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 1 May 2008 @ 15:34, by joanaroma. Relationships
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1 May 2008 @ 09:54, by isid. Spirituality
Réflexions autour des expériences extatiques.
Normalement nos travaux en et de méditation nous conduisent à ces expériences.
Mais il faut être conscient que nous ne pouvons pas échanger avec nos contemporains sur ce sujet.
Il faut être conscient que ce que nous appelons « expérience extatique » sont des expériences d’un état de conscience différent... More >
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 30 Apr 2008 @ 09:54, by jazzolog. Music
Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.
---Alfred, Lord Tennyson
What is beyond, is that which is also here.
---Ancient Indian aphorism
The Emperor's chief carpenter, Ch'ing, once made a music stand so perfect that all who saw it marveled. When Lu asked him to reveal the mystery of his art, Ch'ing demurred, saying: "No mystery, your Highness, though there is something. When I am about to make such a stand, I first reduce my mind to absolute quiet. Three days in this condition and I am oblivious to any reward to be gained. Five days, and I am oblivious to any fame to be acquired. Seven days, and I become unconscious of my four limbs and body. Then, with no thought of the Court in mind, all my skill concentrated and all disturbing elements gone, I go into the forest to search for a suitable tree. It contains the stand in my mind's eye, and then I set to work."
---Chuang-Tzu
If you've ever been in a choir, particularly the church variety, you may appreciate Dave Walker's cartoon, from the UK's Church Times. [link]
On Saturday, in San Rafael, California, there will be a national competition you may not be aware of. It's the 24th Annual Harmony Sweepstakes A Cappella Festival. Actually this is the final contest, as there already have been 8 elimination contests held in cities all over the country. Now the winning groups there are being flown to Marin Veterans' Auditorium for this big deal over the weekend. It's interesting there are hundreds of these groups involved, and probably not too many are of the barbershop variety anymore. As you can see from these photos and group descriptions, the music is all over the place [link] , but you can be sure of one thing: most of these participants have heard of Phil Mattson and The Foothill Fanfairs.
A couple years ago I stumbled into the best argument I know for writing personal stuff on the Internet. I merely related the coincidental sighting of a name of a musician on a CD set a friend generously gave me, with an LP I had bought years earlier. The name Michele Weir connected me to somebody name Phil Mattson, then I began to find out things about him, and finally I thought somebody somewhere might be interested in this so I wrote about it. [link] What followed here, elsewhere I post, and in emails has been a continuous flow of messages from people who studied and performed with this great teacher. Most recently I heard from someone named Roy Turpin, who happens to be a therapist now out in California (isn't everybody?) and he has provided me a rare opportunity.
A month ago Gene Puerling died. His passing went largely unnoticed in the media, but those of us who love acapella singing know he formed The Hi-Lo's in the early 1950s, and then Singers Unlimited a decade later, and we mourned appropriately. Phil Mattson appreciated the Puerling genius, which was a style and technique completely original, and had the brilliance himself to begin teaching it to young people. Well, I suppose some folks must have thought he was crazy to attempt it...because certainly those of us who also loved Puerling thought such singing clearly was impossible---even where there it was on records. It really was impossible, because Gene began to experiment with multi-tracking and eventually had 4 singers sound like 8, then 12, or a whole choir. Phil's challenge may have been tougher, because he used real people...and they were kids. More >
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30 Apr 2008 @ 07:44, by democritus. Economics, Financing, Banking
The idea is audacious, laughable, even blasphemous in today’s globalized, branded and capitalized culture; in a strange sense, however, we are in a moneyless society today. More >
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28 Apr 2008 @ 10:33, by vector8. Spirituality
"Mother," I asked, "why don't you teach others the method of living without food?"
My ambitious hopes for the world's starving millions were nipped in the bud.
"No." She shook her head. "I was strictly commanded by my guru not to divulge the secret. It is not his wish to tamper with God's drama of creation. The farmers would not thank me if I taught many people to live without eating! The luscious fruits would lie uselessly on the ground. It appears that misery, starvation, and disease are whips of our karma which ultimately drive us to seek the true meaning of life."
"Mother," I said slowly, "what is the use of your having been singled out to live without eating?"
"To prove that man is Spirit." Her face lit with wisdom. "To demonstrate that by divine advancement he can gradually learn to live by the Eternal Light and not by food." --- Autobiography of a Yogi
*******************************************
So my mother noticed that one of her many clocks had stopped working. Presumably, the battery had run out. She said she was going to check if she had any spares. The next morning I noticed she hadn't changed the batteries so I figured, why not charge the batteries?
I channelled energy to the batteries and the clock started ticking away. I then corrected the clock. When I showed mum her clock was working she asked me what I'd done.
"I charged the batteries," I said.
Mum gave me that "my daughter is mad" stare that' I've become accustomed to. At least the clock is now working. More >
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27 Apr 2008 @ 09:42, by erlefrayne. Natural Health & Healing
[Writ 14 April 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
Fellows, I will write this time about the topic of ‘enhancing divinity’ and some practical tools that can aid in inducing such a state. The practical tools I have in mind are those that you already have right in your hands: candles, incense, and fine music. I’m sure everybody out there who understands the English language knows what candles, incense and music are, so I need not belabor so much point to demonstrate what they are (smile).
By ‘enhancing divinity’ I refer to preparing your immediate environment, whether this be a temple or home meditation spot, for prayers, meditations, and rituals. The environment must be preferably one where the ‘energy of rest’ (feminine energy) is strong. Some Catholic priests here in Manila have been complaining that holding masses in shopping malls, a regular event now present in practically all large malls here, is a bad practice, to which I concurred in the positive. Shopping malls are predominantly of the ‘energy of motion’ and aren’t appropriate places for meditative, prayer and ritual purposes.
Having established the parameter above, prepare next the enhancers that you may need for your purpose. In some practices, you may need holy water or ‘hyper-energized water’ as we mystics call it. For this particular piece, I will delimit my clarification on the functions of candles, incense and fine music among such tools for enhancement. Ritual tools are particularly so many, so I’d leave that as a standard tool kit for the end user based on his/her spiritual philosophy and group concerned. More >
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 26 Apr 2008 @ 06:42, by koravya. Ideas, Creativity
You don’t make peace by making War.
There is the war with guns and there is the war with money,
The weapon. More >
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25 Apr 2008 @ 11:32, by anandavala. Systems Thinking
Here's a posting to let you know what
I'm up to lately. Like I said in the post on What
exactly is SMN and how does it connect with other technologies?
I've been focussing on concrete implementations lately, rather than
on discussions. One project was an artistic collaboration with
Glistening Deepwater, called Mystic
Visions. I've explored quite deeply into semantic and web 2.0
technologies. I've implemented the core algorithm for SMN in Java and
the system simulation engine now has full functionality and the
models can be imported or exported as XML files (this is still in
further development but will be available for download soon).
But the current project on my mind is
the idea of a System Oriented Modelling Paradigm. To give you
some idea of what I mean, below are some excerpts from recent design
documents – they are just a brainstorm at present. If these ideas
make sense to you and you want to get involved then contact
me – it will soon be released as an open source project.
The
project involves an analysis of general computational processes and
general systems, which re-orients system modelling practices upon a
coherent metaphysical foundation rather than on a
commonsense naïve realist foundation. Traditional modelling
practices are seen in a new light and minor optimisations are
proposed that can considerably extend the potential and overall
functionality of designed systems. A detailed example is given in the
context of software engineering.
More >
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23 Apr 2008 @ 09:25, by johnjoseph. Systems Thinking
Pascal’s Triangle, Self-Similarity and Phi
In maths the simple operation of adding two consecutive elements in a sequence and then iterating, which process is well-known to us in the Fibonacci sequence, leads to many of the more remarkable properties we come across in nature and mathematics. The Fibonacci sequence, as I pointed out in my last article, is based on self-similarity and exhibits the mystical number and proportion called the “Sacred Ratio”, approximately 1.618… which is an irrational number.
Now something very similar occurs in that very famous table of numbers, known to the ancient Chinese, but known to us as Pascal’s Triangle. This is a symmetrical table, with ones at the apex and at each edge, with the intervening numbers created by adding together the two numbers directly above and to either side. Pascal’s triangle has a multitude, maybe indeed an infinite number of remarkable properties. Every interesting thing in mathematics more or less, can be found in different ways in this pyramid. Fibonacci itself, can be found in sequence if you add the short diagonals. This of course yields Phi, the Golden Proportion. However, this is a bit misleading, because Phi is conspicuously absent from the other patterns you will find in this triangle. This is because if you divide any two of the numbers in the table they will be a rational fraction, not irrational. Adding different numbers together, as in the Fibonacci example, is the only way to get a sequence which gives Phi. The whole structure is based on the iterative technique mentioned above, and I suspect that this technique is a cornerstone of self-similarity, though I can’t demonstrate it as convincingly here as I did in my previous article on Fibonacci.
I believe, since Nature produces Phi all over the place, and Fibonacci sequences in the number of petals of flowers and the spirals of shells, that at an early stage in the evolution of life, in plant RNA and animal DNA, the simple iterative technique I refer to, was encoded and passed down to following generations. Thus we find Phi everywhere in Nature. Why it leads to very remarkable properties in mathematics is another issue and one I will address in a later article.
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23 Apr 2008 @ 05:48, by deepwater. Spirituality
It seems to be that there are many and various ways of approaching an understanding of the same thing. Within each of these ways there is a common language that helps the thinkers along that line to communicate effectively with each other and thereby evolve their understanding.
What if all these approaches were to come to some meta-level of understanding through a consensual clarification of the meaning of terms? Could we then begin to evolve an understanding that gives a holistic overview of that which we are all currently looking at from different angles?
This is the vision that I hold for humanity, a coherent, unified framework of understanding within which we can develop a clear overview and have rational dialogue, that transcends the current obstacles that arise due to lack of clarity and consensus on the meanings of terms.
I sincerely hope that other thinkers are willing to embrace this vision and that we can embark upon an amazing journey of conscious evolution. More >
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