4/30/2009

Discovering the Universe


"Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it's important is that, fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn't just ourselves that we're discovering. We're discovering the universe."
- Pema Chodron

4/29/2009

The God that Forgives Is Inside Us


"That night, as I lay in the hospital bed, my mind afloat on a chemical sea, drifting between the shores of my world and the transcendent, I realized that the drugs gave me the power to hear the divine in the way my ancestors had. It was the crack pipe that enabled me to see the reason for the curse, that I was part of the cause of it. . . . I would need to find a God that would forgive me. The search would take years, but I finally found one in Chicago in an alley behind a tacqueria. The god I found was Hanuman, and thus began my redemption between the myths we call memories and then proclaim as fact, and the truths that fade into whispered voices inside our collective dreams."
Cheeni Rao (In Hanuman's Hands)

4/28/2009

Regarding tools


One of my spiritual influences was J. Krishnamurti, who rejected any opportunities to become a guru, and refused even to be called one. Somebody asked him once why there was evil in the world, and he answered "To thicken the plot."
Paul Krassner

4/27/2009

Sins of the fathers


The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote that "the greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parents," by which he meant that where and how our caretakers were stuck in their development becomes an internal paradigm for us also to be stuck. Frequently we find ourselves dealing with a parent's unresolved issues. At times we may replicate the patterns of our ancestors, we may rebel and attempt to do the opposite. Interestingly, antagonism to the influences of parents binds us just as tightly as compliance. Either way, antecedents limit and confine us. Perhaps this fact is behind the ancient biblical admonition that the sins of a man shall be visited "upon the children's children, unto the third and fourth generation."
Robert Johnson (Living Your Unlived Life)

4/22/2009

Mayan Calendar


"The date specified in the calendar Winter Solstice in the year 2012 does not mark the end of the world. Many outside people writing about the Mayan calendar sensationalize this date, but they do not know. The ones who know are the indigenous elders who are entrusted with keeping the tradition. "Humanity will continue, but in a different way. Material structures will change. From this we will have the opportunity to be more human."
Carlos Barrios

Destinations


Whatever our age, our upbringing, or our education, what we are made of is mostly unused potential. It is our evolutionary destiny to use what is unused, to learn and keep on learning for as long as we live. To choose this destiny, to walk the path of mastery, isn't always easy, but it is the ultimate human adventure. Destinations will appear in the distance, will be achieved and left behind, and still the path will continue. It will never end."
--George Leonard, "Mastery: The Keys to Long-Term Success and Fulfillment"

4/17/2009

Spiritual Capital


Spiritual capital is the wealth or power an individual or organization has, based on their deepest meanings, values, and purposes, and is reflected in beliefs, aspirations,and responsibility. We build spiritual capital by asking spiritually intelligent questions, such as what does it mean to be a human being? If we individually and collectively take responsibility for our common aspirations, then our communities will exist with organic synthesis and symmetry. If we don't know why we exist or we exist just to make a profit, it means we are caught up in our immediate goals, our short-term thinking, our indiviidual wants. Spiritual capital, if it's low, can tear a collaboration to pieces. Spiritual capital, if it's high, is the glue that holds it together.

4/15/2009

Tiwanaku - Portal of the Sun


The Truth that can be told is not the eternal Truth. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, we realize the mystery. Caught in desire, we see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same Source. We describe this source as Amazing Grace. Grace within Grace. Amazing Grace is the gateway to all understanding.

4/13/2009

Thinking software


The aim of software is, in a sense, to create an alternative reality. After all, when you use your cell phone, you simply want to push the fewest buttons possible and call, text, purchase, listen, download, e-mail, or browse. The power we all hold in our hands is shocking, yet it’s controlled by a few swipes of a finger. The drive to simplify the user’s contact with the machine has an inherent side effect of disguising the complexity of a given task. Over time, the users of any software are inured to the intricate nature of what they are doing. Also, as the software does more of the “thinking,” the user does less.
Michael Osinski

4/12/2009

Complements


Opposites exist in the mindset of the dualistic thinkers, but in reality there are no opposites. For instance, aversion is the flip side of greed. To everything, there is a season ... that's why we should ask when, not what; and where, not why; and who, not how.
Old Man, from the book "Who not How to Pray for Money"

4/10/2009

We create ...


In a world of ultimate mystery, we create boredom. In a Universe of overwhelming abundance, we create lack. In a long life of safety, despite thousands of demonstrations of peace, we still create disquiet. In a life with but one guarantee, death, we create being afraid of it. And, finally, with a consciousness that is able to so powerfully create these things, it is also a Truth that we can as well create their opposites, at any time, in any place, for no reason, other than we can.
TB Wright

MONEY - THE MIDAS COMPLEX


Money is a subject often more taboo than sex, religion, or political affiliation. Money ... reveals many psychological parallels metaphorically to inflation, depression, mania, value, allure, obligation, worth, deficit, loss, gain, promise, transference, confidence, failure, and trust. Money plays a complex roles in identity. self-regard, interpersonal relationships, psycho-pathology, and the injuries of class at all points on the economic spectrum. Beyond quantitative concepts, (how we) imagine money underpins our contemporary economy psychologically, spiritually, symbolically, and archetypically.
Aaron Kipnis, author, The Midas Complex

4/09/2009

Titles?


It is not titles that honor men, but men who honor titles.
Machiavelli

4/08/2009

Brotherhood


Technology, engineering, arts and entertainment have made the world into a neighborhood, but it will take moral courage, compassion, love, and the art of forgiveness to make it into a brotherhood.

4/06/2009

How do we remain faithful when boredom sets in?


How do we remain faithful when boredom sets in? Sages offer numerous rules of piety, precepts, commandments, vows, proverbs, and aphorisms, all compiled after revelations that shattered the structure of existence. The purpose of all rules of piety is to extend revelation into ordinary life. They are survival tactics that help us withstand tedium, our disappointed expectations that something dramatic will happen—the sky open, a pillar of fire light our way—if we do this and that. For example, if we stand in a field in the month of Elul when the red dwarf rises above the tree where the shepherd has tethered his goats, we’ll see divine light. Instead, we are preoccupied with stamping our feet in the cold, with muttering and gossiping with friends. Without
knowing it, we’re storing a memory of being knit together that will help us survive later. One friend rolls her eyes in mock disapproval at such religiosity; another concentrates as hard as she can on what the sages said would happen if we gathered in the fields during the month of Elul. She focuses on waiting to see a flash. A second friend observes what can be seen, the night sky, its billions of unnamed stars, impossible to count, immeasurable depth, formless space, black, blank; receding as we are, less and less visible, less and less impatient at nothing much happening. Then another shouts, witnessing the birth of a star.
Cantillations by Emily Warn From Shadow Architect

4/03/2009

Restoring Harmony and Balance


Both ancient teachings and modern medical research agree that one of the quickest, most direct routes to restoring harmony and balance in our lives is to foster gratitude and appreciation. The moment you shift from a mind state of negativity or judgment to one of appreciation, there are immediate effects at many levels of your being: brain function becomes more balanced, harmonized, and supple; your heart begins to pump in a much more coherent and harmoniously balanced rhythm; and biochemical changes trigger a host of healthful balancing reactions throughout your body.

4/02/2009

Love is that ...


"Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it empowers us to develop courage; to trust that courage and build bridges with it; to trust those bridges and cross over them so we can attempt to reach each other."
Maya Angelou

4/01/2009

Understanding you are?


“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Yoda