At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes - an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. Carl Sagan
The awareness of the unity and mutual interrelation of all things and events, the experience of all phenomena in the world as manifestations of a basic oneness: Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics (Uniting Science with Metaphysics)
A Matter of Balance by Karolle Wall (a short video of skeleton shrimp enjoying life on the sargassum seaweed: the great contradictions in life and nature: joy and sorrow, grace and fragility, and the significance of all things, no matter how small, elusive or squishy. It bears an environmental message passed on for thousands of years: If we are to save our environment, appreciate our coastal, marine ecosystems, we must pay attention and bear witness to even the smallest of creatures.
Nothing astonishes me more than the absolute ignorance displayed in the writings of the ancients, of the true nature of their history, their religious mythology, and, in short of every thing relating to their antiquities. The Anacalypsis - Godfrey Higgins
Six dimensions that define our emotional style: Resilience, Outlook, Social Intuition, Self Awareness, Sensitivity to Context, and Attention - Each is a continuum, for example, at one end of Resilience there are those who recover from adversity quickly, at the other those who are slow to recover. Emotional Life of Your Brain
Emotional Life of Your Brain, Richard J. Davidson and Sharon Begley
For the Celtic people all life was sacred and the natural world was a continuous prayer. Each mountain held a soul; each river, a heart. Yet they reserved their greatest reverence not for what they could see, but for what they could not. Around them they sensed an “invisible world,” the great unknown from which they came and the source of eternal wonder in their lives. Through prayer, John O'Donohue teaches, we may enter directly into this secret immensity and escape the psychological prisons we create for ourselves.
Gnosis: Tree of the Life & Knowledge (The Inner God of Each Person)
Hidden Teachings & Mystery Tradition
WHEN Love with unconfined wings Hovers within my Gates ; And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the Grates ;... Stone Walls do not a Prison make, Nor Iron bars a Cage ; Mindes innocent and quiet take That for an Hermitage ; If I have fr...eedome in my Love, And in my soule am free ; Angels alone that sore above, Injoy such Liberty. TO ALTHEA. From Prison. Song. Set by Dr. John Wilson
If you really, really want something you get it. If you want it for the purity and beauty of what it is, it will take its clothes off in front of you. Real poets never get rich but the best expressions that Lady Nature can work her way into coming out for find their way into their beds. All real poets get tired of that early. They only want Lady truth to knock on their door and ask them if they are kind to strangers. Then she takes off her clothes and the world disappears. It is a hard struggle in the aftermath because the world comes back again and truth puts her clothes back on. There isn't one of us to whom it happened that can remember what took place between the unveiling and recovering. People don't really read history, or if they do, their glasses fog up. Le Visible's "Kali Yuga, Poets and... I don't know."
How sun and its dual dark star interact to affect human mental and physical performance?
Whenever I have read any part of the Vedas, I have felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated me... It is ... the royal road for the attainment of the Great Knowledge.- Henry David Thoreau
The Vedanta and the Sankhya hold the key to the laws of mind and thought process which are co-related to the Quantum Field... Brian David Josephon.
Vedic wisdom can heal the wound that has torn the human brain and the human heart far apart, and thus usher a new era of integrated, holistic development in world history.
the only way by which man can return to his Divinity,is in the baptism or merging of Self in the stream of the Holy Sound Aum... that this merging manifests spontaneously through the energetic tendency of the heart’s natural love; moral courage; true conception; and true concentration. Sri Yukteswar - The Holy Science
The yugas of Sri Yukteswar and Paramahansa Yogananda
San Cristobal de las Casas - Chiapas, Mexico
Musqueam Through Time tells the story of a timeless culture that continues to guide not just the Musqueam people, but Canada as a whole. Celebrate the cultures and contributions of the First Nations every day.
"The Sanskrit word maya means 'the measurer'; it is the magical power in creation by which limitations and divisions are apparently present in the Immeasurable and Inseparable. Maya is Nature herself—the phenomenal worlds, ever in transitional flux as antithesis to Divine Immutability. Maya is the veil of transitoriness in Nature, the ceaseless becoming of creation; the veil that each man must lift in order to see behind it the Creator, the changeless Immutable, eternal Reality." Paramahansa Yogananda. The delusory power inherent in the structure of creation, by which the One appears as many. Maya is the principle of relativity, inversion, contrast, duality, oppositional states and the adversary.
Colour of Paradise ( Hues of the Creator ) - Majid Majidi
Kalam Cosmological Argument
Cecilia Bartoli - Vivaldi - Bajazet - Sposa son disprezzata
Sri Aurobindo's argues that Man is born an ignorant, divided, conflicted being; a product of the original inconscience (i.e. unconsciousness,) inherent in matter that he evolved out of. As a result, he does not know the nature of reality, including its source and purpose; his own nature, including the parts and integration of his being; what purpose he serves, and what his individual and spiritual potential is, amongst others. In addition, man experiences life through division and conflict, including his relationship with others, and his divided view of spirit and life. To overcome these limitations, Man must embark on a process of self-discovery in which he uncovers his Divine nature. To that end, he undertakes transformationl steps: First stage is a movement within, away from the surface of life, to the depths, culminating in the discovery of his psychic being (the evolving soul). From that experience, he sees the oneness and unity of creation, and the harmony of all opposites experienced in life. As a result of making the psychic change, his mind expands and he experiences knowledge not through the hard churning of thought, but through light, intuition, and revelation of knowledge, culminating in supramental perception. Aurobindo's vision of the evolution of human life into life divine.
Sri Aurobindo & Mirra Alfassa (Mother)
The term “archetype” means an original idea or pattern of something of which others are copies. Archetypal approach to literature is the interpretation of a text in the light of cultural patterns involved in it, and these cultural patterns are based on the myths and rituals of a race or nation or social group. Myths and rituals are explored in a text for discovery of meaning and message.
James George Frazer in his book The Golden Bough classifies myths into four categories: 1. The dawn, spring and birth phase. There are myths dealing with the birth of a hero, his revival and resurrection, defeat of the powers of darkness and death. Subordinate characters such as the father and the mother are introduced in the myth.
2. The zenith, summer and marriage or triumph phase. In this phase, there are myths of apotheosis, of sacred marriage and of entering into Paradise. Subordinate characters in these myths are the companion and the bride.
3. The sunset, autumn and death phase. These are the myths dealing with the fall of a hero, a dying god, violent death, sacrifice and the hero’s isolation. The subordinate characters are the traitor and the siren.
4. The darkness, winter and desolation phase. There are myths dealing with the triumph of these powers. The myths of floods, the return of chaos and the defeat of the hero are examples of this phase.
Hypatia and Alexandria
We have to look at the figures of speech a writer uses, his images and symbols, to realize that underneath all the complexity of human life that uneasy stare at an alien nature is still haunting us, and the problem of surmounting it still with us. Above all, we have to look at the total design of a writer's work, the title he gives to it, and the his main theme, which means his point in writing it, to understand that literature is still doing the same job that mythology did earlier, but filling in its huge cloudy shapes with sharper lights and deeper shadows. Northrop Frye, The educated imagination
Hence the strong attraction which magic and science alike have exercised on the human mind; hence the powerful stimulus that both have given to the pursuit of knowledge. They lure the weary enquirer, the footsore seeker, on through the wilderness of disappointment in the present by their endless promises of the future: they take him up to the top of an exceeding high mountain and show him, beyond the dark clouds and rolling mists at his feet, a vision of the celestial city, far off, it may be, but radiant with unearthly splendour, bathed in the light of dreams. James George Frazer, The Golden Bough.
“There he sang of Hiawatha, Sang the song of Hiawatha, Sang his wondrous birth and being, How he prayed and how he fasted, How he lived and toiled and suffered, That the tribes of men might prosper, That he might advance his people!” You who love the haunts of Nature, Love the sunshine of the meadow, Love the shadow of the forest, Love the wind among the branches, And the rain shower and snow-storm, And the rushing of great rivers Through their palisades of pine-trees, And the thunder of the mountains, Whose innumerable echoes Flip like eagles in their eyries; Listen to this wild traditions, To this song of Hiawatha! You who love a nation’s legends, Love the ballads of a people, That like voices from afar off Call to us to pause and listen, Speak in tones so plain and childlike, Scarcely can the ear distinguish Whether they are sung or spoken; Listen to this Indian Legend, To this Song of Hiawatha! You whose hearts are fresh and simple, Who have faith in God and Nature, Who believe that in all ages Every human heart is human, That in even savage bosoms There are longings, yearnings, strivings For the good they comprehend not, That the feeble hands and helpless, Touch God’s right hand in the darkness And are lifted up and strengthened; Listen to this simple story, To this Song of Hiawatha! You who sometimes in your rambles Through the green lanes of the country, Where the tangled barberry-bushes Hang their tufts of crimson berries Over stone walls gray with mosses, Pause by some neglected graveyard, For a while to muse and ponder On a half-effaced inscription, Written with little skill of song-craft, Homely phrases, but each letter Full of hope and yet of heart break, Full of all the tender pathos Of the Here and the Hereafter; Stay and read this rude inscription, Read the Song of Hiawatha!
The Song of Hiawatha! Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ooh Belle, It's not like I couldn't tell, The shape of your sadness can't hide behind your little shell...Ooh Belle, Sometimes I'm overwhelmed. Then you overcame salvation the further you fell... Ooh Belle, I hope that you're doin' well. The trick of the devil is to make you think you're livin' in Hell. The Barr Brothers
A gift of Love -Rumi
My heart is burning with love. All can see this flame. My heart is pulsing with passion like waves on an ocean. My friends have become strangers and I’m surrounded by enemies but I’m free as the wind, no longer hurt by those who reproach me. I’m at home wherever I am and in the room of lovers I can see with closed eyes the beauty that dances. Behind the veils intoxicated with love I too dance the rhythm of this moving world. I have lost my senses in my world of lovers. Rumi
If a traveler tripped over a rock in their path and from this event altered the course of their life, we might conclude the rock was only incidental. When foolish people trip, they get up and walk away as if nothing happened. They learn nothing. A wise person will find a greater meaning for their fall. But a rock that trips travelers in every age, each time imparting a different meaning, that is not just a rock. That is God.
Signs of the Unseen - The Discourses of Rumi: A Translation of Fihi ma Fihi (In It is What is In It)
True non-attachment is deep intimacy and engagement with life. Michael Stone
ANY work can be of service to the world depending on the intention and the consciousness of the person doing it! It's not WHAT you do, its HOW you do it!
True non-attachment is deep intimacy and engagement with life
Simple Living: Identify what’s most important to you & eliminate everything else. Eliminate all but the essential by getting rid of many of the things you do so you can spend time with people you love and do the things you love. Relish the moments (fleeting though they may be) of clarity, stillness, calm, steadiness, and how they manifest in unpredictable and uncontrived ways.
Once there were green fields kissed by the sun. Once there were valleys where rivers used to run. Once there were blue skies with white clouds high above. Once they were part of an everlasting love. We were the lovers who strolled through green fields.
Green fields are gone now, parched by the sun. Gone from the valleys where rivers used to run. Gone with the cold wind that swept into my heart. Gone with the lovers who let their dreams depart. Where are the green fields that we used to roam. I'll never know what made you run away. How can I keep searching when dark clouds hide the day. I only know there's nothing here for me. Nothing in this wide world, left for me to see. Still I'll keep on waiting until you return. I'll keep on waiting until the day you learn. You can't be happy while your heart's on the roam. You can't be happy until you bring it home. Home to the green fields and me once again. The Brothers Four
