All images are from here.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Manifesto of Encouragment
There are Tibetan Buddhist monks in a temple in the Himalayas endlessly reciting mantras for the cessation of your suffering and for the flourishing of your happiness.
Someone you haven't met yet is already dreaming of adoring you.
Someone is writing a book that you will read in the next two years that will change how you look at life.
Someone wants to kiss you, to hold you, to make tea for you. Someone is willing to lend you money, wants to know what your favourite food is, and treat you to a movie. Someone in your orbit has something immensely valuable to give you -- for free.
Something is being invented this year that will change how your generation lives, communicates, heals and passes on.
The next great song is being rehearsed.
Thousands of people are in yoga classes right now intentionally sending light out from their heart chakras and wrapping it around the earth.
Millions of children are assuming that everything is amazing and will always be that way.
Someone is in profound pain, and a few months from now, they'll be thriving like never before. They just can't see it from where they're at.
Someone who is craving to be partnered, to be acknowledged, to ARRIVE, will get precisely what they want -- and even more. And because that gift will be so fantastical in it's reach and sweetness, it will quite magically alter their memory of angsty longing and render it all "So worth the wait."
Someone has recently cracked open their joyous, genuine nature because they did the hard work of hauling years of oppression off of their psyche -- this luminous juju is floating in the ether, and is accessible to you.
Someone just this second wished for world peace, in earnest.
Someone is fighting the fight so that you don't have to.
Some civil servant is making sure that you get your mail, and your garbage is picked up, that the trains are running on time, and that you are generally safe. Someone is dedicating their days to protecting your civil liberties and clean drinking water.
Someone is regaining their sanity. Someone is coming back from the dead. Someone is genuinely forgiving the seemingly unforgivable.Someone is curing the incurable.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Do you dream about storms??
It seems a crossroads has been hit. I have seen the tremble in your words.
Storm clouds have gathered, I cannot find my foul weather gear and my power just went out. Last night, I dreamt of storm clouds. Clouds of towering, bellowing shades of gray that escalate into oblivion and can overtake the soul. Ominous clouds of vision that darken all in which we see and in my dream I was longing for...
A violent clap of submission and with it comes the rain. Droplets of moisture falling; invoking cathartic cleansing, they are together deep within a dream.
The storm wept tears of misunderstanding; of the evilness it did not hold. I woke up soaking in tears.
Leilah Broukhim
Leilah was born in New York of Iranian parents, although she has been based in Spain for the last seven years.
Believe
To see the world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
-William Blake
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt~
"Imagination is everything"
"The great [teachers/healers] do not set up offices, charge fees, give lectures, or write books. Wisdom is silent, and the most effective propaganda for truth is the force of personal example. The great ones attract disciples, lesser figures whose mission is to preach and to teach. These are gospelers who, unequal to the highest task, spend their lives in converting others. The great ones are indifferent, in the profoundest sense. They don't ask you to believe: they electrify you by their behavior. They are awakeners. What you do with your life is only of concern to you, they seem to say. In short, their only purpose here on earth is to inspire. And what more can one ask of a human being than that?
... The way of life is towards fulfillment, however, wherever it may lead. To restore a human being to the current of life means not only to impart self-confidence but also an abiding faith in the process of life.
A man who has confidence in himself must have confidence in others, confidence in the fitness and rightness of the universe. When a man is this anchored he ceases to worry about the fitness of things, about the behavior of his fellow men, about right and wrong and justice and injustice. If his roots are in the current of life he will float on the surface like a lotus and he will bloom and give forth fruit. He will draw nourishment from above and below; he will send his roots down deeper and deeper, fearing neither the depths nor the heights. The life that is in him will manifest itself in growth, and growth is an endless, eternal process. He will not be afraid of withering, because decay and death are part of growth. As a seed he began and as a seed he will return. Beginnings and endings are only partial steps in the eternal process. The process is everything... the way... the Tao.
The way of life! A grand expression. Like saying Truth. There is nothing beyond it... it is all.
... Where does security lie? What protection can you invent that has not already been thought of? It is hopeless to think of security: there is none. The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.
In the insect world is where we see the defense system par excellence. In the gregarious life of the animal world we see another kind of defense system. By comparison the human being seems a helpless creature. In the sense that he lives a more exposed life. But this ability to expose himself to every risk is precisely his strength. A god would have no recognizable defense whatever. He would be one with life, moving in all dimensions freely.
Fear, hydra-headed fear, which is rampant in all of us, is a hang-over from lower forms of life.
We are straddling two worlds, the one from which we have emerged and the one towards which we are heading. That is the deepest meaning of the word "human," that we are a link, a bridge, a promise.
It is in us that the life process is being carried to fulfillment. We have tremendous responsibility, and it is the gravity of that which awakens our fears.
We know that if we do not move forward, if we do not realize our potential being, we shall relapse, sputter out, and drag the world down with us. We carry Heaven and Hell within us; we are the cosmogonic builders. We have choice -- and all creation is our range.
For some it is a terrifying prospect. It would be better, think they, if Heaven were above and Hell below -- anywhere outside, but not within. But that comfort has been knocked from under us. There are no places to go to, either for reward or punishment. The place is always here and now, in your person and according to your fancy.
The world is exctly what you picture it to be, always, every instant. It is impossible to shift the scenery about and pretend that you will enjoy another, a different act. The setting is permanent, changing with the mind and heart, not according to the dictates of an invisible stage director. You are the author, director and actor all in one: the drama is always going to be your own life, not someone else's. A beautiful, terrible, ineluctable drama, like a suit made of your own skin. Would you want it otherwise? Could you invent a better drama?
Lie down then, on the soft couch which the analyst provides, and try to think of something different. The analyst has endless time and patience; every minute you detain him means money in his pocket. He is like God, in a sense -- the God of your creation. Whether you whine, howl, beg, weep, implore, cajole, pray or curse -- he listens. He is just a big ear minus a sympathetic nervous system. He is impervious to everything but truth. If you think it pays to fool him, then fool him. Who will be the loser? If you think he can help you, and not yourself, then stick to him until you rot.
He has nothing to lose. But if you realize that he is not god but a human being like yourself, with worries, defects, ambitions, frailties, that he is not the repository of an all-encompassing wisdom, but a wanderer, like yourself, along the path, perhaps you will cease pouring out like a sewer, however melodious it may sound to your ears, and rise up on your own two legs and sing with your own God-given voice.
To confess, to whine, to complain, to commiserate, always demands a toll. To sing it doesn't cost you a penny. Not only does it cost nothing -- you actually enrich others.
Sing the praises of the Lord! Sing out, glad warrior! But, you quibble, how can I sing when the world is crumbling, when all about me is bathed in blood and tears? Do you realize that the martyrs bathed in a blood and tears?
Do you realize that the martyrs sang when they were being burned at the stake? They saw nothing crumbling, they heard no shrieks of pain. They sang because they were full of faith. Who can demolish faith? Who can wipe out joy? Men have tried, in every age.
But they have not succeeded. Joy and faith are inherent in the universe. In growth there is pain and struggle; in accomplishment there is joy and exuberance; in fulfillment there is peace and serenity.
Between the planes and spheres of existence, terrestrial and superterrestrial, there are ladders and lattices. The one who mounts sings. He is made drunk and exalted by unfolding vistas.
He ascends sure-footedly, thinking not of what lies below, should he slip and lose his grasp, but of what lies ahead. Everything lies ahead. The way is endless, and the farther he reaches, the more the road opens up.
The bogs and quagmires, the marshes and sinkholes, the pits and snares, are all in the mind.
They lurk in waiting, ready to swallow one up the moment one ceases to advance. The phantasmal world is the world of the past, never of the future.
To move forward clinging to the past is like dragging the ball and chain. The prisoner is not the one who has committed a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over.
We are all guilty of crime, the great crime of not living life to the full. But we are all potentially free. We can stop thinking of what we have failed to do and whatever lies within our power.
What these powers that are in us may be no one has truly dared to imagine. That they are infinite we will realize the day we admit to ourselves that imagination is everything.
Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything God-like about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything."--
Excerpts from Sexus by *Henry Miller
*Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also fictional.[1] His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn and Black Spring. He also wrote travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis
 |
| Henry Miller |
... The way of life is towards fulfillment, however, wherever it may lead. To restore a human being to the current of life means not only to impart self-confidence but also an abiding faith in the process of life.
A man who has confidence in himself must have confidence in others, confidence in the fitness and rightness of the universe. When a man is this anchored he ceases to worry about the fitness of things, about the behavior of his fellow men, about right and wrong and justice and injustice. If his roots are in the current of life he will float on the surface like a lotus and he will bloom and give forth fruit. He will draw nourishment from above and below; he will send his roots down deeper and deeper, fearing neither the depths nor the heights. The life that is in him will manifest itself in growth, and growth is an endless, eternal process. He will not be afraid of withering, because decay and death are part of growth. As a seed he began and as a seed he will return. Beginnings and endings are only partial steps in the eternal process. The process is everything... the way... the Tao.
The way of life! A grand expression. Like saying Truth. There is nothing beyond it... it is all.
... Where does security lie? What protection can you invent that has not already been thought of? It is hopeless to think of security: there is none. The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.
In the insect world is where we see the defense system par excellence. In the gregarious life of the animal world we see another kind of defense system. By comparison the human being seems a helpless creature. In the sense that he lives a more exposed life. But this ability to expose himself to every risk is precisely his strength. A god would have no recognizable defense whatever. He would be one with life, moving in all dimensions freely.
Fear, hydra-headed fear, which is rampant in all of us, is a hang-over from lower forms of life.
We are straddling two worlds, the one from which we have emerged and the one towards which we are heading. That is the deepest meaning of the word "human," that we are a link, a bridge, a promise.
It is in us that the life process is being carried to fulfillment. We have tremendous responsibility, and it is the gravity of that which awakens our fears.
We know that if we do not move forward, if we do not realize our potential being, we shall relapse, sputter out, and drag the world down with us. We carry Heaven and Hell within us; we are the cosmogonic builders. We have choice -- and all creation is our range.
For some it is a terrifying prospect. It would be better, think they, if Heaven were above and Hell below -- anywhere outside, but not within. But that comfort has been knocked from under us. There are no places to go to, either for reward or punishment. The place is always here and now, in your person and according to your fancy.
The world is exctly what you picture it to be, always, every instant. It is impossible to shift the scenery about and pretend that you will enjoy another, a different act. The setting is permanent, changing with the mind and heart, not according to the dictates of an invisible stage director. You are the author, director and actor all in one: the drama is always going to be your own life, not someone else's. A beautiful, terrible, ineluctable drama, like a suit made of your own skin. Would you want it otherwise? Could you invent a better drama?
 |
| source |
Lie down then, on the soft couch which the analyst provides, and try to think of something different. The analyst has endless time and patience; every minute you detain him means money in his pocket. He is like God, in a sense -- the God of your creation. Whether you whine, howl, beg, weep, implore, cajole, pray or curse -- he listens. He is just a big ear minus a sympathetic nervous system. He is impervious to everything but truth. If you think it pays to fool him, then fool him. Who will be the loser? If you think he can help you, and not yourself, then stick to him until you rot.
He has nothing to lose. But if you realize that he is not god but a human being like yourself, with worries, defects, ambitions, frailties, that he is not the repository of an all-encompassing wisdom, but a wanderer, like yourself, along the path, perhaps you will cease pouring out like a sewer, however melodious it may sound to your ears, and rise up on your own two legs and sing with your own God-given voice.
To confess, to whine, to complain, to commiserate, always demands a toll. To sing it doesn't cost you a penny. Not only does it cost nothing -- you actually enrich others.
Sing the praises of the Lord! Sing out, glad warrior! But, you quibble, how can I sing when the world is crumbling, when all about me is bathed in blood and tears? Do you realize that the martyrs bathed in a blood and tears?
Do you realize that the martyrs sang when they were being burned at the stake? They saw nothing crumbling, they heard no shrieks of pain. They sang because they were full of faith. Who can demolish faith? Who can wipe out joy? Men have tried, in every age.
But they have not succeeded. Joy and faith are inherent in the universe. In growth there is pain and struggle; in accomplishment there is joy and exuberance; in fulfillment there is peace and serenity.
Between the planes and spheres of existence, terrestrial and superterrestrial, there are ladders and lattices. The one who mounts sings. He is made drunk and exalted by unfolding vistas.
He ascends sure-footedly, thinking not of what lies below, should he slip and lose his grasp, but of what lies ahead. Everything lies ahead. The way is endless, and the farther he reaches, the more the road opens up.
The bogs and quagmires, the marshes and sinkholes, the pits and snares, are all in the mind.
They lurk in waiting, ready to swallow one up the moment one ceases to advance. The phantasmal world is the world of the past, never of the future.
To move forward clinging to the past is like dragging the ball and chain. The prisoner is not the one who has committed a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over.
We are all guilty of crime, the great crime of not living life to the full. But we are all potentially free. We can stop thinking of what we have failed to do and whatever lies within our power.
What these powers that are in us may be no one has truly dared to imagine. That they are infinite we will realize the day we admit to ourselves that imagination is everything.
Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything God-like about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything."--
Excerpts from Sexus by *Henry Miller
*Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also fictional.[1] His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn and Black Spring. He also wrote travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Love of Freedom
But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)