Words are the echo of thoughts and thoughts are the echo of emotions which finally find expression when the words are spoken. Conversely, words which become images in the mind can penetrate at last to the feeling heart. For spiritual enlightenment the names of God, symbolizing idealized attributes, are repeated, that many times it is also recorded within the heart. Purity of purpose and regularity of rhythm are most important factors to take into consideration. Hidayat Inayat-Khan (son of Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan of Baroda) We're locked into a finite body, each with our own life story and melodrama, and yet simultaneously we're like God; we partake of the entire cosmos. Meditation is an act of glorification. But one can only glorify if one is willing to accept the wonder of the divine inheritance in one's being, and we're always seeking outside ourselves that which is already in us. In a state of reverie, one is suspended at the threshold between day consciousness and sleep with dreams. So the mind is projecting forms surreptitiously; there's no way of controlling it when it is really in a state of reverie. We're not using our will. On the other hand we can monitor that experience - not with our will but with our emotion attuned to our highest aspirations. This level of being awake inside of the dream is a very important level in uniting the individual consciousness with the divine consciousness.
In Hindu mysticism akasha (space or ether) is thought to be the primary principle of nature from which the other four natural principles, fire, air, earth, and water, are created. Is there a filing system containing all knowledge of a human experience which has recorded every occurring thought, word, and action containing all knowledge of human experience? By accessing this akashic records much might be revealed to us. There is much more to our lives, our histories, and our individual influence upon our tomorrows than we have perhaps dared to imagine. And we are most alive when we envision and enact the future that is coming by the clarity of our intentions.
When God becomes man in the fullest sense of the word, taking all the limitations of the human mind and body while at the same time experiencing the knowledge, power, and bliss of God. Being one with God and simultaneously one with everyone. "Your beauty is Your simplicity, and Your simplicity is Your beauty."
Having faith in the revelatory nature of our moments of spiritual awakening in which we intimately glimpse the cosmic dance of "God's non-distinction from all things that is their very reality" and letting go of all that is less than God as the source of our security and identity are part of the mysterious process in which we realize God is the very reality of ourselves, others and all things and seeing God in all things and all things in God. Dr. James Finley
Perhaps we should say that all conflict is the result of lies, because the truth has no conflict at all. The truth existed long before humans; it exists whether we believe in it or not. Lies only exist if we create them, and they only survive if we believe in them. Lies are just a distortion of the word, a distortion of the meaning of a message, and that distortion is in the human mind. Humans are always distorting the truth with words, but that's not the problem. The problem is when we believe that distortion. If we believe the lie and try to impose that lie on other people, it can lead to what we call evil. Of course, what we call evil has many levels, depending on our personal power. There are tyrants all around the world who believe in lies and that answers why all the wars exist, why all the conflict, injustice, and abuse exist in the world of humans. from The Fifth Agreement
In 1958 I wrote the following:'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.'
Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it but the search for it is compulsive. The search is clearly what drives the endeavour. The search is your task. More often than not you stumble upon the truth in the dark, colliding with it or just glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realising that you have done so. But the real truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.
Ashes to Ashes, on the other hand, seems to me to be taking place under water. A drowning woman, her hand reaching up through the waves, dropping down out of sight, reaching for others, but finding nobody there, either above or under the water, finding only shadows, reflections, floating; the woman a lost figure in a drowning landscape, a woman unable to escape the doom that seemed to belong only to others. But as they died, she must die too.
Political language, as used by politicians, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.
The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.
I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.' It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance.
What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days - conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead?
When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror - for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.
I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.
If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us -the dignity of man. The Nobel Prize in Literature 2005, Harold Pinter
My mother said to get things done You'd better not mess with Major Tom, Ashes To Ashes, DAVID BOWIE
What appears to be the predominant feature of humanity's history is its attempt to control its surroundings: the environment, the territory, and the nation. from Oneness in the World
Can this exhausted humanity be transformed where exploitation will disappear and cooperation will replace competition, certainty will replace fear, generosity will replace greed and feeling of oneness will supersede the tendency of separateness driving away hatred, jealousy and greed that breed suffering? Without trust and cooperation no truly great enterprise can be undertaken,
I believe in this beautiful country. But, today I weep for my country. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination. We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance. What is happening to this country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends? from the speech given by Sen. Robert Byrd on the Senate floor on March 19, 2003.
"Yes, they will trample me underfoot, because it is the privilege and the curse of midnight's children to be both masters and victims of their times, to forsake privacy and be sucked into the annihilating whirlpool of the multitudes, and to be unable to live or die in peace." Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. No existing political or social structure, with conflicting powers and beliefs and agendas - forming factions, some fighting each other and some working together, some offering their services to the state and others trying to bring it down, villains and heroes, betrayals, friendships, rivalries! The only hope comes from their endurance and regeneration.
Shirin Neshat film Women without Men chronicles the lives of four women from different walks of life against the backdrop of Iran foreign-backed CIA coup in 1953, (a pivotal moment in Iranian history when this American led coup d'etat brought down the democratically elected prime minister Mossadegh and reinstalled the Shah to power). The personal stories of these women and psychological dimensions of their experience merge to reveal the larger canvas of the downfall of their country. Poetry, beloved in Iran is at the core of this film - and its art lifts us from the captivity of our own limited experience into that of the universal in order to fully empathize, understand, and identify with our fellows. Plain language never evokes the smell of an orange, the feel of bare skin, the depth of heartache the way poetry does.
Mind is the Master-power that molds and makes, and Man is Mind, and evermore he takes the tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills. Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills- comes to pass: Environment is but his looking-glass. As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
I am in need of music that would flow over my fretful, feeling fingertips, Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips, With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow. Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low, of some song sung to rest the tired dead, A song to fall like water on my head, and over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow! There is a magic made by melody: A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool. Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep To the subaqueous stillness of the sea, and floats forever in a moon-green pool, held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep. Elizabeth Bishop
Honoring the Native American heritage and the importance of the strength of the Native American women. LimitlessThinker.
Vera Manuel devoted
her life to encouraging others to free ourselves through the use of our personal
voices. Telling the truth is disarming, speaking your truth is a generous and
healing gift. Listen to her reading her poem, "Justice". For years I used my poetry as a tool to help people to heal. As long as the words that came to me could help to open doors for others to get at their feelings and their own words that is all I cared about.
Erik Satie - Gnossienne No.1 Satie was introduced as a "gymnopedist" in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopedies. Later, he also referred to himself as a phonometrograph" or "phonometrician" (meaning someone who measures and writes down sounds) preferring this designation to that of musician. Tzvi Erez, piano The Colours of Autumn
I am a man: little do I last and the night is enormous. But I look up: the stars write. Unknowing I understand: I too am written, and at this very moment someone spells me out. Octavio Paz, Brotherhood: Homage to Claudius Ptolemy
The mantra as I have tried to describe it in The Future Poetry is a word of power and light that comes from the overmind inspi-ration or from some very high plane of Intuition. Its characteristics are a language that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of the words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the In-finite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some funda-mental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater. Sri Aurobindo
To comprehend the process of meaning-making, Derrida refers us to the ancient Jewish exegetical schema known as PaRDeS, or "the paradise of Scripture" that insisted that every verse of the Bible has at least four meanings, basing their arguments on more ancient interpretive practices. According to the Jewish tradition that Derrida cites, meaning-making occurs at four levels, usually simultaneously, though each must be teased out in its own right: 1-Peshat: The simple, the literal, the plain meaning of the text, usually accessible to the uninitiated, and having its own inherent value as memory, instruction or entertainment. 2- Remez: The allusive, the intimated meaning, the metaphor hinted at, though always based on a rational and concrete form of logic, such as a notarikon, tachygraphy, mnemonic, or gematria. This form of exegesis became popular in both Judaism and Christianity as a sort of puzzle. 3-Derash: The homiletical meaning, more a synthetic attribution than an analytic clarification of meaning, an excursus by which moral and ethical applications are drawn. 4- Sod: The secret meaning, the mystical message accessible only to the select few initiated, and often having to do with the very nature of God.
Jamelie Hassan: At the Far Edge of Words "artists have a responsibility to address the important issues of their time"
Now the king told the boogie men you have to let that raga drop. The oil down the desert way has been shakin' to the top. The sheik he drove his cadillac; he went a cruisin' down the ville. By order of the prophet, we ban that boogie sound. Degenerate the faithful. The king called up his jet fighters; he said you better earn your pay. Drop your bombs between the minarets down the casbah way. The Clash performing Rock The Casbah Remix
There were recipients of the leftovers of imperial handouts: Post Graduate Awards, Graduate Awards...It does not matter what you call it. What a dainty name to describe this most merciless, most formalized. For a few pennies now and a doctorate degree later, tell us how we can make you weak, weaker that you are already been. And don't get any ideas either. Jamelie Hassan, Common Knowledge
1-Follow Your Curiosity, "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious." What piques your curiosity? What are you most curious about? The pursuit of your curiosity is the secret to your success.
2-Perseverance is Priceless, "It's not that I'm so smart; it's just that I stay with problems longer." Are you willing to persevere until you get to your intended destination?
3-Focus on the Present, "Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves." Learn to be present where you are; give your all to whatever you're currently doing. Focused energy is power, and it's the difference between success and failure.
4-The Imagination is Powerful, "Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. Imagination is more important than knowledge." "The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination."
5-Make Mistakes, "A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new."
6-Live in the Moment, "I never think of the future - it comes soon enough."
7-Create Value, "Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." Discover the talents and gifts that you possess, learn how to offer those talents and gifts in a way that most benefits others. Labor to be valuable and success will chase you down.
8-Don't Expect Different Results, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." In order for your life to change, you must change, to the degree that you change your actions and your thinking is to the degree that your life will change.
9-Knowledge Comes From Experience, Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience."
10-Learn the Rules and Then Play Better, "You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else."
You're not a dream, you're not an angel, you're a man. I'm not a queen, I'm a woman, take my hand. We'll make a space in the lives that we'd planned. And here we'll stay Until it's time for you to go. Yes we're different Worlds apart, We're not the same. We laughed and played at the start like in a game. You could've stayed outside my heart but in you came. And here you'll stay until it's time for you to go. Don't ask why, Don't ask how, Don't ask forever, Love me now. Buffy Sainte-Marie
You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. If you forget me and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. Pablo Neruda
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. Pablo Neruda
Tamally Maak- Always with u, with u my heart with u my life, my dearest love, dearest love. No matter how far u are, you are close to my heart. my life to come and present. Always i miss u, always my eyes call u, and even if the whole world is around me, i still need u. Amir Diab
"On Thin Ice" is a story that needs to be much more widely heard.
"Give up the idea of growth and stop using it as the yardstick of economic policy. Changing paradigms is now an imperative, no matter which way you look at it." Dr. Vandana Shiva
"There is enough for everybody's need, but not enough for anybody's greed" Mahatma Gandhi It seems quite imperative that we begin to consider, not only different lifestyles, but also different mind-sets!
In order to understand scarcity you have to look at the discourse of scarcity, you have to look at the moment of the institutionalizing of economics - defined in the textbooks as "the study of choice under scarcity" - as the dominant way of talking about the world, and the relation of these to capitalist modernity. And that story is indeed interesting.
Notice how this mirrors the basic assumption of bourgeois economics - choice under scarcity. It would be hard to exaggerate the role of Malthus and the way his assumptions are built not just into economics, but into a whole range of modern forms of knowledge, for example, biology, genetics, demography. These disciplines bear the stamp of Malthus. Darwin himself said that evolution was driven by the motor of "superfecundity" and scarcity of resources. He sat up one night, so the story goes, when he was reading Malthus' Essay on Population and he says that he realized "It's Malthus! That's how I can explain evolution!" That's what he called 'natural selection'. The basic, Malthus-style, argument is simple: overpopulation creates competition for the resources available, and favors those offspring better adapted to exploit local conditions and resources; i.e. privatizing the profit and socializing the debt, like using state subsidies rountinely to rebuild the houses of Hollywood executives after fire or as Malthus recommended: "And if you dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should encourage whatever forms of destruction which we compel nature to use." or a more recent suggestion by Lawrence Summers that toxic industrial waste from the North should logically be dumped in third world countries because they are seriously underpolluted. This corollary follows quite naturally from the logic of cost-benefit analysis and modern economic theory. Malthus and Summers - and this is true for the tribe of economists in general- take as assumptions the very conditions that their discipline has conspired to help produce. Perhaps you can see why secularizing Victorian gentlemen - imperialists, really - would believe that competition produces progress and the survival of the superior races of animals and, of course, men. In general, a society gets the science it deserves. It's why a few of us are trying to institute the new field of "agnotology", which would look at the cultural production of systematic ignorance. The premises of economics are a disgrace, and so are all the proliferating offspring of Malthus. a Conversation with Iain Boal on scarcity
Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods. Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The first recognition of beauty was one of the most significant events in the
evolution of human consciousness. The feelings of joy and love are intrinsically
connected to that recognition. Without fully realizing it, flowers would become
for us an expression in form of that which is most high, most sacred, and
ultimately formless within ourselves. Eckhart Tolle Madeleine Peyroux sings "Dance Me To The End Of Love"
Dreamland (Music by Valgeir Sigurosson), a documentary, based on a book by Andri Snaer Magnason, about the exploitation of Iceland's natural resources, tells a story about the fortunes of a whole nation; the destruction of vast landscapes; and the global economic forces, greater still than any nation, that fuel it all.
After Icelandic politicians had sold Icelandic nature as cheap energy to some of the industrial giants of this world without the peoples consent, the Icelandic people were upset. We didn't get a chance to defend ourselves We couldn't put into words our fury over the injustice of this. Bjork
Manufactured Landscapes. Abandoned industrial sites, mines and landfills are often left unattended. They have a tendency to leech heavy metals and toxic chemicals into the soil and eventually into the groundwater, streams and lakes.
