|
|
 15 Dec 2004 @ 09:31, by jazzolog. Spirituality
Oh friend, awake, and sleep no more! The night is over and gone, would you lose your day also? You have slept for un-numbered ages, this morning will you not awake?
---Rabindranath Tagore
The man who in his work finds silence, and who sees that silence is work, this man in truth sees the light and in all his works finds peace.
---The Bhagavad Gita
I never hear the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, nor the mild cadence of a troop of grey plovers in an autumn morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry.
---Robert Burns
Grünewald, Matthias
Concert of Angels and Nativity, ca.1515
This year's Christmas greeting from beloved friend, mentor, poet John Tagliabue, and his beautiful artist wife Grace, are 3 new poems I'm delighted to share with you. His introductions to everything, including himself, are worth preserving, and so handwritten he says, "I've been hearing it said to me since 1923...Buon Natale and now in 2004 Grace & I say it to your family and we hope we all will have Good Health and Somehow Peace in 2005. All Good Wishes---Grace & John". Inside on lovely recycled paper are the poems, printed by Jan Owen, which I reproduce here exactly (without question or concerns you might expect from me about grammar, punctuation or spelling)~~~ More >
|
|
|
|
15 Dec 2004 @ 03:50, by letecia. Spirituality
It seems so long since I have posted. I am distracted by many things in life. Many details undone. I wonder am I running away, or running to that next phase of awakening.
My heart seems filled with paradoxical feelings. Thoughts rule, when Knowing seems to speak a different reality.
Winter is almost here. A meteor shower splashes wishes across the dark night sky. Do I dare speak the truth, share the need, not as a victim, but simply as one born in a body filled with humanity? Can I even whisper the ache that has been in my heart? On the surface, old pain piled on top of innocence.
I feel as if I will burst, dying to Life.
How long have I tried to escape, to ignore what needs doing, to let go, to come home, to trust... Love?
|
|
|
|
14 Dec 2004 @ 12:47, by swanny. Spirituality
THE RAINBOW TREE
WHAT..... strange seed is this that doth grow, HERE...in the dust and filth of despair and wretchedness.
Tis not Love for Love hath wings, Tis not joy for no happy song it sings, and tis not grace of common variety for it is of slow passion, yet here it doth labor and grow, taking and transforming as it nourishment, this
bitter sweet sewage and sludge and makes of it so into these lines most
clear and plain.
Ah but alas for once this was a great city and planet of humanity,
yet some poison of heart did render and wreck upon it disaster great and speedy
and though the whispers of love and light sought vainly to shore up its moorings, it
succumbed and died, deaf and dumb and dead to their ministry, collasping like some great house of cards upon itself and own weight.
But look here what time in its glory and wisdom doth now fashion, this seed, this plant, this tree that we now gaze upon and behold. Yon tree that hath sprung from the wreck of Love and Hate , of Good and Evil,
Tis a wonder, aye? That doth now grow and since so be its nature of darkness and light and of good and evil and of love and hate..... Let us call its name the
Rainbow Tree and eat of its fruit that be both bitter and sweet as is this life we call our own.
a. g. jonas.
(c) 2004
Earth More >
|
|
|
|
 12 Dec 2004 @ 04:20, by nemue. Spirituality
I wrote recently about the potential risk to our culture and the impact of political correctness. My attention was drawn to the lack of celebration of our Christian heritage and the impact of the moral minority in sanitising our demonstration of who and what we are. Merry Christmas replaced by Seasons Greetings for fear of offending. The complete lack of outward show, no decoration (or limited decoration) and often NO outward show at all.
I am pleased to say that people power won the day in a small way clearly showing that we could all celebrate each other’s differences and enjoy the experience of doing so. In Sydney, hundreds of people wrote to the papers, rang radio stations and emailed people voicing their concern. I was one of those people. It wasn’t just Christians who wrote and rang but Muslims, Jews and the like. Their voice was united and those of different religious beliefs stated we love Christmas and we want to celebrate with you, we are not offended.
In fact in one of our larger shopping centres where a sizeable Lebanese Muslim community shops many, many small Muslim children had their photos taken with Santa Claus. I have never seen my suburb so colourful before. Many houses festooned with lights and messages of goodwill. Merry Christmas emblazoned for all to see. There are still some who resist but change is happening and whilst this year things started a little late, next year will be even better. That said, the ‘wake-up’ call did prompt many to act so the Christmas message is alive.
So you see, people can make a difference. It is just a matter of tolerance, goodwill and the joy of sharing. Whilst in the4 scheme of world events this is a little win, it is a win nevertheless so remember - speak up for what you believe in, you can make a difference. Do not allow those with a mission to divide to win the day. We don’t need wars to change things only those willing to speak out in peace. How is that for a wonderful Christmas Message?
Peace, love and goodwill to all. You CAN a difference. More >
|
|
|
|
11 Dec 2004 @ 18:39, by bushman. Spirituality
God gave himself AIDS, when he created man. Look what we do to his creation. Humans are no different than an oxident, slow burning the creation with an eternal flame, making toxic emissions and spewing toxic fluids that ooz all over everything. Just take a look around, God has an immune defficiancy. The eternal flame will finaly go out when theres nothing left to burn. More >
|
|
|
|
 5 Dec 2004 @ 02:04, by i2i. Spirituality
“Saturn devouring one of his children” (1821-23), Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain)
Hannah Arendt, in her ground breaking book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, discovered what she least expected and least wanted to face. During multiple interviews with Eichmann, the German Jewish author discovered that he was not a monster. He was not even an anti-Semitic maniac or twisted, distorted demon of a man. Eichmann, she said was a man who simply wanted to get ahead, to succeed in life, to please his superiors, to be respected by his peers, to do his job well, to be patriotic, devoted, and responsible.
Since the ovens of the concentration camps and the mushrooms clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, mankind seems nowadays to have managed to industrialized evil to the point where total madness and collective evil can now be perpetrated with no intention at all.
Are we increasingly becoming participants in a system which progressively has been turning ordinary citizens into “willing but intentionless death dealers”?
So asks Joan Chittister in a timely article published in the December 2004 issue of Spirituality & Health:
"Today, the breadth and depth of human complicity in mass murder knows no end. We have assemblyline systems that crank out sheet steel for bombs in one state and warheads for bombs in another, fins for missiles in a third state, and delivery systems of trains and ships and packing crates in the next. The profits of this system, reaped on Wall Street, leave us all innocent, all intentionless, and all guilty at the same time." More >
|
|
|
|
 14 Nov 2004 @ 20:31, by scotty. Spirituality
(painting by S. Dali - I think !)
Life is a paradox. It exists through the paradox; that's its very way of existence. the moving wheel moves on and unmoving axle, and at the very center of a cyclone there is silence. At the very core of life there is death. This is how things are, existence is through contradiction.
Existence continuously contradicts itself, and out of contradiction is born the energy to live. Out of the tension between the contradictions is this whole play, the game. This is the dialectics -- the thesis and the antithesis. And the constant conflict between the thesis and the antithesis creates energy, generates energy. Out of the friction the energy is created.
You can look around, and everywhere you will find contradiction functioning -- between man and woman, between day and night, between summer and winter, between success and failure, between birth and decay. Continuously, everywhere, the game is based on the very foundation of paradox. If you don't understand this, you will live a life of misery. If you don't understand this, if it doesn't get deep into your heart and become a luminous understanding to you, you will live a life of anguish. Because you will never be able to accept this contradiction -- you will never be able to see that this contradiction is not really a contradiction; the opposites function as complementaries.
Once seen in that light, life becomes enlightened. Then you are full of awareness. Then you know that there is nothing wrong in death -- not only that, you know that without death life will not be possible at all.
So life owes its all to death. Then death is not against life; it is not the enemy, it is the friend. Seeing this, the fear of death disappears. Seeing this, anguish disappears, anxiety disappears. Seeing this, a great rejoicing arises in your being. Not seeing this, there is conflict. Misunderstanding is what your misery is. Understanding is bliss, misunderstanding is the cause of misery.
Now try to penetrate into your innermost core and see how things are there, and what you are doing with them. If man looks withinwards he finds there, at the very core, just pure nothingness. That's why people don't look withinwards.
Socrates goes on saying, 'Know thyself.' The Upanishads go on shouting, 'Go within! Withinwards is the journey.' Buddhas go on persuading you to go in, and you continuously go out. You don't bother what Buddhas say. Even if you listen, you listen only with half your ear -- you listen one moment, you forget next moment. Because deep down you know that to look withinwards is to look into nothingness. There is nothing. And that is scary, that frightens.
At the very core there is nothingness. The wheel of all moves on that axle of nothingness. So, afraid of the inner nothingness, we go on rushing into the world. The fear of one's own non-being takes you on a thousand and one journeys. That's what Zen people call 'the world of a thousand and one things'. You go on rushing into this direction, into that. You have to rush, because if you don't rush you will stumble upon your nothingness... and there is fear. You are frightened of that -- you don't want to see that you are not.
Your being is non-being: you are not ready to look into it, to accept it. You are death living. Death is there, and at the very core of your being there is just emptiness -- what Buddha calls anatta. There is no self, there is no being, there is no '1'. And somehow everybody knows it -- hence nobody goes inwards, everybody goes outwards. Outwards you can befool yourself, you can deceive yourself. You can create a thousand and one games, you can play with those games -- they are not going to help, but still you can pass your time with those games. You can become so engrossed in them that for those engrossed moments you can forget your inner nothingness.
But this inner nothingness is not like an accident. It is not accidental, it is your very being. So you cannot escape from it, do whatsoever you want to do. Nobody has been able to escape from it. You can go on postponing, you can go on delaying that experience, but one day or other, that experience has to be gone through.
And that day is the day of great blessing, when you come to know your inner non-being. Because with that experience all fear disappears. When you know you are not, how can you be afraid -- of what? for what? And WHO can be afraid? When you know you are not, where can desire exist? with whom? for whom? from whom? Tanha disappears, becoming disappears.
When you are not, how can you become somebody? Knowing one's non-being, there is great rest. The seeker has disappeared, the desirer is no more, the becomer has not been found. So the foundation has disappeared -- and the whole palace made of playing-cards simply shatters to the ground.
Unless you come to know this inner non-being -- anatta, non-existence, or death.... Zen people call it 'the great death'. It is no ordinary death. Ordinary death does not make much difference -- here you die, there you are born immediately. You leave one body -- you have not even left it, and already you are entering into another womb. It does not make much difference.
The real death is when you come face to face with your inner non-being, the abyss. One gets frightened, one wants to go away from it. One wants to keep it at the back, one wants to fill it. That's what people go on doing.
SANSARA, the world, is nothing but an effort to fill this inner vacuum. Fill it with money, fill it with women, fill it with men, fill it with power, fill it with anything -- big houses, fill it with fame -- but fill it. Go on throwing things into it -- so one day you can feel you are not just nothing, you ARE somebody, you ARE something. But it never happens, it CANNOT happen. Because the abyss is bottomless -- you can go on throwing things into it, they go on disappearing.
There is a very famous Sufi story...... More >
|
|
|
|
 13 Nov 2004 @ 07:13, by ashanti. Spirituality
I found a fascinating article concerning the nature of "good" and "evil" and the forces shaping our world today. It is called: The Advent of Ahriman - An Essay on the Deep Forces behind the World-Crisis. To give a summary of the theme of the article as a context:"ABSTRACT: A powerful spiritual being, called "Ahriman" (or "Satan"), will incarnate in a human body. The terms "soul" and "spirit" have clear meanings. Earthly/cosmic evolution is an outcome of the deeds of the Gods. The central event of earth-evolution was the Incarnation of Christ. Spiritual powers of opposition are active: Lucifer, Ahriman, Sorat. Ahriman is the inspirer of materialistic science and commercialism, and permeates modern culture with deadening forces. Ordinary scientific thinking is only semi-conscious; we can, however, make thinking conscious. The spirits of opposition are necessary in the Gods' evolutionary design. Ahriman manifests especially at 666-year intervals; the contemporary is 1998 AD = 3x666. Goethean science is a life-positive alternative to Ahrimanic science. Ahriman-in-the-flesh will likely present himself as the Christ. The Christ does not reappear in a physical body, but in a super-physical, ethereal form. Ahriman may incarnate "macrocosmically" in our computers. Mankind will acquire new faculties of thinking-consciousness and clairvoyance. Ahriman seeks to pervert these faculties, and to divert mankind and the earth from their destined paths in the Gods' evolutionary plan. Ahrimanic secret societies influence politics, finance, and culture. A false "Maitreya" is "emerging" as a false Christ. An epistemology of conscious thinking supports the expansion of consciousness to the perception of spiritual truths."
Once within the article, in particular, I found this passage intriguing:"The Occult Meaning of the Computer
A very interesting theory (by David B. Black) interprets the progressive mechanization of culture not only as an Ahrimanic influence, but as the actual "macrocosmic incarnation" of Ahriman: This is being brought to completion through the development of the electronic computer. Black traces the milestones in the evolution of the computer as reflections of the spiritual events in the heavens. For example, in the 1840's, around the time of Jehovah's abandonment of human blood-bound thinking to Ahriman, Boolean algebra was developed. The year 1879 -- the time of Michael's accession as Time Spirit and the final expulsion of the "dragon" onto earth -- saw the publication of Frege's Begriffschrift, a great milestone in the development of "formal logic": the separation of logic from the spiritual "Word". Also in 1879: Edison invented the electric light (light is separated from the sun and plunged into the "sub-earthly": "Electricity is Ahrimanic `light'."); Trotsky and Stalin were born; Merganthaler invented the Linotype machine; Bessemer introduced the hard-steel process; and the US Census Bureau hired Herman Hollerith, who developed the first large-scale punched-card tabulating machine. -- The Christ's "coming in the clouds" in the early 1930's was reflected on earth by the publication of Gödel's "incompleteness theorem", which demonstrated that a truly-thinking machine is impossible, but which also led to the development of "recursion theory", which is the essential conceptual framework for "artificial intelligence" and "artificial life". Also in 1930, by a fortuitous comedy of errors, the planet Pluto was discovered. Pluto, of course, is the god of the underworld, and the discovery of "his" planet was a synchronistic harbinger of the unleashing of the sub-material "powers of the pit" upon earth: later transits of Saturn and Uranus to Pluto's discovery position marked the bombing of Hiroshima and the explosion of the first "H-bomb". -- As is well-known, the development of the electronic computer proceeded exponentially, from von Neumann's development of the "stored program" to the desktop and the laptop. A lesser-known development was the "Josephson effect", which allows the construction of semi-conductors from superconducting materials. Thus, electrical circuits can operate without "Luciferic" heat, and Ahriman, whose nature is "freezing cold", can completely enter into electrical devices. As superconducting computers become more common, Ahrimanic beings higher than "elementals" might actually incarnate in them, since no physical energy is consumed in a superconducting circuit. (Ahrimanic "elemental spirits" inhabit our artificial machines, just as normal "elementals" [or "nature spirits": gnomes, undines, sylphs, salamanders] work in and throughout the living processes of Nature.) Black sums up: "Sunless light and Wordless logic intertwined, and out of them came the computer." Thus, while Ahriman incarnates "microcosmically" in a human body, we might also face the "macrocosmic" literal incarnation of Ahriman in our machines. Wow. Food for thought there. I have often pondered the effect on our consciousness of going into cyberspace. In some cases, interaction with interesting, innovative, intelligent people is so fantastic. In other cases, cyberspace just seems to suck out our souls. We pour so much of ourselves into it, and it goes nowhere - has a deadening effect. Or there are the flame-war fests - maybe great for getting out inner angst, but not really going anywhere either. Some incredible connections take place through cyberspace - but in many cases, I have watched these connections, over time, become perverted and collapse. Not in all cases, but definitely in some. I have often wondered as to the cause of those collapses. I know perversion/collapse occurs out there in off-line human social interaction as well, so this is not to propose that the phenomenon only occurs in cyberspace - but it somehow seems to be exacerbated. This essay certainly gives an interesting take on it all.
All very intriguing. Shared here for the benefit of those interested in deeper meaning, esoteric Cause, and so on.
More >
|
|
|
|
 10 Nov 2004 @ 03:22, by i2i. Spirituality
Photo: Laura Bush (Republican Convention, 2004). "Even as her husband courted social conservatives, Laura Bush lulled moderate voters into believing that the White House is not really in the clutches of the extreme right. The First Lady, as well as the women appointed to the inner circle of the President's Cabinet and sub-Cabinet, provide an alternative facade. They are cast as harmless, moderate, irrelevant or benign, and their well-spun image taps into familiar stereotypes."
Right wing political ideologies, including some of the most extreme or unfamous ones, like Mussolini's Italy or Franco’s Spain, have all always been keen on including "family values," (the gentle face of fascism) in their political programs. More >
|
|
|
|
 7 Nov 2004 @ 11:45, by jazzolog. Spirituality
The painting by Andrea Del Sarto is of Christ realizing He is Risen.
I heard the unblown flute
In the deep autumn shadows
Of the Temple of Suma.
---Basho
Heard melodies are sweet,
but those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore,
ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but,
more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
---John Keats
W.'s presidency rushes backward, stifling possibilities, stirring intolerance, confusing church with state, blowing off the world, replacing science with religion, and facts with faith. We're entering another dark age, more creationist than cutting edge, more premodern than postmodern. Instead of leading America to an exciting new reality, the Bushies cocoon in a scary, paranoid, regressive reality. Their new health care plan will probably be a return to leeches.
---Maureen Dowd, November 7, 2004
Garrison Keillor went even further on his Prairie Home Companion show last night. He proposes, of course in irony, a Constitutional amendment that bans born-again Christians from voting. He bases his proposal on the fact Evangelicals obviously are not citizens of the United States, but rather of Heaven. They no longer believe in our basic American values. Their health care plan is an opportunity for a closer walk with God. More >
|
|
<< Newer entries Page: 1 ... 24 25 26 27 28 ... 39 Older entries >> |
|
