Our Buddha-nature is there from the very beginning. It is like the sun emerging from behind clouds. It is like a mirror that reflects perfectly when it is wiped clean......and returned to its original clarity. HO-SHAN
As to the poetical Character itself.... it is not itself - it has no self - it is every thing and nothing - It has no character - it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated - ...A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity - he is continually in for - and filling some other Body - The Sun, The Moon, The Sea and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute - the poet has none; no identity'.... John Keats
Music keeps changing. And the question is how do people apprehend that? The boundary between music and noise depends on who is listening. Stefan Helmreich
All matter is vibrating at certain frequencies. Rocks and stones have a very slow and low frequency, colour and light have a very high frequency. We are all vibrating as well, but just as a musical instrument needs to be tuned regularly to resonate properly, our frequencies can fall out of tune and may sometimes need some adjustment. Blockages can occur, but different sounds can unblock vibrational energy. Music can help restore our internal tuning. When you say, “I was moved by that piece of music”, it means that the sound literally interacted with you and caused you to vibrate in a slightly different way. Naad Yoga
We seem to affirm that what we say – is, and what is, is what we can and must say! I love how ‘words move’; how ‘words strain’; how they ‘slip, slide and crack’ refusing to stay still or in place. I love to play with language which is to say that I take words very seriously. Yet to take language seriously is always to maintain it’s imaginative movement, for words move as music moves.
This suggests that issue really isn’t language per se but the temptation to disregard its limit. In other words words do not define reality; in fact, words may ‘cloak and dissemble’ obscuring reality. In the end, life is always an inexpressible mystery! At best, words suggest ‘a way’ – as with ‘a finger pointing at the moon’. And, as with any direction indicated, words invite a journey, an interaction along the way transforming life. Language is not something which saves us if we indentify with it; rather it is something which can transform us when we interact with it. John Marsh
The Natya Shastra - ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts
Approaching Midnight with Deepa Mehta "Elements" trilogy, about elements that nurture and destroy us. They are very tangible elements. 'Fire' is about the politics of sexuality, 'Earth' is about the politics of nationalism, and 'Water' is about the politics of religion.
T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets - At the Still Point of the Turning World Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present all time is unredeemable... Time past and time future what might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. At the still point of the turning world.. Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, but neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point.. The inner freedom from the practical desire, The release from action and suffering, release from the inner and the outer compulsion, yet surrounded by a grace of sense, a white light still and moving... Time past and time future...Only through time time is conquered.
The Four Quartets - T. S. Eliot (an extended meditation on our existence within and without the flux of time and place, where our ultimate goal is “to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” “life in time as a state of endless sequence in which every point is between two other points and the perpetual transit from one to the next is experienced as a terrible stasis”
“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth of falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it?” A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
"The most visible creators I know are those artists whose medium is life itself - the ones who express the inexpressible - without brush, hammer, clay or guitar. They neither paint nor sculpt. Their medium is being. They see and don't have to draw. They are the artists of being alive."
Creative people don’t follow the crowds; they seek out the blank spots on the map. Creative people wander through faraway and forgotten traditions and then integrate marginal perspectives back to the mainstream. Competition has trumped value-creation. In this and other ways, the competitive arena undermines innovation. Think about the competitive environment that confronts the most fortunate people today and how it undermines those mind-sets. We live in a culture that nurtures competitive skills. And they are necessary, but it’s probably a good idea to try to supplement them with the skills of alertness, independence and the ability to reclaim forgotten traditions. Peter Thiel
Traditionally Elders of the communities have always been regarded as wisdom keepers. Holders of Knowledge and of Truth. . And what better way to understand what it really means to be an Elder then to sit with one. To witness first hand how these knowledge keepers live. To be near them so that we can feel their vibration, their frequency. To embody their magnificent qualities of wisdom. To humble the ego and listen with diamond ears to the teachings that the Elder will pass on to you. A type of transmission that can only happen when you devote Time, Energy, Intention and Devotion to the Higher Power other then yourself.
THE TREE OF LIFE. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith. Through signature imagery, we see how both brute nature and spiritual grace shape not only our lives as individuals and families, but all life.
Our pain, suffering, and brokenness remind us of our human condition. Our cultural background, social context, and personal beliefs affect our understanding of what has happened in the past as much as how we respond in the present. As we review our past, especially our family histories, we might discover some deeper issues that continue to affect our sense of self-worth, belonging and identity. We may have inherited destructive patterns of thinking and behaviour. Family tensions, strife, rivalry, hatred, bitterness, regret, anger and rejection. We may not realize how certain family patterns carried over from past generations might actually shape present relationships and emotional responses. Can we overcome the negative effects, the flaws, failures and frustrations of our past?
So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them …When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart? Mother Teresa - Come Be My Light.
It is a gift to be less pretentious, less attached to nonessentials, and liberated from having to impress others.
It is safe for me to be here. The earth supports me and meets my needs. I am immersed in abundance. I’m here and I’m real. Anodea Judith - Sacred Centers
raced through every city while i knew all along no place could be found like the city of love. if I could have known to value what i owned I would not have suffered like a fool the life of a vagabond. I've heard many tunes all over the globe all empty as a kettle drum except the music of love. it was the sound of that hollow drum that made me fall from the heavens to this mortal life. I used to soar among souls like a heart's flight winglessly roaming and celestially happy. I used to drink like a flower that drinks without lips or throat of the wine that overflows with laughter and joy. suddenly I was summoned by love to prepare for a journey to the temple of suffering. I cried desperately I begged and pleaded and shredded my clothes not to be sent to this world just the way i fear now going away to the other world I was frightened then to make my descent. love asked me to go with no fear to be alone promising to be close everywhere i go closer than my veins. love threw its spell its magic and allure using coyness and charm I was totally sold and bought everything with joy. who am i to resist love's many tricks and not to fall while the whole world takes love's bait? love showed me a path but then lost me on the way if I could have resisted I would have found my way. I can show you my friend surely how you can get there but here and now my pen has broken down before telling you how. Rumi
Richard Kearney - Anatheism: Returning to God After God Anatheism works back from the experience of God-loss toward a genuine renewal of the sacred to recover forward a second, more mature faith. The thematic core of Anatheism is the encounter with the Stranger and the event of hospitality/hostility. An uninvited Stranger appears; there is a moment of disorientation, perplexity, fear, perhaps trauma, a moment of bewilderment which impels seeking and questioning in the first place; the addressee must decide for or against the Stranger; In the utter absence of a powerful and saving God in the midst of unspeakable suffering and pain, a realization can occur that for God to be we have to host Him, save Him; if God is estranged and a stranger to this world His coming depends our welcome. Out of the depths of the abyss a return and recovery of the sacred is possible, a re-birth of God of service and a sacramental “yes” to life. The Stranger is sacred in the sense that she embodies something else, something more, something other than what the self can contain or grasp. In the Other, something more, something unassimilable calls us beyond ourselves toward previously unenvisioned, virtually impossible acts of grace, hope, charity, and wonder. Anatheism: Returning to God After God
The Castaways Project - sculptural paintings from washed-up materials collected along shorelines around Accra, Ghana (washed-in and washed-out history and memory of displacements, gold and slavery along the one-time African Gold Coast)
Vivan Las Antipodas! What would be the shortest route between Entre Ríos in Argentina and the Chinese metropolis Shanghai? Simply a straight line through the center of the earth, since the two places are antipodes: they are located diametrically opposite to each other on the earth's surface.
I try and distinguish between what one calls the Future and “l’avenir” (the ‘to come). The future is that which – tomorrow, later, next century – will be. There is a future which is predictable, programmed, scheduled, foreseeable. But there is a future, l’avenir (to come) which refers to someone who comes whose arrival is totally unexpected. For me, that is the real future. That which is totally unpredictable. The Other who comes without my being able to anticipate their arrival. So if there is a real future, beyond the other known future, it is l’avenir in that it is the coming of the Other when I am completely unable to foresee their arrival. Jacques Derrida
Consciousness as the fundamental reality - Peter Russell
The mystical experience of consciousness - Peter Russell
God sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, and awakens in man. Ibn Al-'Arabi
Cultural deviation does not return us to the past, but continues what was begun but not finished in the past, bringing the tradition into view in a new way, allowing the familiar to be seen as unfamiliar, as requiring a new appraisal of all that we have been- and therefore all that we are. There are experiences and new information that will show the familiar as strange the comforting as dangerous, the adjacent as distant. What doesn't appear in a fresh way will be thought changeless and ordinary, no longer a stimulus to thought. Finite Games and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility by James P. Carse
The mantra OM is the vibration of the Supreme. When taken letter by letter, A-U-M represents the divine energy (Shakti) united in its three elementary aspects: Bhrahma Shakti (creation), Vishnu Shakti (preservation) and Shiva Shakti (liberation, and/or destruction
Spread Mind: consciousness is a process shared between various otherwise distinct processes which, for convenience’s sake we have separated out and stabilizd in the words subject and object. Our visual experience of the world is a continuum between see-er and seen united in a shared process of seeing. For the rainbow experience to happen we need sunshine, raindrops, and a spectator. The rainbow is hence a process requiring various elements, one of which happens to be an instrument of sense perception. Consciousness is spread between sunlight, raindrops, and visual cortex, creating a unique, transitory new whole, the rainbow experience. Or again: the viewer doesn’t see the world; he is part of a world process. Everything we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell involves the same creation of a physical unity—the moment of consciousness. It happens in time, and it takes time, and it changes constantly. Riccardo Manzotti
We may never know how we hold all we can or how the light catches us when we are out of breath. It’s a sign of healing to be feeling again. The real breakthrough can only arise from heartbreak. That which ails cures reminding us that it’s always about beginning and then beginning again. As the waves crash me I trust the sand to polish my edges smooth, dissolving denial, revealing real, while courage and confidence ignite my core. Contraction and expansion let the light stream in and the stillness after so much thrashing about allows the body to wring the sorrow out. As freedom floods shadows may persist know your undertow as you alchemize the dark and remember that you always have the strength to choose how to engage. The clouds unveil the view when you are ready to climb now. It’s time to notice the miraculous moments in your life as they are happening. This is the making of me and we will walk courageously into daybreak from the night shining our light together. Unbound, Nancy Levin
Ondulation is a composition for water, sound and light. It employs a two ton pool of water which is set into motion using sound. Beams of light are projected onto the surface of the water and reflect onto a projection screen. The pool becomes a "liquid mirror" that is slowly sculpted into perfect three-dimensional expressions of a musical composition. In turn, the light on the screen is modulated by the movement of the water into complex visual forms which maintain perfect congruity with their musical source.
دلم گرفته ای دوست، هوای گریه با من گر از قفس گریزم کجا روم، کجا من? کجا روم که راهی به گلشنی ندانم که دیده برگشودم به کنج تنگنا من نه بستهام به کس دل، نه بسته کس به من دل چو تختهپاره بر موج، رها، رها، رها من ز من هر آنکه او دور ، چو دل به سینه نزدیک به من هر آن که نزدیک، از او جدا، جدا من! نه چشم دل به سویی، نه باده در سبویی که تر کنم گلویی به یاد آشنا من ز بودنم چه افزود؟ نبودنم چه کاهد? که گویدم به پاسخ، که زندهام چرا من? ستارهها نهفتم در آسمان ابری دلم گرفته ای دوست
kiran Ahluwalia - I am the parched earth awaiting a union with you. I don't behold you in my eyes, but in my heart
