Siva's Pen is Lord Krishna's Flute and Lord Rama's Arrow. The music that issues from it is enchanting, but it pierces our hearts and destroys our evil desires without our knowledge and in spite of ourselves. That is why the hollow fountain-pen has a sharp nib.
Ink is poured into the barrel of the pen; but Siva's touch converts it into spiritual manna. It is distributed to the whole world. Even if it is a mere signature on the fly-leaf of a book, at the close of a typed letter, or on an official receipt, a look at it fills your heart with joy, mind with peace and soul with Divine Light.
The warrior's riffle, and the "Big" Power's Bombs (Atomic and Hydrogen) cannot stand before Siva's Pen. The Hand that wields the Pen belongs to a Sage; the rifle is in the hands of a slave, and the bombs are used by benighted souls. by Swami Venkateshananda
Nada Yoga - Yoga of Sound The light body holds the blueprint of our multidimensional identity and encoded data, which communicates with worlds and consciousness beyond our limited comprehension. When we build up our light body again, our molecular structure will change and a more subtle spiritual understanding will guide us in our daily life.
The word Nada (sound) comes from the Sanskrit root, Nad. Nad means to flow. The etymological meaning of Nada is a process or a stream of consciousness. Behind the visual sounds the transcendent or supra-conscious sound is found. The transcendent sound and the transcendent consciousness are the same. The transcendent sound, which has the highest frequency, is called Para Nada. Para Nada is beyond the reach of the sense organs. Para's intense vibration makes it inaudible. It is a sound without movement or frequency – a still sound. We cannot grasp a sound which has no vibration. When a sound reaches its maximum height, then it reaches stillness – and that is Para Nada. It is completely uniform. A state of consciousness corresponds with this stillness.
Taking refuge in the Three Jewels: We seek shelter from the passions that jerk us around, from feeling distressed and broken, from pain and suffering, from the fear of death. Taking refuge in the Buddha, we learn to transform anger into compassion; taking refuge in the Dharma, we learn to transform delusion into wisdom; taking refuge in the Sangha, we learn to transform desire into generosity.
Amadou & Mariam - Sabali- Welcome to Mali: The pair, known as "the blind couple from Mali" met at Mali's Institute for the Young Blind, and found they shared an interest in music.
MISTICO - Le Lac - Paolo Fresu, A Filetta Corsican Voices & Daniele di Bonaventura
Emily Loizeau - L'autre Bout Du Monde (the other side of the world) : a metaphor for heaven or another life. I join you when I sleep, But I want to see you again. Where is it? The other side of the world?
THE FREEDOM TO KILL. By Yevgeny Yevtushenko. The color of the Statue of Liberty grows ever more deathly pale, As, loving freedom with bullets, You shoot at yourself, America. You can kill yourself that way! Who can believe hypocritical fairy tales, When, under a canopy of noble ideas, the price of revolver lubricant rises, and the price of human lives falls?! The murderers go to the funeral dressed in mourning, then they become stockholders and once again bullet-filled ears of corn Sway in the fields of Texas.
You promised to be the world's conscience, but at the brink of a bottomless shame You shoot not at King, but at your own conscience, and with it your own honor. When a nation goes dangerously insane, hastily prescribed calm Will not heal it of its troubles. Perhaps the only help is shame. History cannot be washed in a laundry, there are no such washing machines yet.
Canute-like in their hubris, really no different from other self-deluded (and self-important) social engineers, the central bankers and politicians have tried to reshape the course of history. What if it had all been a con game, based on a naive, self-serving misreading of history and the capacity to manage economies? Michael Bliss
Habib Koite - N'Teri (My Friend) You invited me to sit in the shade of a tree. You gave me tea to drink and I said to myself: my god, man is capable of wonders. For all those who have showed me a day of respect I love you, follow you, and greet you, acknowledge you. Those who unite the masses, stay in front. Those who look after the masses, stay in front. Source of hope and joy, I will always be grateful to you. Because I am satisfied.
Kandia Kouyate - Hommage - Woulale (harsh distance between lovers)
Everyone has conflict and everyone has stress in his or her life. A biological conflict is a very primal response to a very dramatic event in a person's life that completely catches them off guard. Most people describe this event as feeling as if they were struck by lightning. These biological conflicts can involve a separation from a loved one, a territorial loss, a self devaluation, a profound fear, a fight over something that we believe rightfully belongs to us, injuries inflicted through accidents or harsh words, or even a fear for our lives or the life of a loved one. Biological conflict creates a sequence of events that simultaneously affect the psyche, brain, and organ.
If a man is entangled in a conflict, his only salvation lies in being so clear-headed and inwardly strong that he is always ready to come to terms by meeting the opponent halfway. To carry on the conflict to the bitter end has evil effects even when one is the right, because the enmity is then perpetuated. It is also important to see an impartial person whose authority is great enough to terminate the conflict amicably or assure a just decision. In times of strife, crossing the great water is to be avoided, that is, dangerous enterprises are not to be begun, because in order to be successful they require concerted unity of focus. Conflict within weakens the power to conquer danger without. I Ching
History isn’t the lies of the victors. It’s more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated. Julian Barnes . History must be written of, by and for the survivors. To know the truth of history is to realize its ultimate myth and its inevitable ambiguity. Roy P. Basler A country without a memory is a country of madmen. George Santayana
About what stayed unsettled, did not unfold historically or...only fragmentarily, T.S. Eliot observed, "the difference between the present and the past is that the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past's awareness of itself cannot show". The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism.
The Rhythms of Latin Poetry: Hexameter This is a reading of a short passage from Vergil's Aeneid (book 6, lines 836-853) in the restored classical pronunciation of Latin. This involves features such as phonemic vowel length distinctions to illustrate how antique Latin poetry (hexameter in this case) is defined by the rhythm arising from a regular alternation between long and short syllables. In the subtitles the syllable quantities are marked by means of musical notation: quarter notes denote long syllables, and short syllables are marked with eighth notes. The height of the notes corresponds roughly to the level of stress. In connection with this, the concept of "ictus" or the accent that falls on a stressed syllable in a line of scanned verse are regarded to be the beat or pulse of the verse, arising from the regular occurance of a metrically prominent part of the verse feet; in the case of the hexameter, this is the consistently long first syllable of every dactyl. When Latin poetry is read today, it is often the case that the ictus is expressed by means of stress, which subordinates or totally replaces the natural word accents.
Turbulent by Shirin Neshat (a musical metaphor for the complexity of gender roles)
زان می که ز بوی او شوریده و سرمستم - دریاب مرا ساقی والله که چنینستم ای ساقی مست من بنگر به شکست من - ای جسته ز دست من دریاب که من مستم بشکست مرا دامت بشکستم من جامت - مستی تو و مستی من بشکستی و بشکستم ای جان و دل مستان بستان سخنم بستان - گویی که نه ای محرم هستم به خدا هستم پر کن ز می پیشین بنشین بر من بنشین - بنشین که چنین وقتی در خواب همیجستم الله که بنگذارم دست از تو چرا دارم - تا لاف زنی گویی کز عربده وارستم خواهم که ز باد می آتش بفروزانی -خواهم که ز آب خود چون خاک کنی پستم جان و سر تو یارا بر نقد بزن ما را -مفریب و مگو فردا بردارم و بفرستم
Once you start to awaken, you know how precious your time here—on earth, in this body—is. You are no longer willing to squander your essence on undertakings that do not nourish your true self; your patience grows thin with tired talk and dead language. You see through the rosters of expectation that promise you safety and the confirmations of your outer identity. Now you are impatient for growth, willing to put yourself in the way of change. You want your work to become an expression of your innate gifts. You want your relationships to voyage beyond the pallid frontiers to where the danger of transformation dwells. You want your God to be wild and to call you to where your destiny awaits.
When your soul is born, when it awakens anew, you begin to inherit your true life, the one you were meant for. You leave the kingdom of fake surfaces, repetitive talk, and weary roles and slip deeper into the true adventure of who you are and who you are being called to become. The greatest friend of the soul is the unknown. Yet we are afraid of the unknown because it lies outside our vision and our control. This way, however, never leads home. It is in that unknown, in that mystery place, that lies the invitation to stay awake.
From this inner dedication, you can creatively reconstruct your own values and take action. You develop from your own self-compassion a great compassion for others. You are no longer caught in the false game of judgment, comparison, and assumption. More naked now than ever, you finally feel truly alive. You begin to trust the music of your own soul; you have inherited treasure that no one will ever be able to take from you. Awakening the Mind, Awakening the Soul, by John O’Donohue
Today I may not have a thing at all except for just a dream or two. But I’ve got lots of plans for tomorrow and all my tomorrows belong to you.
As long as I’ve got arms that cling at all, It’s you that I’ll be clinging to and all the dreams I dream, beg, or borrow On some bright tomorrow they’ll all come true. And all my bright tomorrows belong to you. Frank Sinatra
Could it be possible that we can make nature our true guiding principle in everything we do including courting,love, mating, sense of play, pleasure and laughter; sense of physical place and navigation; sense of time and of weather changes; sense of emotional place, of community, belonging, support, trust and thankfulness; sense of ourself including friendship, companionship, compassion and receptive awareness of our fellow creatures; sense of humility, appreciation, ethics; sense of reason, mind and consciousness,intuition or subconscious deduction; aesthetic sense for creativity and appreciation of beauty, music, literature, and drama; sense of biological and astral time, awareness of past, present and future events? We all need to re-learn how to stop long enough to genuinely reconnect to the nurturing sustenance of nature and emotionally reconnect to what is most deeply satisfying in our human experience-belonging. Project NatureConnect
Personal coherence refers to the synchronization of our physical, mental and emotional systems. It can be measured by our heart-rhythm patterns: The more balanced and smooth they are, the more in sync, or coherent, we are. Thoughts empowered by a coherent Heart are thousands of times more powerful than thoughts energized by an incoherent heart. It's not about marching in the streets, writing lots of books, or making lots of money to influence the world. Energize your thoughts with a coherent Heart - develop a Mind With Heart - change the world.
The physical plane is a plane of grounding. That is, it pulls our awareness into form. It shows us what we have become and are creating. The physical plane slows down our ability to create and ties our creations to time so that we can actually come to learn and understand how we create what we do. It gives us a chance to see exactly who and what it is we are creating and capable of creating. It is simply to experience our creations with a greater awareness. To become aware and mindful of what we thinks, say, feel and do and to come to know what serves and doesn’t serve us.
An ethical act is any act that increases the creativity of at least one person without decreasing the creativity of any person. John David Garcia, Creative Transformation
The elemental fact, present in our consciousness every moment of our existence, is: I am life that wills to live...The essence of the humane spirit is: Preserve life, promote life, help life to achieve its highest destiny. The essence of Evil is: Destroy life, harm life, hamper the development of life. Albert Schweitzer
In the flow of life, one can struggle against circumstances, or one can flow with them and evolve inwardly, by an insightful examination of all that is happening within and around oneself. The question is: "How does one prevent a drop of water from drying up?" And the answer, on the back of the rock, is: "By throwing it into the sea." The drop of water is the individual soul. Its "drying up" is its death as a separate entity. The "sea" is the worldly life, in which it finds sustenance and mixes up with other selves. If one flows without needless restlessness, life provides enough opportunities to grow, and to reach the natural destination, the understanding of one's existence as a self-aware drop in the infinite material ocean that is this universe. Remains of the Day.
Years have passed by the spark still remains. True love can't die it smoulders in flame when the fire is burning off and the angels call my ,name dying love will leave no doubt: I'm the keeper of the flame. Nina Simone
In a world where the corporate iron fist clad in the velvet glove of the state has appropriated all that is authentic and authoritative in language, there seems little left for us to say to each other. How to restructure our systems of perception so that we can see and acknowledge what is otherwise overlooked, devalued, deliberately forgotten?
Amy Winehouse - Back To Black We only said goodbye with words I died a hundred times. You go back to her and I go back to...
I’m not pretending I'm not damaged ...How did I survive such impossible grief and rage? How did I keep from being destroyed by unending sadness? I found solace in writing the story over and over, first as fiction, then decades later as a memoir. Patricia Bosworth
Crazy skies all wild above me now. Winter howling at my face and everything i held so dear disappeared without a trace. Oh all the times i've tasted love never knew quite what i had. Little darling if you hear me now never needed you so bad spinning round inside my head. David Gray - Sail Away
Those of you who misled and have allowed themselves to be dragged by greed or by interests of caste into a fratricidal war, may read to-day, in the ashes of your mother lost dreams, how powerless and direful, how sterile and perverse, were the designs and instruments which have served the most odious of causes. njustifiable iniquity
Abraham Lincoln warns: “What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our crowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, our army and our navy. These are not our reliance against tyranny. All of these may be turned against us without making us weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustom to trample on the rights of others and you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.”
And what can I tell you my brother, my killer What can I possibly say? I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you I'm glad you stood in my way. Leonard Cohen
White light stale and shaded that feel made me jaded for four years because I could never feel you true in the I.C.U. Now I am a fake cardboard box of emotion not feeling through. Eye Saw you untrue , in that moment I never really knew.
I didn't consider what happened to you for four years, now truth of real feel reality hurts my ears. God makes me get back to you through an experience of pain. My nose bleeds everyday at two, all because I never knew true how to get back to you.
Rise up to heaven true like our big blue kite flying sky high hold onto you , but let you through. Been living dead alive four years through, after that seven day stale experience in the Eye See You.
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions. Won't be nothing, nothing you can measure anymore. The blizzard, the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and it has overturned the order of the soul.
've seen the nations rise and fall. I've heard their stories, heard them all but love's the only engine of survival. Leonard Cohen - The FutureReality Check - Alan Watt
Oh and all the stars in heaven cannot count on me alone...All my enemies, they envy every move I’ve ever made. The Dozens
No matter how keenly, how admirably, a story, a piece of music, a picture is discussed and analyzed, there will be minds that remain blank and spines that remain unkindled. "To take upon us the mystery of things".. A poor man is robbed of his overcoat (Gogol's "The Greatcoat,"); another poor fellow is turned into a beetle (Kafka's "The Metamorphosis)—so what? There is no rational answer to "so what." We can take the story apart, we can find out how the bits fit, how one part of the pattern responds to the other; but you have to have in you some cell, some gene, some germ that will vibrate in answer to sensations that you can neither define, nor dismiss. Beauty plus pity—that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. When we go to bed in unfamiliar surroundings, we are apt to have a moment of bewilderment upon awakening, a sudden sense of unreality, and this experience must occur over and over again in the life of a displaced traveler, a manner of living that renders impossible any sense of continuity. The sense of reality depends upon continuity, upon duration. Vladimir Nabokov.
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin. Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in. Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove. Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone. Show me slowly what I only know the limits of. We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above. Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn. Leonard Cohen
Fabien Maman believes that blockages in our subtle energy fields can result in physical illness if they are allowed to crystallize, and Sound, Color and Movement are the most effective tools we can use to dissolve these negative energetic patterns: Zhineng Qi Gong
I should say I wanted to write poetry in the beginning because I had fallen in love with words. What the words stood for was of a very secondary importance. I fell in love, that is the only expression I can think of, at once, and am still at the mercy of words, though sometimes now, knowing a little of their behavior very well, I think I can influence them slightly and have even learned to beat them now and then, which they appear to enjoy. Dylan Thomas.
Dylan Thomas major theme was the unity of all life, the continuing process of life and death and new life that linked the generations. Thomas saw biology as a magical transformation producing unity out of diversity, and in his poetry he sought a poetic ritual to celebrate this unity. Therefore, each image engenders its opposite.
I realized that in American Letters we celebrate both language and landscape, that these words, stories, and poems can create an ethical stance toward life: Melville’s Great Whale; Whitman’s Leaves of Grass; Thoreau’s Walden Pond; Emerson’s “Oversoul”—the natural world infused with divinity. I came to understand through an education in the humanities that knowledge is another form of democracy, the freedom of expression that leads to empathy. Terry Tempest Williams
If no one answers your call, make a stride and walk alone. When everyone is closed and shut, open your mind and speak alone. If no one holds up the light and a fierce storm troubles the night, with the thunder flame of pain ignite your heart, alone, and let it burn bright. Rabindranath Tagore
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself. Robert Frost
