while we may be like deep cover counter-intelligence agents injected into hostile terrain, we’re not on our own because there’s always a handler we can turn to for guidance and who, if we’re really about to make a mess of our mission (and don’t mind seeking help), can extricate us out of seemingly impossible situations. In short, we’re not alone. Robert Frost summed it up pretty succinctly when he wrote: “We dance around a ring and suppose but the secret sits in the middle and knows.”

Most eastern religions on the other hand, including mystical sects of the above mentioned creeds, are a different ball game altogether. To declare, as they do, that the godhood is inside us — that indeed, it is us — puts such a savage spin on individual responsibility that it makes a mockery of redemption.

How can a person possibly justify any unethical thought, word or deed any more, for instance, if the judge, jury and jailor is the perpetrator himself or herself?

And as if that was not enough, it’s also posited that the majority of us are ignorant of the fact our godhood resides in us. Now the burden of responsibility has to be borne without even the enlightened knowledge of its sanction. How tough is that?

It’s like the Copernican revolution in reverse. Imagine being suddenly informed one day that we’re not a minor planet orbiting an ordinary star in the remote arm of an average galaxy among billions of other galaxies but that we are, instead, the centre of the universe. That, in fact, we are the universe.

That there is no maker of ourselves but we, no other out there but us, no time but now, no space but here, no life but this where we’re told we’ve deliberately lost ourselves in a game of make-believe hide and seek so that some may find themselves from time to time in order to continue the game or relinquish it forever and guide others to do the same because the world has no beginning or end but, rather, simply is and always will be and, in short, we — or to be more correct — I, am alone, may not make life any easier or easily rewarding but, ultimately, it turns out to be much more so.

Eckhart Tolle Quotes on Gaia.com

2009-02-09T00:32:00.000-08:00

Here is the link of Gaia.

Browse the pages.

(cosmic uplinx) Blind misleading the unsighted...

2009-02-07T10:27:00.000-08:00

A common complaint a lot of us have is we just don’t understand why sometimes other people don’t understand us.

We think we have enough good reason, justification and rationale for the things we do and the words we speak and, yet, we still find that either our motives have been misunderstood or our intentions ill-construed. “I’m not like that at all,” we say. “Why do my friends, family or colleagues think so then? Can they not make out what I’m doing or saying here? Why do they get the wrong impression all the time? Can’t they see who I am or, at least, where I’m coming from?”

A Zen master would often tell his disciples the story of a blind man who had gone to visit a friend. Night had fallen by the time he had to leave, so he asked if he could borrow a lantern. The friend was amused and asked how that would help him to see any better. The blind man replied that while it would not improve his own vision, it would help others coming down the same path to see better and avoid bumping into him.

That seemed to make sense and the friend gave him a bamboo lantern with a candle inside. However, a little later, walking down the path he bumped straight into a man coming from the opposite direction. “What’s the matter, are you blind?” he snapped at him. “Can’t you see the lantern I’m holding?” The other man replied: “No, not if you don’t light the candle inside it.”

Now, there are three people involved in the story: the man who bumped into the blind man, the blind man, and his friend. And, of course, there’s the unlit lantern. Of these, the bumper and the lantern are completely blameless for obvious reasons even though they are involved and are absolutely integral to the events that subsequently unfolded. That leaves the blind man and the friend. Who’s at fault here?

It could be argued that the friend was perhaps being a little mean-spirited by not lighting the candle inside the lantern but, going by his original amusement, he still really saw little sense in doing so, especially since — as it’s also obvious — the blind man didn’t make sure it was lit before he set out. That finally leaves only one person who could not be seen for what he was as he walked along the path. It was his responsibility alone to make sure the candle was lit so that he could be accurately visible. Instead, all he actually did was end up calling the other person blind.

(JK) Conflict , the hidden battle

2009-02-07T09:14:00.000-08:00

Conflict can exist only so long as there is reaction to that environment which produces the "I", the self. The majority of people are unconscious of this conflict - the conflict between one's self, which is but the result of the environment, and the environment itself; very few are conscious of this continuous battle. One becomes conscious of that conflict, that disharmony, that struggle between the false creation of the environment, which is the "I", and the environment itself, only through suffering.

(souljourney) Loneliness

2009-02-01T04:13:00.000-08:00

Loneliness

It is the very nature of any soul to exist together with at least another, and then still others. When one stands psychologically without another there is constant longing, quiet desperation or even pathology.

Our natural human state is one of connection and intimacy with our world and the people in it. Isolation and disconnection are contrary to our nature. Bonding with others is the basis for inner soul connections.

When we isolate ourselves intentionally or through circumstances and experience loneliness two things happen:

1. We alienate ourselves from our essence, who we are, the soul within.

2. Our body begins to reduce its production of a very important lymphocyte, which is called a natural killer cell, that scours the body and eliminates cancer and virus-infected cells.

Isolation is stressful for both men and women. Men who are widowed have a significant increase in illness and death for up to two years after the death of their spouse. Psychologists call isolation for women ego-dystonic, which means it is foreign to their natural way of being, which is strongly relational.

The complete opposite of loneliness is a committed relationship. Commitment therefore also produces the opposite symptoms – strengthened immune system, better health, quality relationships in general, and more joy.

In the final analysis, we feel lonely not because we don’t have a partner but because we are not at home or comfortable with ourselves. Loneliness results from lack of adequate relationship with the soul within ourselves, and the consequent lack of opportunity to express soul love through external relationships. This fact suggests that in order to have a committed relationship there must first of all be a commitment to the soul life within ourselves. Often the lack of inner connection is substituted in an outer relationship, but when that relationship no longer exists then the emptiness of disconnection from self comes to the surface.

Love of others and commitment to others begins with the ancient dictum: Know thyself. The word self is equivalent to Spirit. We cannot directly know Spirit, but we can know the Self through the presence of Spirit in our soul. Spirit is the life of any being. To know Spirit means then to know ourselves and others as our very life. It is being fully present without reference to anything else.

Exercises:

1. Evaluate your relationships. How committed are you?

2. How present are you when you are with others?

3. How vulnerable and intimate are you willing to be in close relationships?

4. What do you do to deepen your relationship with your Self?

Watch and watchmaker(cosmic)

2009-01-10T10:49:00.000-08:00

William Paley, the 18th century Christian philosopher is famous for popularising the Watchmaker Analogy or, as it's more commonly known now, the argument from design. Briefly, it goes thus: Human artefacts are products of intelligent design (or purpose) and the universe resembles such artefacts.

Therefore the universe must be a product of intelligent design (or purpose) too. But since the universe is vastly more complex and gigantic than a human artefact, it must have been designed by a vastly more powerful and intelligent designer. In other words, just like the design of a watch implies a designer, so does the design of the universe.

The reasoning is so viscerally persuasive that despite advances made by science to explain complex phenomenon in terms of natural processes, its lure is still tempting. Thus if we say that the location of mountains can be described by plate tectonics or biological structures by natural selection and planetary systems by the nebular hypothesis, watchmaker proponents can always come back with: yes but these natural processes are the result of the creation of the universe. Which natural process created that?

Although the rebuttal may seem iron-clad, a fatal chink in its armour may now be developing through the field of cosmology which can strike it a death blow. Scientists are beginning to think that the Big Bang model of the creation of the universe may not be correct after all.

According to some theories of quantum gravity everything in existence today could not have been packed into a singular point of infinite density, temperature and curvature. More importantly, they think that the current expansion of the universe was preceded by the collapsing phase of a previous universe which went through a Big Crunch and bounced out into this one.

Basically, this means everything was not created when scientists used to think it was but also existed before that. And perhaps before that too. This is where the design argument collapses completely because if a watch was never made but always existed, it obviously wouldn't require — or even imply — a watchmaker since only something that's been created needs a creator. So how do some faiths which also believe that the universe has always existed reconcile with their belief in a creator too? Simple: they say the creator has also always existed. In fact they rather imply that the two are inseparable aspects of each other.

Mukul Sharma : Do you have a soul ?

2009-01-10T10:34:00.000-08:00

Having an immortal soul is a very important and integral part of Christian theology. But it comes with a heavy scientific price — especially as science advances our knowledge of human lineage and evolution.

. For instance, it was easy at one time for doctrinal apologists to answer the question as to who was the first person to have a soul. All they had to say was: Adam. Unfortunately, that answer doesn’t work any longer since only a handful of ultra fundamentalists today attempt to retain the rather simplistic mythology of Genesis. Even the papacy acknowledges the evidence of Darwinism as pretty well established and that humankind goes back millions of years in its making from proto-hominids to homo sapiens.

However, that doesn’t solve the problem either. For if we are to grant that humans possess an eternal soul, there must have been a first-case scenario before which no humans had one. When did such an infusion take place that determined who was mortal and condemned to dust and who were to enjoy or suffer everlasting bliss or damnation?

Any god, it seems, would have to be fairly arbitrary in deciding at exactly what point along the continuum of a slowly evolving human species, he, she or it should make the soul come into the picture. And if indeed there was such a precise transition point, one would have to accept that some particular child then existed who had a soul while its parents didn’t.

To say that all proto-humans, irrespective of their candidature for sapiency, were infused with souls right from the beginning only pushes the question further back. Would the shrew-like creatures from which monkeys and humans descended even understand the import of having a soul or be able to deal with its moral implications? And why deny modern monkeys a soul in that case? (Incidentally, if only resurrection is considered instead of a continuously existing immortal soul, then who in the sequence of ancestors leading out from the first to the present will be the first whose body shall be resurrected?)

No, the concept of having an immortal soul reserved for only a select few inside a broader range of individuals just doesn’t work unless every living organism including bacteria and moss are also considered. And even then viruses are between animate and inanimate. So why leave out rocks and minerals? Funnily enough, there are some religions that actually say everything has a soul. Maybe we could go with them.

(cosmic) concept of universal goodness

2009-01-10T09:17:00.000-08:00

The problem with trying to describe a universal morality is that differences in cultural traditions and customs filter down through social groups
to ultimately operate in individuals. Thus, while in one part of the world honour killings may be sanctioned as morally advisable, in other places it’s still murder. The same sort of questions even influence scientific research when the government of one country bans foetal stem cell research
and another pushes for it. This notion of everyone having a different idea of good and bad, called moral relativism, is now being questioned by some scientists who feel they may be close to discovering a common basis for it.

Marc Hauser, author of Moral Minds and director of the Cognitive Evolution Laboratory at Harvard University, believes his research is adding credence to the idea of a “universal goodness impulse” — just like there’s also a universal language impulse. The impulse may generate different kinds of mutually incomprehensible speech patterns but the underlying stimulus remains the same. University of Maryland neuroscientist David Poeppel on the other hand feels that the moral rules we follow — such as when to do the right thing — is set in a sort of default position when we’re born, like the factory settings on a PC, which form the basis of morality. Later the switches are set to particular values as a function of experience.

Like-minded researchers believe this so-called “urge to good” must be universal because it’s also seen in the altruistic behaviour exhibited in animals who often show an unselfish concern for the welfare of others. Most evolutionary scientists, however, refute the moral argument by saying that it’s nothing but instinctive cooperative behaviour that may be detrimental to the individual but occurs nonetheless because it contributes to the overall survival of the species in the long run.

But this doesn’t answer a far more fundamental question as to why survival itself should be deemed so important by all living things. What possible benefit could there be in making copies of our genes, ourselves or our groups? (Saying “survival benefit” is merely tautological.) Obviously if it was bad to survive, nothing would have, even if it got infused with life somehow. Therefore, there’s no getting away from the corollary that it must be good to survive. Why this is so is what science must now investigate.

(souljourney) Holding on & Letting go

2008-12-08T22:50:00.000-08:00

Our attachments to people, things and situations are a result of feeling that these people, things and situations give us something that would otherwise be missing in our life.

We both get something from such relationships as well as learn lessons of giving. Whatever or whomever we are attached to is needing to be released so that they can be free. And we need to learn to let go in love so that we can be free. While attachment is inevitable in the early part of personality development, it later becomes a hindrance. It is always a hindrance on the soul path, although a good symbolic indicator of what needs to be done.

One of our most difficult lessons in life is to love without holding on – loving and allowing total freedom to the ones we love. Attachments show us where we are not totally succeeding, where we are still using others to give us something we feel we are lacking.

Obviously, attachments are a form of selfishness. This is not a blame statement, but a statement of fact. Selfishness is not wrong. It is a condition that we need to become more aware of so that we can learn to choose love more frequently. When and where we are selfish is when and where we are not loving – not loving ourselves nor the other, despite appearances to the contrary.

When you do not let someone go emotionally after separation or death, you are being selfish. Whenever you are selfish you want to possess another. The person who has left your life you never did possess, but you had the illusion of possession. The person was in your life for a period of time in order for you to challenge and support each other, and give each other opportunities to learn and serve. Once they are gone there is no further purpose in your continued relationship.

There is no need to fulfill since the relationship as it was no longer exists. Hence, there is no longer a purpose for being together. You both are potentially free to explore and experience something new.

Your holding on means that you are not loving them because you are trying to possess them, when it is clear that they need to be free from you and you from them.

Your holding on means that you are not loving yourself because you are trying to take something from the other (such as meaning, self value, usefulness, comfort, acceptance, devotion, love, etc.) rather than seeing that you have it all in yourself. Love toward oneself results in giving of oneself, not trying to take from another out of a sense of lack.

As long as you feel that another's absence has left a hole in your life, that you have a missing part, you will not let go until you address that issue and fill the hole or find the missing part. You need others in your life to do this because the work or healing always involves giving to self through giving to others.

Letting go of the illusion of possession and the emotional attachment to that illusion, necessitates a strong and thorough focus on loving and nurturing the wounded personality. This could include:

• counting your blessings; taking stock of all the good things in your life

• doing what you enjoy by using your skills, talents and interests

• having fun; lightening up; not taking yourself so seriously; giving up the pity party

• helping others in a way that you choose – i.e., sharing something of your talents, skills, goodness, time, energy, etc.

• daily reflections, reviews and assimilation of your experiences

• seeing the meaning and purpose of the separation or death, and giving thanks for what was the meaning and purpose of the relationship

• ritualizing the letting go in love and the transition into a new stage of life and relationship

Exercises:

1. To whom or what are you holding on? Why?

2. What is the missing part that you are not addressing that you once had fulfilled by that relationship?

3. What can/will you do to go through the healing process?

Love is NOT pleasure

2008-11-23T09:44:00.000-08:00

Without the understanding of pleasure you will never be able to understand love. Love is not pleasure. Love is something entirely different. And to understand pleasure, as I said, you have to learn about it. Now for most of us, for every human being, sex is a problem. Why? Listen to this very carefully. Because you are not able to solve it, you run away from it. The sannyasi runs away from it by taking a vow of celibacy, by denying. Please see what happens to such a mind !

By denying something which is a part of your whole structure - the glands and so on - by suppressing it, you have made yourself arid, and there is a constant battle going on within yourself.

As we were saying, we have only two ways of meeting any problem, apparently: either suppressing it or running away from it. Suppressing it is really the same thing as running away from it. And we have a whole network of escapes - very intricate, intellectual, emotional - and ordinary everyday activity.

There are various forms of escapes into which we will not go for the moment. But we have this problem. The sannyasi escapes from it in one way, but he has not resolved it; he has suppressed it by taking a vow, and the whole problem is boiling in him. He may put on the outward robe of simplicity, but this becomes an extraordinary issue for him too, as it is for the man who lives an ordinary life. How do you solve that problem?

(souljourney) Growth Needs

2008-11-22T07:04:00.000-08:00

Poverty exists where basic needs are not being met. It is vital to recognize that the basic needs of humanity will only be met for humanity by those who already have their basic needs met and who are meeting their growth needs. Unless more people meet their growth needs, the world will be kept in poverty and deprivation of human dignity. Growth needs refer in some way to the growth in our essential nature as human souls in incarnation.

As more and more people are responding to soul, which is the consciousness of growth, issues of poverty are increasingly being addressed as a global responsibility rather than just a local issue as we see with such global events as Live 8.

There are many people today who must consciously recognize that they have growth needs because they are ready and capable of fulfilling these needs. When the basic needs are sufficiently met, then it becomes mandatory to fulfill the growth needs, for that is always the next step. If we do not make that transition we start to develop pathologies – which is exactly what has occurred and is occurring on the planet.

These pathologies take the form of alienation, anguish, cynicism, apathy, etc. and manifest in behaviour that we are seeing in the world today such as children killing children, psychopathy in high places (characterized by a lack of conscience), megalomania (lust for power), lack of respect for life and property, and the like. These are the pathologies that develop when growth needs are not being met. They are maladies of the soul in the sense that soul needs to be connected to and is not. Therefore the soul energies themselves are being distorted and expressed in pathological conditions.

Growth needs are those needs that relate to the development of consciousness. Some are foundational in that they lay the groundwork in the personality for consciousness development, and often are about developing awareness in the personality which must precede the development of consciousness.

There are 33 parameters of the growth needs that we need to experience. Here, p a u s e. Take a paper and rate yourself on a 5-point scale ( '0' you don't have it at all ; '5' you have it fully and the rest in-between). You will then develop a clear picture of your own growth needs and then a clear plan of action will emerge for you. You can take the help of a close companion / spouse for a second opinion and objective assessment.

1- giving
2- right relationships
3- good health
4- awareness of feelings
5- connection to beauty
6- control of reactions
7- balance and harmony
8- mental clarity
9- ability to concentrate
10- ability to think logically
11- knowledge
12- ability to discriminate
13- humour
14- freedom & ability to choose
15- detachment
16- spiritual discipline
17- trust in inner guidance
18- safety and security
19- integration of experiences
20- satisfaction in achievement
21- self esteem
22- friendships
23- love and support
24- a sense of belonging to community
25- meditation & communication with higher realms
26- development of the heart
27- relationship to the universal/God
28- soul consciousness
29- universal ideas and ideals
30- unconditional love
31- a meaningful belief system
32- a sense of meaning in life
33- a sense of purpose

Exercises:

1. Rate yourself on all the above parameters on a 5-point scale. Or get rated . Get a clear picture of your own growth needs first.

2.Attune to your soul or true inner self and determine what growth needs you need to meet.
3. What effect will meeting these needs have in your life and service?

4. In meditation attune to the energy of each of these needs, and internalize and deepen these qualities of being within you.

"Although we know that a
Frozen pond is entirely water,
The sun's heat is necessary to melt it.

Although we awaken to the fact
That an ordinary person is Buddha,
The power of dharma is necessary
To make it permeate our cultivation.

When the pond has melted,
The water flows freely.
When falsity is extinguished,
The mind will be numinous

And dynamic and then its function
Of penetrating brightness will manifest."

- Kuei-feng

(souljourney)How To Gain Insight

2008-11-08T06:21:00.000-08:00

Insight is soul vision. People who are interested in growth, meditation or spirituality often seek insight so that their goals and aspirations can be fulfilled. But seldom do people know how to get those insights. For example, they go into meditation where they may have been taught to receive insight, but without doing the preparatory work to receive insights. Or, they might try to gain insight by thinking.

Insight is an activity of soul that manifests in the personality, so an environment has to be created in which the insight can arise.

The following four steps are the basic procedures for gaining insight and being creative:

1. Every new process or birthing in life, which is what creativity really is, requires a focused purpose. There must be a kind of intensity of purpose that you want to pursue or fulfill. You therefore must have some passion about the issue or area of life for which you are seeking insight. You must really care about the issue, and be genuinely interested in it. Your attention must be absorbed by it so that you can focus on it and not be distracted by lesser interests. In terms of developing soul consciousness, you must have a deep, sincere desire to make this a priority in your life.

2. If any particular skills are required to understand, appreciate or express the insight, then those skills must be developed. If there are any materials required, then those materials must be assembled. If there is knowledge required, then that knowledge must be gained. If you are pursuing soul consciousness you need knowledge about soul and higher mind, and you need experience at a higher mind level as well as at the buddhic level. True knowledge is based on experience, but the knowledge can lead into the experience of the more abstract levels.

On a personality level experience precedes understanding. But on a soul level understanding typically prepares one for experiences at that level.

3. Once we have acquired sufficient knowledge, skills and materials, and still feel very dedicated to the pursuit, the amassed energy of it will begin to take over. We must allow it to do so, and we take a subservient role toward it. This is a gestation period, a time when we allow the soul or the universal wisdom to dominate our mind and brain.

Thinking does not create insight. So at this stage we don’t work at thinking to create, but become receptive long enough so that insight can unfold as revelation in the brain. Insight usually occurs when thought is suspended, or at least it pushes thought out of the way. An insight contains a lot of information. It is a type of wholeness, but appears suddenly. Thought is needed only afterwards to unravel it or apply it.

4. The final stage is manifestation of the insight into some practical or concrete application. The insight will likely be ‘larger’ than our ability to manifest it with a high degree of accuracy or perfection. The more knowledge and skill we have the better our expression of it.
Insight must lead to change and creative expression. Otherwise we betray its purpose and block ourselves from further insights.

Exercises:

1. What is so important to you for which you are wanting insight?
2. Are you willing to give a lot of energy to this?
3. What skills or knowledge do you need in order to manifest the insights you are seeking?
4. Are you willing to manifest the insights you get for the benefit of others?

(soul journey) Escapism

2008-10-28T10:07:00.000-07:00

Escapism

Do you ever think or imagine that your dreams can only be fulfilled by fleeing you’re your present life? Fantasies of escaping or fleeing from one’s present situation or circumstances in life should not be taken for one’s dreams. They are anything but that. It is very common for average healthy women who are overwhelmed with responsibilities of family and work to have flight fantasies.. Men have flight fantasies, too, but they are more inclined to act on them than women are. When people act on them we are likely to label them as irresponsible. Whenever people feel the desire or the need to escape it is either because their life is too full with things to do, and they are not able to accomplish everything, or it is because their life is too superficial and unsatisfying. Both of these conditions frequently co-exist. In the first instance, when the life is too complex one is seeking simplicity. And in the second instance when the life is too superficial one is seeking depth. Both simplicity and depth are characteristics of soul. Fantasies of escape are indications of a real need for soul connection, which would, when attained, bring greater simplicity because one could better prioritize and focus on what is really important, leaving the rest. And it would give greater depth as one would sense some greater meaning to what the life is all about. There is another reality that often hides behind the above reasons for wanting to escape, and that is the emerging presence or pressure of some subconscious reality that needs to be faced. But because of fear or ignorance one tries to avoid facing it. Sometimes this is semi-conscious, sometimes quite unconscious. The flight fantasy then is an attempt to run away from oneself rather than from the circumstances in which one finds oneself. Coupled with this subconscious need, there is often a soul necessity or energy seeking to manifest, creating tension in a person’s life. There may be a need for the ego to surrender to soul’s will or presence, and one is resisting that out of fear or because of an unwillingness to let go of some attachment. The manifestations of escapism can range from minor indications such as excessive watching of TV or avoiding communication to more drastic actions such as abandoning one’s family or even suicide. When there is a feeling of wanting to run away there is always a real need for change. That change may involve: 1.- doing things differently
2.- doing different things
3- eliminating some things
4- adding some new dimensions
5- being more creative in approaching one’s tasks
6- creating a different attitude and perspective about something or someone
7- being willing to sacrifice
8- finding meaning
9- finding purpose
10- commitment
11- focusing
12- greater attention to personal needs
It is far healthier to go for something that you value, letting the soul energy behind that support you in dealing with any obstacles or attachments that might challenge you in your positive pursuit. There is no soul support for escapism.

Exercises: 1. Describe ways of simplifying your life.2. Describe ways of adding depth to your life.3. Describe different ways that a person might demonstrate escapism.

(souljourney) Tension & Growth

2008-09-29T00:54:00.000-07:00

Tension and Growth

A most fundamental fact of life is tension, without which no growth is possible. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction. Every movement implies a resistance to that movement. There is always an energy that is being penetrated or affected in some way, and therefore there is always a self preservation tendency resisting it. Since nothing is ever static, and is always moving and changing, everything is always meeting some opposing force.

In order for a seed to start to grow it usually needs either heat or cold. Some seeds need to be frozen in order to wake them up. When the seed starts to grow it meets the resistance of the shell covering it. Then it needs to push its way through a resistant soil. When it breaks through this barrier it must grow against the force of gravity, the heat of the sun and the winds that blow against it. All of these do not inhibit it at all, but help it to grow into a mature, strong plant with flower or fruit.

The order in nature is maintained through the principle of tension. Every planet's orbit is determined by the particular tensions acting upon it. Fruits ripen by the various tensions influencing them. Even babies are born through huge resistance.

There are two ideas that need to be examined in order to understand them in the light of tension. One is the idea of survival. When we think of survival we usually imply defensiveness of the status quo. The truth of the matter is that survival depends upon our ability to change, to adapt to outside influences which constantly affect us. So in order to survive and thrive we need to grow. Growth is not the opposite of survival, but an integral part of it.

The other idea that we cherish and need to understand better is that of comfort. Everyone seeks comfort, and usually thinks of comfort as a state in which we do not have to do anything – almost a state of inertia. The truth of the matter is that comfort is a state of harmony – when inwardly we are at peace with our environment. This implies acceptance and adaptation to our environment. It requires a lack of resistance on our part and a tolerance of limitations. We are truly comfortable when we are fully present wherever we are and do not want to be elsewhere physically, emotionally or mentally.

The opposing forces in life always carry two potentials. These two potentials define what growth is:

1. To make something stronger and more defined in its being.

2. To make something change into more of what it has the potential of becoming.

To apply this principle to our human life we can see that resistance and opposition is essential. The very fact of diversity or lack of sameness assures us that resistance and opposition will always be with us. We must see this as positive and essential to life and growth.

The place where growth takes place is in the present. The present is the point of tension between what was and what can be, between the past and the future. That is a very dynamic place where change takes place and where growth occurs. That is where we need to be conscious in order to participate in the processes taking place.

When we are not conscious in the present the result is not growth but heightening tension that may be experienced as conflict of one sort or another. The conflict will be in the area of life where change is occurring but we are not paying attention to it and are resisting what is happening. If it is in a relationship then we experience the conflict in the relationship. It could equally be in any area of our life from our economy to our health.

Exercises:

1. Where is a point of tension or conflict in your life right now? Describe it.

2. How can this make you stronger and more defined (independent, authentic, etc.) as to your individuality? (This is typically at a personality level.)

3. How is this challenging you to awaken some potential? What potential? What quality? (This is typically at a soul level.)

values and philosophy of life

2008-09-02T22:49:00.000-07:00

Your philosophy of life is your guide for living. It always must include a set of values to live by, and a sense of which are more important than others.

Value relates to the intrinsic worth of something. And since everything has some intrinsic worth because of its soul, everything has value. But our set of values will be relative to the importance we give to something – that is, what it is worth to us.

Whatever we find of value is worth spending time and energy on. In fact, if we value something it demands our time and energy. Some things that we value conflict with other things that we value. For example, we might value our job which demands a lot of time and attention, and we also value our family which also demands a lot of time and attention. These are conflicts that need to be resolved. When we don't pay attention to the conflicts, our conditioning determines which values we give more time and energy.

There are three kinds of values we need to be aware of because they all influence us and if we do not recognize either their presence or their necessity in our life, we will experience conflict and not be able to do anything about it.

1. Universal values
2. Cultural values
3. Personal values

1. Universal Values

These values are common to all human beings by virtue of the fact that we all have a human soul and a spiritual soul. Universal values are aspects of consciousness, or are soul qualities that emanate from our essence. Because for most of us they are not easy to attain we think of them as ideals rather than as values we can actually live by. They are not easy to manifest consistently because they are universal and most often we are personal. When we are personal we are somewhat egotistical and frequently motivated by unconscious survival mechanisms. Cultural values also frequently contradict universal values.

Some universal values are:

Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Cooperation, Unity, Happiness, Peace, Love, Acceptance, Kindness, Justice, Courage, Honesty, Respect

2. Cultural Values

Cultural values are the values that people in a society or culture have in common. They are not typically universal nor personal, but collective. They are usually unconscious and therefore influence people without them being aware of it. A common example would be that success is a measure of an individual's worth, and success is measured by a person's ability to acquire wealth or wield power. So even if we have no personal tendency that reflects this cultural value, our subconscious is affected by it. We might feel that it is a preferred value, or that if we have conflicting values to this that there might be something wrong with us. It can undermine our efforts in other directions.

We need to become conscious of the cultural values that prevail in our society and how they might be affecting us – especially becoming aware of the universal values that they contradict or our personal values that might be in conflict with them.

3. Personal Values

Our personal values are a result of both conditioning and our level of consciousness. They are neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, unless they contradict a universal value. Personal values can be values of the personality or an emanation from soul. When they are only of the personality they can be egotistical, limited and conditional, whereas values emanating from soul, and therefore universal, are altruistic, unlimited and unconditional.

When we experience conflict between a personal value and a universal value, we are inwardly conflicted because we are pulled in opposite directions. The personality is pulling one way, the soul the other. The goal of all experience in our personality is integration with soul. When we inhibit this process, tension results.

When there is a value conflict in our life, we intuitively know it, and we intuitively know which value must prevail. Sometimes we choose not to listen to our inner guidance and deepen the conflict or tension. When we do this, we typically use some justification for our lesser choice – some defence mechanism – so that we can temporarily ease our guilt for making a decision for something of lesser value.

Summary

• Your philosophy of life is your guide to living your dreams and fulfilling your purpose.

• You must know what your personal values are and you must align them with universal values if you are to have inner peace or grow in consciousness.

• You also must know what cultural values are influencing you, when they are influencing you and to what extent they undermine your adherence to universal values.

• When you respond to preferences you have, become aware of what values are reflected in those preferences. Are they values that are most meaningful to you or are they part of your unconscious conditioning that ultimately inhibits your development of consciousness?

Exercises:

1. In the work that you do is there good opportunity to express your personal values?

2. Is there a conflict between the values of your work and your personal values?

3. Is there a conflict between the values of your work and universal values?

(If you can't answer these questions regarding 'work' then substitute the word 'lifestyle.')

7 point Zen

2008-08-23T03:17:00.000-07:00

Seven Points of Practice

1. Study and practice the buddhadharma only for the sake of the buddhadharma, not for the sake of emotions or worldly ideas.

2. Zazen ( sitting meditation) is our truest and most venerable teacher.

3. Zazen must work concretely in our daily lives as the two practices (vows and repentance), the three minds (magnaminous mind, nurturing mind, and joyful mind), and as the realization of the saying , " Gaining is delusion, losing is enlightenment. "

4. Live by vow and root it deeply.

5. Realizing that development and backsliding are your responsibility alone, endeavor to practice and develop.

6. Sit silently for 10 years, then for ten years more, and then for another ten years.

7. Cooperate with one another, and aim to create a place where sincere practitioners can practice without trouble.

- Uchiyama Roshi (1975)

soul journey:Natural Disasters

2008-08-18T23:08:00.000-07:00

The Meaning of Natural Disasters

The tsunami in Asia was a natural disaster that caused widespread loss and suffering. Before and after that there have been many natural disasters in several countries that have made hundreds of thousands of people homeless and caused hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths.

The powers of nature are certainly awesome. When they are unleashed we sit up and take notice. Because of the power, and because of the destruction that often happens, we usually ask that basic philosophical question: Why? Why did this happen? What does this mean?

We always look for meaning in what occurs that is out of the ordinary because we intuitively sense that everything must have a purpose. And if it has a purpose we want to know what purpose it has for us individually as well as collectively. Applying the purpose to our own lives is what we call 'meaning.' It must mean something to us or else it has no purpose for us.

Meaning is subjective, not objective. It is an interpretation based on facts, but it is not factual. Everyone can interpret the facts for themselves and say that this is what it means to them. That is a totally valid approach.

Giving a meaning to something is interpreting it in a way that touches the soul and reveals something of the intelligence, love or power of life that motivates a person to live more in alignment with reality or truth.

Assigning meaning is making something understandable or valuable in a way that our hearts can be opened, and we can reach out to others.

Even without knowing why the tsunami occurred, people around the world opened their hearts and gave. But as so often happens, people quickly forget and hearts soon close once the media is no longer presenting the images of need to the public.

Most of the natural disasters of the past few months have had to do with water. It is interesting to interpret the symbolism of water in light of the vibration of the year 2005. The meaning we give to it may or may not satisfy the individual but it is a way of giving meaning to the events for humanity.

There is an underlying assumption that must be accepted before we can make much sense out of the acts of nature – often legally referred to as 'acts of God.'

That assumption is that we as individuals are intimately connected to humanity, and humanity is intimately connected with the natural world. So what happens in nature can be seen as having some mirroring reflection of the state of humanity. Nothing really is separate. It only appears that way to a separatist way of thinking.

Water is traditionally a symbol of emotion. When water is creating destruction, and seems to be out of control, it can represent humanity's emotions being destructive and out of control.

Emotional reaction tends to be out of order when not guided by appropriate thought. It is then uncontrolled and destructive. Emotional disturbance can only be adjusted through right thinking. Without this inner guidance, desire based on ego becomes the dominant motivation. Selfish separatism results; defensiveness increases; violence and destruction ensues.

We use the term 'natural disasters.' What does this mean? First of all, the events we refer to are natural, which means that they follow the laws of nature, the laws of cause and effect. If we do not follow universal laws we create chaos or destruction. The word 'disaster' means 'away from, or without, the stars.' The suggestion is that something occurs which is not aligned with the highest. When we act without reference to the highest – universal laws and principles, the wisdom of soul – we are not aligned, which then causes unwanted consequences.

It is very obvious that there is a great need on this planet for much better relationships, and all of us are part of the solution to fulfill that need. And we cannot do that without soul-based thinking and opening our hearts. We can let nature show us what can happen when we do not care about the consequences of our thoughts and actions. The resulting suffering is a wake-up call to all of us.

What happens in nature happens within humanity. What happens in part of the world happens in the entire world, for it is one body and we are part of it. What happens in your life happens within humanity.

Everyone suffers when some of us suffer. Everyone benefits when some of us open our hearts. We are one.

Exercises:

1. What are three things you can do now that would improve specific relationships you have?

2. What changes can you make now that would align you more harmoniously with your environment and the natural world?

(souljourney) The Path

2008-08-18T22:23:00.000-07:00

The Path

The final of the four truths, or Facts of Life, taught by the Buddha is an outline for a way of living that will enable one to live in a 'right' way according to one's nature, in tune with Reality. The Noble Eightfold Path, as it is called, sets this out, culminating in the state of unity with the Divine Presence. This Truth is called marga, meaning the path.

The Buddhist concept of the path, called the Middle Path, is very consistent with the new spirituality that is emerging on the planet today. It is inclusive of the opposites without being controlled by one or the other. It values both the positive and the negative, the higher and the lower. This new spirituality that is seeking to manifest is a challenge to the consciousness of people who are caught either in the old religious dichotomies, or in reactions to the old style religions.

The traditional religious dichotomies describe reality in terms of right and wrong, good and evil, with specific belief systems clearly defining which is which. Those who take the opposite stance of discrediting these views maintain that there are no such objective standards, or at least not in the way they are traditionally defined.

The new spirituality avoids the judgments of the opposites and finds value in all expressions of life. The understanding is that whatever exists is part of the whole, and therefore meaningful in terms of potential learning for us humans. Much of what people see as wrong or evil is a great challenge to our selfishness and ignorance, urging us toward compassion and understanding.

It is not a matter of identifying what is wrong and trying to eradicate it, but to discover what the lessons are and learn from them. The so-called negative side of life exists as a means of teaching us what we would not otherwise be challenged to learn. If we learn what we are challenged to learn, the negative no longer needs to be present for its purpose has been served. Through our learning we are then capable of expanding our consciousness and being of greater service to others.

The middle path is the valuing of all things, all people and all experiences as a useful, and even necessary, part of the wholeness of life. If we have the idea that we need to strive to experience wholeness rather than perfection then we have a sound foundation upon which to embrace the opposites as part of that wholeness, as well as a useful pathway to experience more of that wholeness. In this way we are not inclined to de-value any experience, any person or any reality. We can then appreciate all that we are and experience as a manifestation of universal beauty, goodness and love.

If we do what is required in the first three steps of the journey, the fourth follows naturally and automatically. We will then be on the middle path, the creative path of living our dreams, joyfully embracing whatever comes along as energy for the journey.

Exercises:

1. What do you judge as wrong or evil? Try to see it from the perspective that it is serving some useful purpose.

2. What can you learn from it?

3. What is it asking you to embrace, understand or develop?

(Cos.Uplink) Energy and Presence

2008-08-15T05:40:00.000-07:00

When you are around some people you become centred, you become calm. You say you can feel their energy. You want to stay in that energy field. With some others, you find that their energy disturbs you. You want to run away.

Energy calms; it does not excite as people imagine. The centre of energy is like the centre of a storm. There may be chaos all around but the centre is calm, undisturbed. It is the energy of the potential. It is energy that is un-dissipated.

This is the energy of a Master. This is the energy that you feel in a place of worship, in a church, in a mosque or in the presence of a Master. Your inner chatter reduces, calmness descends and you feel a sense of peace. When energy becomes kinetic, when the expression of energy becomes explicit, it is no longer peaceful and calming- it is turbulent.

When expressed without awareness it can be violent. The dance of Shiva, the tandava, can still be kinetic and rejuvenating. It is the dance of the greatest of Masters. It is a dance of awareness. It is a movement without purpose which is why it is so powerful and at once peaceful.

When energy is expressed without awareness and with ego, when energy is expressed with future wants in mind or with past experiences in mind, such energy can be disturbing and destructive. It is no longer the energy of the present moment. It is already contaminated with guilt, greed, regrets and fears. At its worst this is the kind of energy expressed by Hitler or terrorists.

When you are truly energised by the cosmos, when you are guided by the universal energy, you will be moving without expectations. You will be willing to accept whatever happens. Situations resolve themselves and solutions present themselves. No intervention is needed. Logically, this cannot happen. It can only happen when one transcends logic.

One can be open to this energy of the universe only when the ego falls, when the mind drops. By definition, this energy cannot be of any use to boosting one’s identity, be it in terms of possessions, name and fame or relationships. It happens when you detach from expectations and when you unclutch from thoughts.

It is simple to find out if you radiate energy. People around you will welcome your presence as they feel centred around you, more peaceful, unstressed and relaxed. They would want to be with you. Let them smell you and find out.

Soul – A Work In Progress

2008-06-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

Life can be very confusing at times because we live in a multi- dimensional world. Even we ourselves have many dimensions to our own individuality.

Life in the manifested world is one of Spirit clothed in matter, existence in form. There is nothing much for us as human beings to do with this except to experience it, get involved with it and become conscious of it, which means to intentionally identify with it. This full involvement will expand our consciousness whenever we do it. And whenever we do this we are creating soul, we are soul-making. It is a psychological process for it takes place within our identity. Everyone experiences the form. But often the underlying, motivating energy of Spirit is not known. Without awareness of Spirit presence within the form, we cannot know ourselves or anything as soul.

As an entity, soul is who we are as incarnated Spirit; we give it a name as an independent state of being. In fact, this entity (soul) is who we are as consciousness. This is as difficult to understand as to say we are Spirit, which is who we are as life. Our personality is who we are as matter or form. So if we are to experience all of who we are we need to relate to ourselves and the world in these three ways: as consciousness, as life and as form.

The first step is to know ourselves as form, which means to know our personalities. We are making a lot of progress along this line. Our next step is to know ourselves as consciousness, which is the same as knowing ourselves as soul. That is the evolutionary step now facing humanity and ourselves as individuals.

It is very helpful to view soul from the perspective of a work in progress that we are creating. Rather than seeing soul as some given that is in control, we can see ourselves as the spiritual participants in the grand design of creation, able to create soul through our intentional consciousness – through awareness and through the choices we make.

In this way, soul isn't either some pre-existent given, nor is it something that is created accidentally or comes into being accidentally, but a reality which we determine, dictate, create or destroy. Soul, then, is the quality of life (spirit in form life). This is a tremendously empowering perspective, and one that increases our responsibility.

The major challenges in the world today are pressing us all toward understanding, tolerance, unanimity, sharing and connection.

It is soul which creates unanimity instead of uniformity. Soul creates inclusiveness within the expansiveness or breadth of spirit. Soul creates connections within the diversity of life. Soul creates a horizontal dimension of equality within a vertical dimension of power. Soul creates balance. Soul demonstrates understanding and compassion.

How To Connect With Soul

It is possible to connect with soul anywhere anytime. The personal state necessary to experience soul is to stop and pay attention, to stand in its presence and allow natural affinities to merge. When identified with soul within ourselves, we seek this soul presence in all relationships. Any inner state of acceptance, tolerance, compassion, understanding and empowerment is a soul state of consciousness. This qualitative psychological- spiritual state of being opens us to soul experience in all that we meet.

The opposite of this approach, the ways we do not allow ourselves to experience soul, includes the following:

1. Resistance – to resist another's ways, ideas, etc.

2. Superficiality – to focus exclusively on a phenomenal or form level rather than on an inner level – i.e., to be superficial

3. Control – to try to control the relationship

4. Selfishness – to be preoccupied with oneself

5. Indifference – not caring

Releasing Potential

Soul-making is all about releasing potential, the potential that is created when Spirit and matter merge, such as occurs when putting an idea into action. The potential of any such reality is virtually limitless. Activating potential takes us into the power of life. This process is also called creativity. Creativity is not possible without soul because creativity is consciousness of life, which may or may not then express in form. Any movement of consciousness within us affects our physical body in which it takes place, and also the emotional and mental body of the individual and of humanity. True creativity always manifests with understanding and compassion in response to need, and therefore it is transformative.

In soul consciousness there has to be an awareness of spiritual values in material things so that we see Spirit bringing life to matter, fertilizing matter, animating it, so that soul emerges from the union. It is because of this that soul consciousness is so universal, inclusive and caring.

As we embrace our threefold nature as Spirit, soul and personality we are able to function effectively in our multi- dimensional world. As we come to know ourselves as form, we develop intelligence and understanding. As we increasingly know ourselves as life, or know the life within, we are empowered and empower others. As we develop our consciousness we able to stand in love and express compassion to all.

Exercises:

1. How are you increasing your understanding of your personality and the form world around you?

2. Evaluate your: resistance, superficiality, controlling, indifference and selfishness in your relationships.

3. What potentials are you activating within yourself and/or some area of your life that can lead to transformation or creative expression?

Tib book of Life & Death : Sogyal Rimpoche

2008-06-01T04:26:00.000-07:00

Insights into living and dying

ENNAPADAM S. KRISHNAMOORTHY
AND
NIRANJANA BENNETT

Modern healthcare professionals can learn much from the Tibetan Buddhist belief that it as important to die with dignity as it is to live happily. Another look at a classic, a book by Sogyal Rinpoche, that had its 10th anniversary reprint recently.

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Most books tell stories about life and living happily ever after…The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying not only addresses life, but brings the reader face to face with Death.

The book, authored by Sogyal Rinpoche, a renowned Buddhist teacher, has been revised and updated to commemorate its 10th anniversary. The book begins rather impressively with a foreword by the Dalai Lama, who sets the tone: “No less significant than preparing for our own death is helping others to die well”. Sogyal Rinpoche places life and death contextually together for our consideration, describing why we must address death during our lives. The realm of gods in the Buddhist teachings, who lived lives of fabulous luxury and pleasure with little thought or time for spirituality until death appeared, and who were unprepared for it, are alluded to here, as is active laziness whereby unimportant tasks become responsibilities, part of a rigid schedule, and begin to dictate one’s existence.

“The fate of the gods reminds me of the way the elderly, the sick and the dying are treated today. Our society is obsessed with youth, sex and power and we shun old age and decay. Isn’t it terrible that we discard old people when their working life is finished and they are no longer useful? Isn’t it disturbing that we cast them into old people’s homes, where they die lonely and abandoned?”

Contemplating deeper meanings

He highlights instead, the importance of spirituality, contemplation and the need to devote some time each day to examining the deeper meaning of life.

Our task is to strike a balance, to find a middle way, to learn not to overstretch ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations, but to simplify our lives more and more. The key to finding a happy balance in modern lives is simplicity.

He speaks of two groups of people whose attitudes to death clearly affect the way they live life. One group lives in denial of death — repressing and refusing to acknowledge its potential impact. The second group has a casual attitude towards death, not attributing to it the seriousness of thought it deserves.

The author advocates that each individual attempts to understand the nature of the mind, and then move on to train the mind through different practices of meditation. Mindful meditation (having roots in ancient Buddhist practice) is applicable to anyone suffering from stress, anxiety or pain and Rinpoche describes its three essential components. Rinpoche goes on to expound on several Buddhist beliefs: rebirth, karma, reincarnation, bardos etc. and stresses on the importance of the mind.

No one can die fearlessly and in complete security until they have truly realised the nature of the mind.

In its second section the book deals with Dying. Most of us, even medical professionals, are bewildered when confronted by the prospect of death. Often we feel inadequate or embarrassed, not knowing what we should say to the person who is dying, and to his near and dear ones. Indeed, the most typical human response to death is denial of the condition or the diminishing of its impact. However, the person who is dying often has a much clearer knowledge and vision of this inevitable outcome, achieved after weeks of intense suffering. Helping the dying person achieve an early, more graceful acceptance of death, without denying or diminishing his thoughts and feelings is thought to be important.

Rinpoche describes the case of a lady doctor friend who, having dealt (in her perception) unsuccessfully with a dying individual, asked Rinpoche what he would have done in that situation.

“I would have sat by his side, held his hand and let him talk. I have been amazed again and again by how, if you just let people talk, giving them your complete and compassionate attention, they will say things of a surprising spiritual depth, even when they think they don’t have any spiritual beliefs. I have been very moved by how you can help people help themselves by helping them discover their own truth, a truth whose richness, sweetness, and profundity they may have never suspected”.

Essential qualities

Two things most useful at the deathbed are, a sense of humour, a useful tool to dissolve the gravity of the situation; and the ability to not take things personally, since anger is a common response of the dying person, and may be directed towards the person trying to help. It is also important to show unconditional love, which can be facilitated by thinking of yourself in the dying person’s place (empathy).

Rinpoche also emphasises the importance of telling the truth with love, a rare blend of virtues that directly addresses the dying person’s needs. Active compassion (expressed in action, not mere words) is another ingredient that enables the experience of dying.

The Buddhist practice of Tonglen, the ability to take on the suffering and pain of others and give them your happiness, well being and peace of mind and the powerful Tibetan tradition of phowa (pronounced po-wa), the transference of consciousness, are described as being invaluable to the dying person. To be able to deal effectively with the dying person’s fears, it is important to introspect and be aware of one’s own fears about death.

“Caring for the dying makes you poignantly aware not only of their mortality but also of your own.”

While saying goodbye, two explicit verbal statements are pre-requisites. The dying person must be given permission to die with the assurance that his loved one(s) will be taken care of in the aftermath. When the loved one is a child, Rinpoche suggests that it is commendable to encourage the young one to pray, as it gives them a sense of having contributed in some way. He also addresses the people that the dying person leaves behind, saying that it is useful to be open to grief rather than repress it, and try to learn from the grief.

“Bereavement can force you to look at your life directly, compelling you to find a purpose in it where there may not have been one before.”

Accepting death

In the final part of the book, Rinpoche speaks about the significance of understanding and accepting death because it is a universal process. In his view, we live in a world that appears to be too besotted with life to give much thought to death, an unhealthy attitude that needs to change.

It is not uncommon today, to have a beloved elderly relative admitted in a hospital ICU, with multiple tubes and support systems for his sustenance, often an unwilling participant in the seemingly interminable fight for his life. Pray, what price are we paying, to defy death under these circumstances? What dignity is there in challenging death in this manner? Indeed, what crime would we commit in allowing a person who has lead a full life to meet his maker in a natural, dignified and well-prepared manner? These philosophical thoughts assail one’s mind, as one contemplates life and death in the modern context. Rinpoche’s exhortation to the health professional is particularly moving.

“How can you be a truly effective doctor when you do not have at least some understanding of the truth about death, or how to care spiritually for your dying patient? How can you be a truly effective nurse if you have not begun to face your own fear of dying and have nothing to say to those who are dying when they ask you for guidance and wisdom?”

For doctors, nurses and others confronted with the experience of death he also has other valuable tips to share.

“I never go to the bedside of a dying person without practising before hand, without steeping myself in the sacred atmosphere of the nature of the mind. Then I do not have to struggle to find compassion and authenticity for they will be there and radiate naturally.”

Modern medicine has produced many miracles that have the potential to save and prolong human lives, but has not succeeded in preventing the process of death reach its natural conclusion, or in adding dignity to the process. We would do well therefore to consider incorporating the wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism into modern medical care.

There is however, a very real risk that this philosophy will be applied by well meaning but misguided individuals, at inappropriate times, when the possibility of saving a life still exists, causing much pain to the concerned person and to relatives. It is therefore important to understand that these principles are most applicable in the care of terminally ill people. For example, those caring for terminally ill people in hospices, hospitals or at home would benefit greatly, if some of these thoughts and ideas were incorporated into their training.

Undeniable realities

Death and dying are an undeniable reality; a natural consequence of all human existence. Dying well is a dream that most elders have (we talk of Anayasa maranam in Hindu culture) and helping people die well and peacefully is a duty, not just for the healthcare professional but also for their near and dear ones. This book, therefore, has obvious implications for every one of us, as we will all have to face death at some point of time in our lives. Even individuals who do not share Rinpoche’s religious and spiritual inclinations have plenty to learn from the book, as it offers practical insights into dealing with dying.

However, several of the principles expounded in the book are not scientifically verifiable. Instances of the occurrence of a rainbow body for example or beliefs about near death experiences and rebirth have their testimony in anecdotal repetitions and not empirical evidence. The book, therefore, is likely to appeal more to those with spiritual inclination than those who subscribe strictly to modern scientific tradition. Nevertheless, as the Tibetan saying goes, “If you are too clever, you could miss the point entirely.”

Sogyal Rinpoche’s ability to clearly express himself, capturing the reader’s attention, with interesting anecdotes and quotations from learned works is unquestionable. Even more commendable, however, is his choice of subject… Most books speak of life and living happily ever after. This one speaks of death as well.

Dr. E.S. Krishnamoorthy is Director, T.S . Srinivasan Chair and Senior Consultant Neuropsychiatrist at The Institute of Neurological Sciences-VHS, Chennai. E-mail: esk@nsig.org

Niranjana Bennet is a M.A. Psychology student at Christ College, Bangalore. She researched for and co-wrote this article while interning in TINS-VHS.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, 10th Anniversary Edition, Sogyal Rinpoche, Patrick D. Gaffney, Andrew Harvey

HarperCollins, 2002, price not stated.

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