I am that

This collection of the timeless teachings of one of the greatest sages of India, is a testament to the uniqueness of the seer's life and work. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was a teacher who did not propound any ideology or religion but gently unwrapped the mystery of the self. His message is simple, direct and yet sublime. The book preserves his dialogues with the followers who came from around the world seeking guidance in destroying false identities. The sage's sole concern was with human suffering and the ending of suffering. It was his mission to guide the individual to an understanding of his true nature and the timelessness of being. He taught that mind must recognise and penetrate its own state of being, not 'being this or that, here or there, then or now', but just timeless being. This is a legacy from a unique teacher who helps the reader to a clearer understanding of himself.

Quotes from the book-

~

Reality is the ultimate destroyer. All separation, every kind of estrangement and alienation is false. All is one - this is the ultimate solution of every conflict......As long as we imagine ourselves to be separate personalities, one quite apart from another, we cannot grasp reality which is essentially impersonal...... To locate a thing you need space, to place an event you need time; but the timeless and spaceless defies handling. It makes everything perceivable, yet itself is beyond perception. The mind cannot know what is beyond the mind, but the mind is known by what is beyond it.

~

The real does not begin; it only reveals itself as beginning less and endless, all-pervading, all-powerful, immovable prime mover, timelessly changeless..... Reality is not an event, it cannot be experienced....reality neither comes nor goes. There is no such thing as an expression of reality.....Only reality is: there is nothing else.

The trinity: mind, self and spirit, when looked into, become unity...... "Nothing is me", is the first step. "Everything is me" is the next.

~

Discover all you are not. Body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, time, space, being and not being, this or that - nothing concrete or abstract you can point out to is you. You must watch yourself continuously - particularly your mind - moment by moment, missing nothing. This witnessing is essential for the separation of the self from the not-self ........ be aware of that state which is only, simply being, without being this or that or the other.

~

Having never left the house you asking for the way home. Get rid of wrong ideas, that is all. Collecting right ideas also will take you nowhere. Just cease imagining..... Don't rely on your mind for liberation. It is the mind that brought you into bondage. Go beyond it altogether.

~

Self-surrender is the surrender of all self-concern. It cannot be done, it happens when you realise your true nature..... The first steps in self-acceptance are not at all pleasant, for what one sees is not a happy sight. One needs all the courage to go further. What helps is silence. Look at yourself in total silence, do not describe yourself.

~

Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go everything. The giving up is the first step. But the real giving up is in realising that there is nothing to give up..... To be, you must be nobody. To think yourself to be something, or somebody, is death and hell...... When you are no longer attached to anything, you have done your share. The rest will be done for you.

~

Once you have seen that you are dreaming, you shall wake up. But you do not see, because you want the dream to continue. A day will come when you will long for the ending of the dream, with all your heart and mind, and be willing to pay any price; the price will be dispassion and detachment, the loss of interest in the dream itself.

~

Within the prison of your world appears a man who tells you that the world of painful contradictions, which you have created, is neither continuous nor permanent and is based on a misapprehension. He pleads with you to get out ot it, by the same way by which you got into it. You got into it by forgetting
what you are and you will get out of it by knowing yourself as you are.

~

"There is only life, there is nobody who lives a life."

~

I am that online

Pablo Neruda video poems

There is something truly magical about the poetry of Pablo Neruda. Especially if you listen to it in the original language, put a background music to it and let your eyes be filled with beautiful images from nature. Here are some video poems of his I have found, welcome to a journey of magic and deep emotion.

Love Sonnets IX

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Leaning Into The Afternoons

Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets Towards your oceanic eyes.

There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames, Its arms turning like a drowning man’s

I send out red signals across your absent eyes That move like the sea near a lighthouse.

You keep only darkness, my distant female, From your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.

Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets To that sea that beats on your marine eyes.

The birds of night peck at the first stars That flash like my soul when I love you.

The night gallops on its shadowy mare Shedding blue tassels over the land.

Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets Towards your oceanic eyes.

I Like For You To Be Still

I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not touch you
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
And it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth
As all things are filled with my soul
You emerge from the things
Filled with my soul
You are like my soul
A butterfly of dream
And you are like the word: Melancholy

I like for you to be still
And you seem far away
It sounds as though you are lamenting
A butterfly cooing like a dove
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not reach you
Let me come to be still in your silence
And let me talk to you with your silence
That is bright as a lamp
Simple, as a ring
You are like the night
With its stillness and constellations
Your silence is that of a star
As remote and candid

I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
Distant and full of sorrow
So you would've died
One word then, One smile is enough
And I'm happy;
Happy that it's not true

The dark nights of the soul

All right.
The good, bad and the ugly- lets start from there. And yes- all at once.

Through all the turbulence that a persons life can have I guess it is the Dark Nights of the Soul that can stand out the most. Spiritual crises and dark nights are many and vary from person to person. Here is a little introduction to my own.

It is seemingly hard to distinguish between a psychological disorder and a spiritual crises. Caroline Myss says it well when she says, “when the root is spiritual the person lacks the motivation to blame other people for causing the crises. Rather, he or she realizes that the cause of the crises is within. The inadequacy of the external components of the persons life is a consequence of the spiritual crises, not the cause.”
And also from personal experience and from what I hear is the norm- when a person is in a spiritual crises, then they are able to function in the every-day life adequately, almost normally. Usually only the people closest to them can recognize that something is wrong. In my case almost nobody knew, only one or two I told, but I didn’t have many people around me at stage of my life, I kept to myself then.

The crises usually comes after a period of ease in meditation or another spiritual practise. Things seem to be going very well indeed, a person feels they’re growing and learning and they are filled with all kinds of new understandings and joys about themselves, life and the Universe. And suddenly…

The Void. An endless, dark, horrifying Void. Nothing makes sense. Nothing to hold on to. Your sense of self and identity is not there. You have no idea who you are. All you are is empty, but this emptiness is not the emptiness of no-thought state where you found bliss before. It is an alien, depressing Void. Reading other peoples experience I see that depression is a very common experience of the spiritual crises. Everything in life, everything that you see and experience is totally without a meaning. More than that- it is cruel and filled with suffering, so much suffering that you cannot bare it at all. In one of those “dark nights” I survived from one panic attack to the next. I felt I simply could not exist in this world of suffering anymore, I tried to breathe but the air, the atmosphere seemed so filled with energy that my body did not want, that breathing seemed to be the most difficult thing in the world. But at the same time that you cannot bare the thought of living, you know that suicide is not an option. It is a wish, to be sure, it is a wish to go back to your source and rest in peace, the longing to join the eternal is great, almost unbearable, but you know that it is not a solution, you know that it is not an ending to your troubles, and you would rather work on yourself in this life, than escape to the next life and start all this again.

Also the messiah-complex is easy to come at this period, for me it was anyway. Because your heart is VERY open, you feel the whole suffering of the world, it seems to press down on your neck like a mountain and the weight of it is killing you. You cannot bare to see all the people and other sentient beings suffering, you need to help, yet you know you cannot. You know that all of them are exactly where they need to be and the only transformation for them is within themselves. But the heart goes to the place of messiah-complex anyway, because it seems the only possible solution. This was the point where I actually thought I was going insane, and this fear and realization brought me back out of the crises.

Another experience that you can have is a feeling of utter disconnection. I call this experience of mine as the meeting with no-form. It was a sudden falling away of all concepts. I could see all objects around me but my mind knew no meaning to them. I looked at my arms and I knew at the back of my mind that they were connected to my body but at that time I had no idea what their purpose was, I simply wondered at these amazing dangling things from my body. I knew I was looking at a cup but had for that time lost all memory it seemed- of what a cup was for. It was beautiful, I felt I saw things as they were. But the utter disconnection was extremely frightening.

And yet another physical side-effect- vertigo. Vertigo is a physiological disease that many people experience. Yet with me- I have only experienced it during spiritual crises. The earth literally seems to be a wave underneath your feet. It is a natural side-effect of feeling groundless I believe, at least was in my case. Your body reacts to and exhibits what is going on in your mind.

One crises of mine was connected with Vipassana meditation. If you are a sensitive person then Vipassana can be a really hard thing to experience. First because suddenly there is an out-burst of all your inner hidden psychological insecurities, feelings that have been buried for so long are suddenly out in the open. Even though I thought I had worked through my childhood issues, there were scars and issues that suddenly overwhelmed me. And second because I started to feel the energy of the body in such an extreme way that meditation sessions were literally torture sessions where I felt I was being swallowed up in the intense pain and pressure of the energy of my body. Panic attacks, feeling of loosing your mind, how to get out of this? By forcing yourself through and continuing- there is no other way. Realization that everything rises to pass away of course in the end leaves you walking out of the place feeling you are rather floating than walking. After all the suffering I felt I lost about 10 kilos of my weight, but the process itself- so hard!

So in the end- I know that people are always encouraged to seek a therapy, a support group or whatever, during these really hard transformational processes. I never had any. I believe that you have these experiences, because you can handle them alone, you are never given anything more than you can handle. Yes- it might have been easier with a therapy. Yet the things that you learn on your own- these are the things that stick with you.
Stick with it. All the suffering of these times is a blessing. Any transformation is hard. Sometimes you feel that you cannot possibly deal with this. But you can. And you will look back at these times as the most profound periods of your life. Why is growth so painful? Cause all that we were before, it is like a solid wall inside you, that needs to be dissolved into a river of fluidity and freedom. It will hurt. But the hurt is temporary, while the gains will last.

Here is a video with Ken Wilber talking to a student who is experiencing a crises of spirit during meditation Dark nights of meditation practise

Slow growth and hardest lessons of compassion and wisdom

Hard day today for lessons about hurtful expression. Change really seems to be very slow in this indeed.

I guess everybody has at least one challenging relationship in their lives. And when I look at it from a distance, then I realise that this relationship with that person is the one that is most vital, most important, and therefore the most cherished one to me. It is suffering that teaches us anything at all. Its wonderful and necessary to have loving and peaceful relationships around us, but it is that other one, the one that challenges us, that has the power to make us truly grow. The only person that I feel I dislike at times, is the person that I love most of all when I realize this.

Yet- this is from hindsight, while I see things clearly. While I am in the moment of challenge, while I am in a battle that I more often than not loose- to remain kind and not be pulled into a confrontation- I forget this completely, oh where does this knowledge disappear to then??

But yes- I lost the battle with the ego yet again. I was temporarily blind yet again. I was pulled into a pattern of unwise thoughts and unkind words. And when I say- was pulled- then in no way do I mean that some force outside myself or the other person did this. No- it was myself and nobody else but myself.

And I witnessed that which I have so many times before. Namely that anger is the worst emotion we allow ourselves to get into. It hurts ourselves and the others and then ourselves again. Till we are able to stop the "story" in our heads and finally let go of it. It is getting out of the story that is also difficult. Today I saw that half of the "wrong" that I imagined was happening which pulled me into anger, was created by myself and had nothing to do with what really went on. The story was going on and on in my head, and while it was going around like a snowball down the mountain it picked up new nuances, new details. I started to imagine what the other person must have been thinking while they were saying what they said, why they were thinking it, what they must think about me, how they must dislike me and be against me... Nonsense, a story is a perfect word for it, because what happens when we keep thinking about things- they literally turn into fiction.
 
And if we are not able to somehow stop this snowball, then our reaction will of course be totally disproportionate, as will be the reaction of the other person, because I know the same thing is going on inside their heads too.

Anyway I came home and I felt horrible. Instantly sat down and did a Metta meditation. What I struggled with was self-forgiveness and giving Metta to myself. I had already come back to the stage of being utterly grateful to the other person for showing me my faults and giving me opportunity to grow. Yet forgiving myself for hurting the other, I am still not quite there... The thought that kept coming was- I should have known better, having been on a spiritual path for a long time, I should have been able to stop myself. I accept that I wasn't. I accept myself as on the way and a human being. Forgiveness is a bit harder though.

At the same time- when I think back on the words: "the only person who I dislike at times but for this reason love the dearest", then I realise that this is a source for self-forgiveness as well. Because today I was really the person I didn't like very much, but I was also the person that made me grow, therefore the one I must be able to love and forgive.

Yet once again there has been a change in attitude and the truth does this every time. I came home thinking- what a horrible day. Now I think- what a meaningful day, let there be many more of these!



May all beings be happy!

Japanese art

Pema Chodron

http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/index.php
Articles, teachings, bio and more

Home- a documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

http://www.youtube.com/homeproject
An amazing documentary of our planet Earth.
We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth's climate. The stakes are high for us and our children. Everyone should take part in the effort, and HOME has been conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being.

Spiritual crises and the dark night of the soul

It is seemingly hard to distinguish between a psychological disorder and a spiritual crises. Caroline Myss says it well when she says, “when the root is spiritual the person lacks the motivation to blame other people for causing the crises. Rather, he or she realizes that the cause of the crises is within. The inadequacy of the external components of the persons life is a consequence of the spiritual crises, not the cause.”
And also from personal experience and from what I hear is the norm- when a person is in a spiritual crises, then they are able to function in the every-day life adequately, almost normally. Usually only the people closest to them can recognize that something is wrong. In my case almost nobody knew, only one or two I told, but I didn’t have many people around me at stage of my life, I kept to myself then.

The crises usually comes after a period of ease in meditation or another spiritual practise. Things seem to be going very well indeed, a person feels they’re growing and learning and they are filled with all kinds of new understandings and joys about themselves, life and the Universe. And suddenly…

The Void. An endless, dark, horrifying Void. Nothing makes sense. Nothing to hold on to. Your sense of self and identity is not there. You have no idea who you are. All you are is empty, but this emptiness is not the emptiness of no-thought state where you found bliss before. It is an alien, depressing Void. Reading other peoples experience I see that depression is a very common experience of the spiritual crises. Everything in life, everything that you see and experience is totally without a meaning. More than that- it is cruel and filled with suffering, so much suffering that you cannot bare it at all. In one of those “dark nights” I survived from one panic attack to the next. I felt I simply could not exist in this world of suffering anymore, I tried to breathe but the air, the atmosphere seemed so filled with energy that my body did not want, that breathing seemed to be the most difficult thing in the world. But at the same time that you cannot bare the thought of living, you know that suicide is not an option. It is a wish, to be sure, it is a wish to go back to your source and rest in peace, the longing to join the eternal is great, almost unbearable, but you know that it is not a solution, you know that it is not an ending to your troubles, and you would rather work on yourself in this life, than escape to the next life and start all this again.

Also the messiah-complex is easy to come at this period, for me it was anyway. Because your heart is VERY open, you feel the whole suffering of the world, it seems to press down on your neck like a mountain and the weight of it is killing you. You cannot bare to see all the people and other sentient beings suffering, you need to help, yet you know you cannot. You know that all of them are exactly where they need to be and the only transformation for them is within themselves. But the heart goes to the place of messiah-complex anyway, because it seems the only possible solution. This was the point where I actually thought I was going insane, and this fear and realization brought me back out of the crises.

Another experience that you can have is a feeling of utter disconnection. I call this experience of mine as the meeting with no-form. It was a sudden falling away of all concepts. I could see all objects around me but my mind knew no meaning to them. I looked at my arms and I knew at the back of my mind that they were connected to my body but at that time I had no idea what their purpose was, I simply wondered at these amazing dangling things from my body. I knew I was looking at a cup but had for that time lost all memory it seemed- of what a cup was for. It was beautiful, I felt I saw things as they were. But the utter disconnection was extremely frightenening.

And yet another physical side-effect- vertigo. Vertigo is a physiological disease that many people experience. Yet with me- I have only experienced it during spiritual crises. The earth literally seems to be a wave underneath your feet. I used to sing the Doors song "The end" while I was waving and walking in the streets as if I was drunk with no balance. "Ride the snake. The snake is long..." It is a natural side-effect of feeling groundless I believe. Your body reacts to what is going on in your mind.

One crises of mine was connected with Vipassana meditation. If you are a sensitive person then Vipassana can be a really hard thing to experience. First because suddenly there is an out-burst of all your inner hidden psychological insecurities, feelings that have been buried for so long are suddenly out in the open. Even though I thought I had worked through my childhood issues, there were scars and issues that suddenly overwhelmed me. And second because I started to feel the energy of the body in such an extreme way that meditation sessions were literally torture sessions where I felt I was being swallowed up in the intense pain and pressure of the energy of my body. Panic attacks, feeling of loosing your mind, how to get out of this? By forcing yourself through and continuing- there is no other way. Realization that everything rises to pass away of course in the end leaves you walking out of the place feeling you are rather floating than walking. After all the suffering I felt I lost about 10 kilos of my weight, but the process itself- so hard!

So in the end- I know that people are always encouraged to seek a therapy, a support group or whatever, during these really hard transformational processes. I never had any. I believe that you have these experiences, because you can handle them alone, you are never given anything more than you can handle. Yes- it might have been easier with a therapy. Yet the things that you learn on your own- these are the things that stick with you.
Stick with it. All the suffering of these times is a blessing. Any transformation is hard. Sometimes you feel that you cannot possibly deal with this. But you can. And you will look back at these times as the most profound periods of your life. Why is growth so painful? Cause all that we were before, it is like a solid wall inside you, that needs to be dissolved into a river of fluidity and freedom. It will hurt. But the hurt is temporary, while the gains will last.

Here is a video with Ken Wilber talking to a student who is experiencing a crises of spirit during meditation  Dark nights of meditation practise

I am

I am.
This is the answer that I was always looking for.
My question was always wrong. Instead of asking- who am I? I should have been asking- am I? For I am, always was and never saw that this was the magic that I was missing. The simple being answers all the questions, if we surrender to it, without analysing, without wishing for anything different. If we are in the state of "I am" then we suddenly realise that there is not a single thing at all that we wish to change.
The meaning and beauty are everywhere in the now. Now in the rain, now in the sun-shine, now in a lovers embrace, now in an argument with a boss. As long as it is now, at this moment, cause that is the only possible time and place to feel that "I am", then it is filled with the divine, with the essence of being human, living in this world- truthful, at one with life and filled with joy.

Overcoming duality

Nondualism may be viewed as the understanding or belief that dualism or dichotomy are illusory phenomena. Examples of dualisms include self/other, mind/body, male/female, good/evil, active/passive, dualism/nondualism and many others. It is accessible as a belief, theory, condition, as part of a tradition, as a practice, or as the quality of union with reality. 1


HINDUISM

[Hindus believe that] Maya is the limited, purely physical and mental reality in which our everyday consciousness has become entangled. Maya is held to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self — the Cosmic Spirit also known as Brahman.
Each person, each physical object, from the perspective of eternity is like a brief, disturbed drop of water from an unbounded ocean. The goal of enlightenment is to understand this — more precisely, to experience this: to see intuitively that the distinction between the self and the Universe is a false dichotomy. The distinction between consciousness and physical matter, between mind and body, is the result of an unenlightened perspective. 2


ZOROASTRIANISM

About 10-11 BC the Iranian prophet Zarathushtra saw in his revelation the universe as the cosmic struggle between aša “truth” and druj “lie.” The purpose of humankind, like that of all other creation, is to sustain aša. For humankind, this occurs through active participation in life and the exercise of good thoughts, words and deeds. 3


BUDDHISM

Buddhism teaches the middle way, a non-attached state of neither craving for pleasure nor avoiding pain.

“'Everything exists': That is one extreme.
'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme.
Avoiding these two extremes,
the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle.…”

- from the Kaccayanagotta Sutta

TAOISM

Taoists seek a perfect harmony with the “way” - Tao, praising the wu-wei- the doing of non-doing.

“The great tao flows everywhere,
to the left and to the right,
It loves and nourishes all things,
but does not lord it over them.”

"The scholar learns something every day,
the man of tao unlearns something every day,
until he gets back to non-doing."

“The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.”

-Lao Tze

Duality and the battle between the yin and the yang is all around us. The materialists vs the spiritual, science vs religion, consumerism vs ecology, the "bad guys" vs the "good guys". My question is- does there have to be a vs? For me the only way of overcoming duality is by seeing straight through it. Everything is inter-dependent, therefore it is impossible to take sides.

The underlying unity and the source from where everything arises is eternal, therefore there is no right or wrong way to come to the place where we already are.
You can be a balanced person who will find peace and understanding in the Buddhists "Middle Way". Or you can be like myself- born to dance the dance of extremes, and find exactly the same thing. The lesson from extremes has for me been a powerful tool of understanding. How clearly one extreme turns into its opposite! Utter hopelessness turning in an instant to overwhelming optimism. Despair taking a minuscule step and reaching the state of bliss. The extremes form a circle and in between lies nothing but the timeless/infinite space of the Void. We are trained to look at the opposites as a linear line, that is the veil that is hiding the truth.

Nobody can explain the intrinsic truth behind the yin and the yang better than Alan Watts





"[The non-dual traditions] are more interested in pointing out the Nondual state of Suchness, which is not a discrete state of awareness but the ground or empty condition of all states... [They] have an enormous number of these 'pointing out instructions', where they simply point out what is already happening in your awareness, anyway. Every experience you have is already nondual, whether you realize it or not. So it is not necessary for you to change your state of consciousness in order to discover this nonduality. Any state of consciousness you have will do just fine, because nonduality is fully present in each state... recognition is the point. Recognition of what always already is the case. Change of state is useless, a distraction... subject and object are actually one and you simply need to recognize this... you already have everything in consciousness that is required. You are looking right at the answer... but you don't recognize [it]. Someone comes along and points [it] out, and you slap your head and say, Yes I was looking right at it..."

-Ken Wilber “Brief history of everything”

Here and now

"Here and now, boys," the bird repeated yet once more, then

fluttered down from its perch on the dead tree and settled on her shoulder.

The child peeled another banana, gave two-thirds of it to Will and offered

what remained to the mynah.

"Is that your bird?" Will asked.

She shook her head.

"Mynahs are like the electric light," she said. "They don't belong to

anybody."

"Why does he say those things?"

"Because somebody taught him," she answered patiently. What an

ass! her tone seemed to imply.

"But why did they teach him those things? Why 'Attention'? Why 'Here

and now'?"

"Well ..." She searched for the right words in which to explain the self-

evident to this strange imbecile. "That's what you always forget, isn't it? I

mean, you forget to pay attention to what's happening. And that's the same

as not being here and now."

"And the mynahs fly about reminding you—is that it?"

She nodded. That, of course, was it. There was a silence.


Aldous Huxley "Island" online

Poems of Stephen Levine

Millenium Blessing


There is a grace approaching
that we shun as much as death,
it is the completion of our birth.

It does not come in time,
     but in timelessness
when the mind sinks into the heart
and we remember.

It is an insistent grace that draws us
to the edge and beckons us to surrender
safe territory and enter our enormity.

We know we must pass
     beyond knowing
and fear the shedding.

But we are pulled upward
     none-the-less
through forgotten ghosts
     and unexpected angels,
luminous.

And there is nothing left to say
but we are That.

And that is what we sing about.


Half Life


We walk through half our life
as if it were a fever dream

barely touching the ground

our eyes half open
our heart half closed.

Not half knowing who we are
we watch the ghost of us drift
from room to room
through friends and lovers
never quite as real as advertised.

Not saying half we mean
or meaning half we say
we dream ourselves
from birth to birth
seeking some true self.

Until the fever breaks
and the heart can not abide
a moment longer
as the rest of us awakens,
summoned from the dream,
not half caring for anything but love.

Be still

Thou art? -- I am? -- Why argue? -- Being is.
Keep still and be. Death will not still the mind.
Nor argument, nor hopes of after-death.
This world the battle-ground, yourself the foe
Yourself must master. Eager the mind to seek.
Yet oft astray, causing its own distress
Then crying for relief, as though some God
Barred from it jealously the Bliss it sought
But would not face.

Till in the end,
All battles fought, all earthly loves abjured,
Dawn in the East, there is no other way
But to be still. In stillness then to find
The giants all were windmills, all the strife
Self-made, unreal; even he that strove
A fancied being, as when that good knight
Woke from delirium and with a loud cry
Rendered his soul to God.

Mind, then, or soul?
Break free from subtle words. Only be still,
Lay down the mind, submit, and Being then
Is Bliss, Bliss Consciousness: and That you are.


Arthur Osborne

Emily Dickinson on life

Poems series I


Life


6

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.


11

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
'T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, -- you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.


14- The Secret

Some things that fly there be, --
Birds, hours, the bumble-bee:
Of these no elegy.

Some things that stay there be, --
Grief, hills, eternity:
Nor this behooveth me.

There are, that resting, rise.
Can I expound the skies?
How still the riddle lies!

15- The Mystery of Pain

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

26- Rouge Gagne

'T is so much joy! 'T is so much joy!
If I should fail, what poverty!
And yet, as poor as I
Have ventured all upon a throw;
Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so
This side the victory!

Life is but life, and death but death!
Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!
And if, indeed, I fail,
At least to know the worst is sweet.
Defeat means nothing but defeat,
No drearier can prevail!

And if I gain, -- oh, gun at sea,
Oh, bells that in the steeples be,
At first repeat it slow!
For heaven is a different thing
Conjectured, and waked sudden in,
And might o'erwhelm me so!

33- Hope (1)

Hope is a thing with feathers
That perches on the soul,
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.


42- A Word

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.


44- Compensation

For each ecstatic instant
We must in anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.

For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years,
Bitter contested farthings
And coffers heaped with tears.


49- Experience

I stepped from plank to plank
So slow and cautiously;
The stars above my head I felt,
About my feet the sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch,-
This gave me that precarious gait
Some call experience.


69

Who has not found the heaven below
Will fail of it above.
God's residence is next to mine,
His furniture is love.


83- The Brain

The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.

The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God,
For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.


98- Returning

I years had been from home,
And now, before the door,
I dared not open, lest a face
I never saw before

Stare vacant into mine
And ask my business there.
My business,- just a life I left,
Was such still dwelling there?

I fumbled at my nerve,
I scanned the windows near;
The silence like an ocean rolled,
And broke against my ear.

I laughed a wooden laugh
That I could fear a door,
Who danger and the dead had faced,
But never quaked before.

I fitted to the latch
My hand, with trembling care,
Lest back the awful door should spring,
And leave me standing there.

I moved my fingers off
As cautiously as glass,
And held my ears, and like a thief
Fled gasping from the house.


100- Sight

Before I got my eye put out,
I liked as well to see
As other creatures that have eyes,
And know no other way.

But were it told to me today,
That I might have the sky
For mine, I tell you that my heart
Would split, for size of me.

The meadows mine, the mountains mine,-
All forests, stintless stars,
As much of noon as I could take
Between my finite eyes.

The motions of the dipping birds,
The lightning's jointed road,
For mine to look at when I liked,-
The news would strike me dead!

So, safer, guess, with just my soul
Upon the window pane
Where other creatures put their eyes,
Incautious of the sun.

Friedrich W. Nietzsche- quotes and life

"I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.
   Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give birth to a star. Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man.
   'What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?' thus asks the last man, and blinks.
   The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest.
   'We have invented happiness,'say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth...
   One still works, for work is a form of entertainment. But one is careful lest the entertainment be too harrowing. One no longer becomes poor or rich: both require too much exertion. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both require too much exertion.
   No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.
   'Formerly, all the world was mad,' say the most refined, and they blink...
   One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health.
   'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink."

   "Of the three metamorphoses of the spirit I tell you: how the spirit becomes a camel; and the camel, a lion; and the lion, finally, a child.
   There is much that is difficult for the spirit, the strong, reverent spirit that would bear much: but the difficult and the most difficult are what its strength demands.
   What is difficult? asks the spirit that would bear much, and kneels down like a camel wanting to be well loaded. What is most difficult, O heroes, asks the spirit that would bear much, that I may take it upon myself and exult in my strength? Is it not humbling oneself to wound one's haughtiness? Letting one's folly shine to mock one's wisdom?...
   Or is it this: stepping into filthy waters when they are the waters of truth, and not repulsing cold frogs and hot toads?
   Or is it this: loving those that despise us and offering a hand to the ghost that would frighten us?
   All these most difficult things the spirit that would bear much takes upon itself: like the camel that, burdened, speeds into the desert, thus the spirit speeds into its desert.
   In the loneliest desert, however, the second metamorphosis occurs: here the spirit becomes a lion who would conquer his freedom and be master in his own desert. Here he seeks out his last master: he wants to fight him and his last god; for ultimate victory he wants to fight with the great dragon.
   Who is the great dragon whom the spirit will no longer call lord and god? "Thou shalt" is the name of the great dragon. But the spirit of the lion says, "I will." "Thou shalt" lies in his way, sparkling like gold, an animal covered with scales; and on every scale shines a golden "thou shalt."
   Values, thousands of years old, shine on these scales; and thus speaks the mightiest of all dragons: "All value has long been created, and I am all created value. Verily, there shall be no more 'I will.'" Thus speaks the dragon.
   My brothers, why is there a need in the spirit for the lion? Why is not the beast of burden, which renounces and is reverent, enough?
   To create new values -- that even the lion cannot do; but the creation of freedom for oneself and a sacred "No" even to duty -- for that, my brothers, the lion is needed. To assume the right to new values -- that is the most terrifying assumption for a reverent spirit that would bear much. Verily, to him it is preying, and a matter for a beast of prey. He once loved "thou shalt" as most sacred: now he must find illusion and caprice even in the most sacred, that freedom from his love may become his prey: the lion is needed for such prey.
   But say, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred "Yes." For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred "Yes" is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers the world."

 "I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
   All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment...
   Behold, I teach you the overman. The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go.
   Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died, and these sinners died with him. To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth...
   What is the greatest experience you can have? It is the hour of the great contempt. The hour when your happiness, too, arouses your disgust, and even your reason and your virtue.
   The hour when you say, 'What matters my happiness? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment. But my happiness ought to justify existence itself.'
   The hour when you say, 'What matters my reason? Does it crave knowledge as the lion his food? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment.'
   The hour when you say, 'What matters my virtue? As yet it has not made me rage. How weary I am of my good and my evil! All that is poverty and filth and wretched contentment.'

   "Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman--a rope over an abyss...
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under..."

- From "Thus spoke Zarathustra", Walter Kaufmann translation

Perspectives of Nietzsche

Nietzsche and Buddhism

"Human, all too human", 1999- an excellent documentary on Nietzsche.

"Siddharta" online, quotes and film

"Now, he thought, that all transitory things have slipped away from me again, I stand once more beneath the sun, as I once stood as a small child. Nothing is mine, I know nothing, I possess nothing, I have learned nothing...when I am no longer young, when my hair is fast growing gray...now I am beginning again like a child."

"The river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth...in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the future...Siddhartha the boy, Siddhartha the mature man and Siddhartha the old man [are] only separated by shadows, not through reality...Nothing was, nothing will be, everything has reality and presence."

"[Siddhartha learns that] a true seeker could not accept any teachings, not if he sincerely wished to find something. But he who found, could give his approval to every path, every goal; nothing separated him from all the other thousands who lived in eternity, who breathed the Divine."

"[A]ll the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life...then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om - perfection."

"From that hour Siddhartha ceased to fight against his destiny. There shone in his face the serenity of knowledge, of one who is no longer confronted with conflict of desires, who has found salvation, who is in harmony with the stream of events, with the stream of life, full of sympathy and compassion, surrendering himself to the stream, belonging to the unity of things."

"When someone is seeking...it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything...because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal."

"Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good - death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me...I needed lust [and] to strive for property...to learn not to resist them."

"He saw the face of a newly born child, red and full of wrinkles, ready to cry. He saw the face of a murderer, saw him plunge a knife into the body of a man; at the same moment he saw this criminal kneeling down, bound, and his head cut off by an executioner. He saw the naked bodies of men and women in postures and transports of passionate love. He saw corpses stretched out, still, cold, empty. He saw all these forms and faces in a thousand relationships to each other, all helping each other, loving, hating, destroying each other and become newly born. Each one of them was mortal, a passionate, painful example of all that was transitory. Yet none of them died, they only changed, were always reborn, continually had a new face: only time stood between one face and another."

Hermann Hesse's "Siddharta" online

Here's the movie as well, though I have to say that all the movies that have been inspired by my favourite books have always disappointed me immensely. No film can give justice to the talent of the author themselves, it can give a poor duplication at best (that's if they don't change the plot like Hollywood disastrously often does).

We are all one

Guaranteed to touch the heart and inspire the mind,
this incredible short film shares an Indigenous Native American Prophecy that links all of life and the future of our planet.

"... And every day that you don't do what's right is a day when you've lost an option."





Help spread the message and send this video to your friends. More info on how you can help on http://www.weareallone-support.org/

Laughter- a special gift from evolution

The first hoots of laughter from an ancient ancestor of humans rippled across the land at least 10 million years ago, according to a study of giggling primates.

Researchers used recordings of apes and babies being tickled to trace the origins of laughter back to the last common ancestor that humans shared with the modern great apes, which include chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans.

The finding challenges the view that laughter is a uniquely human trait, suggesting instead that it emerged long before humans split from the evolutionary path that led to our primate cousins, between 10m and 16m years ago.

From http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jun/04/laughter-primates-apes-evolution-tickling

Laughter brings with it a host of positive effects that operate on both the physical and mental levels. It is also fun, expressive, and a way to release tension. Learn to laugh in the present moment, and you'll find that joy is always there.

http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2005/584.html

Talks and lectures of Alan Watts

http://watts.progressiveradionetwork.org/
Recommended blog with regular uploads of his talks and seminars.

DNA secrets

As an ex-genetics student I am still interested in the subject and always keep an eye out for something interesting on the field. I ended up quitting the study, first because I had a mind-blowing spiritual experience that made me see everything differently. Second because after the experience I got utterly disillusioned with formal study. I found that what they teach in universities, and even the most current research is still too far behind the knowledge that we are able to get about reality and ourselves experientially, just by going within, that Buddha's way was in the end the most practical way. It is really more useful to do meditation than follow any science curriculum in schools, which is completely out-dated and still stuck in ancient misconceptions and dogmas. I do not see any advance in this in the near future either and have abandoned the idea of trying to find another formal study, which of course would make my own life more easy, but anything partial, incomplete and riddled with illusions and ancient paradigms simply does not interest me.
Because until the science-religion debate is finally binned, progress in formal science to my mind is simply not possible. (The only exception probably quantum physics, which is based of the mind-matter connection). Of course there are many scientists who are aware of the limitations and the importance of transcending the limitations of old newtonian materialistic world-view, but they face a terrible compromise- they can a) stay in mainstream science in which in order to get scientific support to their theories they have to abandon any spiritual ideas or b) move outside of these rigid limits, into something which the blind have turned into the ridiculous, dubbing indiscriminately everything, either illuminating or hoax with a curse word- new age. Just like the ridicule and hate that hippie culture now experiences, there seems to be a powerful resistance towards true values and anything that does not support materialism, consumerism and ego-mind.

I have found however more truth in whatever out-there "new-age" underground scientific research there has been, than in any scientific newspaper ultimately controlled by the corporate world and advertising and most of all- the very minds of the traditional scientists still unaware of who they are. Sad state of affairs, but the truth in any case.

Here is a very "enlightened" video on DNA

YouTube - Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason With Pema Chodron - Part 5

YouTube - Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason With Pema Chodron - Part 3

Evolution

Just a few videos that I love on the subject. The theme itself is an endless and amazing discovery. The responsibility is there of course. But so is the divine sense of wonder about being part of it. If we only remembered all the time the big picture, then who of us would feel small, meaningless, separate, alone, without a purpose. Amazement, awe, wonder, sense of beauty, oneness, belonging- those are the only states of mind which are based on the truth. 

Special attention to the second video (series) by Ian Xel Lungold on the Mayans visionary understanding of evolution of consciousness. Really important stuff.

"We are star stuff, which has taken its destiny into its own hands." - Carl Sagan