Today is my nephew Teo's 2nd birthday. Ugh just thinking of him makes me melt with love and happiness because he is the freaking cutest, cutest, smartest, sweetest, funniest, bestest, most beautiful being everrrrrr. Yes. Even cuter than me sticking my hand up farm animals' backsides, sucking on lemons and running around in one sock doing handstands as a baby.
So anywho. It being his birthday, I had an idea for a gift. I am so doing this for my future bebe... Create an email address and through the early years, occasionally send messages to it. Like, "Dear Veda [don't steal my baby name!!], Today you ate grains for the first time and finished the whole bowl!" Or, "Today you were a real baby asshole."
The whole family can get in on the fun. With grandad sending emails on fishing and powerpoint forwards of magnificent castles in the fog and grandma sending simple, heartfelt messages of love.
Then at 13, gift the kid with the password and a storehouse of memories.
Best. Modern. Time. Capsule. Ever!!
We close ourselves off.
We find it annoying and disrespectful to visit one another's homes unexpectedly, inhibiting spontaneous expressions of service and love, instead of joyfully receiving the guest as if he or she were a gift. In India and the Middle East, the guest is God. And when cooking for large parties, they always make more and never waste what's left. Yes, it can be seen as a "cultural" difference, but as humans, what makes Americans more rigid, stuck up and uninviting?
We are obsessed with being in control of our image but ignore controlling ourselves, primarily the mind and senses.
We keep the world and each other at a comfortable distance, a space in which we can manipulate our images and pay shrinks to plunge in and figure it all out for us instead of dealing with our very interesting and real stuff face to face -- with one another, where you can't escape it, can't suppress it; eventually coming to appreciate it, even realizing that your mind was making the shadow bigger than it really was. Or, we deal with our stuff indirectly and ineffectively, via an elevated pop star or 10 o'lock news martyr.
We deny ourselves the opportunities to get in touch with the very essence of life and gorge ourselves on artificial substitutions -- TV shows, gossip magazines, endless images, credit-based buying of what won't last and won't satisfy; not you, who bought it to impress and not they who are too busy also self-obsessing to notice. It's a fake world we like to consume at a higher cost than what it takes to be honest and occasionally uncomfortable, naked of the signifiers we layer for fabricated meaning when we could be picking up and collectively validating what's got real meaning, albeit little monetary value.
We are the center of our own universe, aiming all of our efforts to please the body and senses, enjoying unilaterally.
We are accustomed to comfort for the body and stifle the soul's creative nature by unceasingly purchasing every solution, ignoring the pulse of life who's very purpose it is to seek and exercise those solutions. Convenience has made us fat, tired, lazy, taxed, disconnected, dissatisfied, deluded, entitled and uninspired. And any man in (material) control who is serving you this conveience, doesn't have the answer he's selling, is merely raking it in and investing in more of the same, just under a different name.
This so-called convenience has divorced us from the community of cooperation and love and enslaved us to the separating, capitalistic sense of (false) independence. We've all become dependent on the middle man, and from all directions seemingly inescapably, simultaneously serve this middle man to soullessly sell us slop while having forgotten the perfectly fine abilities we each have to depend on one another in economically efficient and connection-encouraging exchanges. And this can be seen at the simplest level -- making, serving and sharing foods; confiding our truths, needs, failures and hopes; giving a helping hand regardless of tax status and plate prices.
We create events primarily to glorify our names and make money instead of to learn something new, make friendships and speak of ideas higher and more uplifting than past gossip or "who are you wearing".
Running this charade is a false idea that the charade is where the happiness is. But get in a room, alone. Turn off the sound, the noise, the flurry. Listen to the silence behind the story.
Is it full like your heart?
Or terrifyingly empty?
Are you truly alone?
Or are you sharing in the presence of something bigger?
And for the really big question: Would you even know it?
(Hint: the media wouldn't have been the one to inform you.)
There is real goodness, light, truth and happiness. It's just not under the rocks we've been trained to look under...
*Edited to add: while these generalizations are not meant to address a whole nation-state of individuals, I am making a broad assessment of some habits and tendencies noted specifically in America. My critique aims to shed light on what stands out as debilitating in American life when compared to what I have observed and experienced in other countries where I have spent time (in Europe, Central America, Africa and India) and from what I have learned in exchanges with people from a myriad of cultures, religions and socio-economic backgrounds.
We find it annoying and disrespectful to visit one another's homes unexpectedly, inhibiting spontaneous expressions of service and love, instead of joyfully receiving the guest as if he or she were a gift. In India and the Middle East, the guest is God. And when cooking for large parties, they always make more and never waste what's left. Yes, it can be seen as a "cultural" difference, but as humans, what makes Americans more rigid, stuck up and uninviting?
We are obsessed with being in control of our image but ignore controlling ourselves, primarily the mind and senses.
We keep the world and each other at a comfortable distance, a space in which we can manipulate our images and pay shrinks to plunge in and figure it all out for us instead of dealing with our very interesting and real stuff face to face -- with one another, where you can't escape it, can't suppress it; eventually coming to appreciate it, even realizing that your mind was making the shadow bigger than it really was. Or, we deal with our stuff indirectly and ineffectively, via an elevated pop star or 10 o'lock news martyr.
We deny ourselves the opportunities to get in touch with the very essence of life and gorge ourselves on artificial substitutions -- TV shows, gossip magazines, endless images, credit-based buying of what won't last and won't satisfy; not you, who bought it to impress and not they who are too busy also self-obsessing to notice. It's a fake world we like to consume at a higher cost than what it takes to be honest and occasionally uncomfortable, naked of the signifiers we layer for fabricated meaning when we could be picking up and collectively validating what's got real meaning, albeit little monetary value.
We are the center of our own universe, aiming all of our efforts to please the body and senses, enjoying unilaterally.
We are accustomed to comfort for the body and stifle the soul's creative nature by unceasingly purchasing every solution, ignoring the pulse of life who's very purpose it is to seek and exercise those solutions. Convenience has made us fat, tired, lazy, taxed, disconnected, dissatisfied, deluded, entitled and uninspired. And any man in (material) control who is serving you this conveience, doesn't have the answer he's selling, is merely raking it in and investing in more of the same, just under a different name.
This so-called convenience has divorced us from the community of cooperation and love and enslaved us to the separating, capitalistic sense of (false) independence. We've all become dependent on the middle man, and from all directions seemingly inescapably, simultaneously serve this middle man to soullessly sell us slop while having forgotten the perfectly fine abilities we each have to depend on one another in economically efficient and connection-encouraging exchanges. And this can be seen at the simplest level -- making, serving and sharing foods; confiding our truths, needs, failures and hopes; giving a helping hand regardless of tax status and plate prices.
We create events primarily to glorify our names and make money instead of to learn something new, make friendships and speak of ideas higher and more uplifting than past gossip or "who are you wearing".
Running this charade is a false idea that the charade is where the happiness is. But get in a room, alone. Turn off the sound, the noise, the flurry. Listen to the silence behind the story.
Is it full like your heart?
Or terrifyingly empty?
Are you truly alone?
Or are you sharing in the presence of something bigger?
And for the really big question: Would you even know it?
(Hint: the media wouldn't have been the one to inform you.)
There is real goodness, light, truth and happiness. It's just not under the rocks we've been trained to look under...
*Edited to add: while these generalizations are not meant to address a whole nation-state of individuals, I am making a broad assessment of some habits and tendencies noted specifically in America. My critique aims to shed light on what stands out as debilitating in American life when compared to what I have observed and experienced in other countries where I have spent time (in Europe, Central America, Africa and India) and from what I have learned in exchanges with people from a myriad of cultures, religions and socio-economic backgrounds.
Here's the thing: art and its myriad forms behaves like the people it comes from - in cycles, in generations expressed as movements which dynamically create and respond to trends; fashion trends, linguistic trends, and perhaps if the artist is truly a thinking-man, to socio-political agendas in trend-form. These days, art mostly reflects what the puppeteers (who have embodied the artist in such subliminal and devious ways that artists think it's them talking but the real them--the soul them--is heavily covered up and manipulated) dictate. These products known as art behave in relative terms, interacting with the flux of a material world, the material mind, and the false ego of a man who deals only with that kind of world. Sometimes the world an artist pulls from is purely internal, perhaps even spiritual. But if an artist is anywhere near mainstream or immersed in/familiar with life as the masses live it, s/he will not in any way, shape or form have the distance needed to deal with purely internal, radical or spiritual fodder for creation. That's why artists who make it really big, really fast won't last unless they distance themselves from the success. That success will bring them too far away from what's interesting enough to inspire. As a side-bar: that's why love (it's usually actually lust, let's be real) is such a powerful source of inspiration for art. It's a private little world that no one can really get into besides the two lovers. But as we'll see: even then there's a hitch, a glitch and stitch in time to slow down the forward-flow.
Because music is the most popular form of art these days (if you can even call any of the music that's very popular "art") I want to emphasize that as a medium, music is especially a culprit in deterring any sort of interesting and freeing forward movement (notice the themes songs deal with are oh-so-repetitive). So from here on in, I will replace "art" with "music" and maybe one day I'll come back around to address art-at-large but quite frankly, the commercial/contemporary art market is a total joke of a sham you-got-duped game catering to elite wallets, falsely inflating the value of what is usually, quite simply, crap, and placating the egos seeking to obtain said synthetic value as extension-of-the-self. Lots of oohing and ahhing over maybe-pretty, usually uninspiring, definitely never educational objects during cocktail hours where the idea of being artsy and smart is more important than the actual fact. Plus there's free booze, schmoozin and a chance to show off personal (or merely second-handed purchased fashion) style. Zing, ding, ding.
So back to the matter at hand. Unless the art-product in question is dedicated to revealing transcendental and absolute truths, it will keep the artist and his audience attached to narrow and limiting themes for stretches of time, those cycles I was talking about up there. Then there's, what I've coined as, "The Milking It Effect". That takes us into the whole media game. How long can one artist milk the themes and ideas garnered from one album? How far can the smallest input take one whale and his/her hangers-on? The farther, the better.
As a natural progression from The Milking It Effect comes the whole selling-your-soul entrapment. The artist makes an implicit agreement that s/he will stay married to specific themes and feelings regardless of what s/he actually wants to feel or might feel in their present lives in order to deliver on a promise to the fans by, rightfully, convincingly embodying the pieces they are selling. Am I just stating the "duh" obvious? Perhaps through this repeated embodiment, s/he doesn't even have access to any semblance of present, true identity or sense of self.
Let's trace the evolution of a song. At first, it's most likely the artist dealing with a specific theme, situation, emotion in a cathartic way, creating a structure out of what may have been destruction, observation, an unknown that triggered curiosity into further exploration. Then, it becomes a mask, an identity that the artist puts on for the fans to share in. Over. and Over. and Over. All of a sudden, the artist is trapped by the paradigm because it sells. Now, s/he is nothing without this mask, this paradigm, this embodied expression of a stale situation. The soul's ability and mobility is limited (particularly during a tour) and this once-cathartic expression has now enslaved its creator, who is ruled by the senses, perhaps driven to escape the masked self by intoxicating the senses. The desire to remain relevant, appreciated, and understood is all that matters. Perhaps for more shallow 'artists', they're ruled by the $$bills y'all. But, really, no self-respecting artist is only in it for the money. They're in it to fill a space in their hearts, to share the love and feel the high off crowds of people all vibrating to the same harmony. It's powerful. It's real. No doubt about it.
The ultimate bottom line is: what vibration are you sharing? It's this ultimatum that will determine entrapment by self and other (the industry) or true social, personal and spiritual evolution -- Revolution; out of cycles that don't lead anywhere, out of this material body into a realized state of being with fuller and fuller knowledge of the big secrets behind the curtain and simpler and simpler adherence to a regulated lifestyle, to action which does not sabotage and bind. If you want to subvert, to fight from the inside, you better make sure you're well-seated inside yourself and well-versed in that 1 thing far, far beyond what is outside everyman's door.
Because music is the most popular form of art these days (if you can even call any of the music that's very popular "art") I want to emphasize that as a medium, music is especially a culprit in deterring any sort of interesting and freeing forward movement (notice the themes songs deal with are oh-so-repetitive). So from here on in, I will replace "art" with "music" and maybe one day I'll come back around to address art-at-large but quite frankly, the commercial/contemporary art market is a total joke of a sham you-got-duped game catering to elite wallets, falsely inflating the value of what is usually, quite simply, crap, and placating the egos seeking to obtain said synthetic value as extension-of-the-self. Lots of oohing and ahhing over maybe-pretty, usually uninspiring, definitely never educational objects during cocktail hours where the idea of being artsy and smart is more important than the actual fact. Plus there's free booze, schmoozin and a chance to show off personal (or merely second-handed purchased fashion) style. Zing, ding, ding.
So back to the matter at hand. Unless the art-product in question is dedicated to revealing transcendental and absolute truths, it will keep the artist and his audience attached to narrow and limiting themes for stretches of time, those cycles I was talking about up there. Then there's, what I've coined as, "The Milking It Effect". That takes us into the whole media game. How long can one artist milk the themes and ideas garnered from one album? How far can the smallest input take one whale and his/her hangers-on? The farther, the better.
As a natural progression from The Milking It Effect comes the whole selling-your-soul entrapment. The artist makes an implicit agreement that s/he will stay married to specific themes and feelings regardless of what s/he actually wants to feel or might feel in their present lives in order to deliver on a promise to the fans by, rightfully, convincingly embodying the pieces they are selling. Am I just stating the "duh" obvious? Perhaps through this repeated embodiment, s/he doesn't even have access to any semblance of present, true identity or sense of self.
Let's trace the evolution of a song. At first, it's most likely the artist dealing with a specific theme, situation, emotion in a cathartic way, creating a structure out of what may have been destruction, observation, an unknown that triggered curiosity into further exploration. Then, it becomes a mask, an identity that the artist puts on for the fans to share in. Over. and Over. and Over. All of a sudden, the artist is trapped by the paradigm because it sells. Now, s/he is nothing without this mask, this paradigm, this embodied expression of a stale situation. The soul's ability and mobility is limited (particularly during a tour) and this once-cathartic expression has now enslaved its creator, who is ruled by the senses, perhaps driven to escape the masked self by intoxicating the senses. The desire to remain relevant, appreciated, and understood is all that matters. Perhaps for more shallow 'artists', they're ruled by the $$bills y'all. But, really, no self-respecting artist is only in it for the money. They're in it to fill a space in their hearts, to share the love and feel the high off crowds of people all vibrating to the same harmony. It's powerful. It's real. No doubt about it.
The ultimate bottom line is: what vibration are you sharing? It's this ultimatum that will determine entrapment by self and other (the industry) or true social, personal and spiritual evolution -- Revolution; out of cycles that don't lead anywhere, out of this material body into a realized state of being with fuller and fuller knowledge of the big secrets behind the curtain and simpler and simpler adherence to a regulated lifestyle, to action which does not sabotage and bind. If you want to subvert, to fight from the inside, you better make sure you're well-seated inside yourself and well-versed in that 1 thing far, far beyond what is outside everyman's door.
Here's an interesting video where Prabhupada explains how the soul is
eternal and changes bodies over and over.
He explains what (forgotten) "human sense" actually is - to seek the eternal body which matches our eternal soul and to stop repeating our births in this material world.
The common thread of logic is that nature facilitates your desire: if you like to eat meat, you will get a tiger's body, if you always like to sleep, you will get a bear's body, if you like to expose yourself you will get a tree body etc etc.
How? Our consciousness is directly related to the physical world and the desires the soul is conditioned to take on leave marks and impressions which will carry forward (karma), inciting birth after birth, until they are extinguished or fulfilled. You can imagine that the storehouse of desires have the potential to be limitless, and that we've all gone through millions of births.
How can one extinguish these marks, burn the seed of samskara? To start: by purifying the mind and senses. Then it's key to understand the hierarchy of power -- in an empowered being, the intellect takes its cues from the soul which is in communication with the unchanging and omnipresent Supersoul (the all-knowing God aspect present in all living beings). From there, the intellect communicates to the mind which controls the senses to obey the higher purpose and desire. In our current age, Kali Yuga, the age of quarrel and hypocrisy, it's all (all is) upside-down. The senses are in control: they say, I want this xyz, so the mind believes, yes I need to have cake, sex, meat, pleasure, alcohol, fill in the blank, to be happy, and immediately calculates how to obtain material fulfillment (because as long as the senses are in control, it's a question of the material world) without pausing to question.
As a result, the intellect is blotted out and dragged down and the individual soul desires are conditioned to obey the senses and take on sense desires, engaging in an endless cycle of chasing fleeting pleasures.
However, we can flip the script and liberate the soul from slavery to the outside. We can learn to instead listen to and feed the soul-desires which are where true (not-bound-by time or scarcity) fulfillment rests. Once we can make the choices to engage our mind and senses to tune in, we will gain the irrevocable knowledge, wisdom and control to become detached, to no longer be dependent on the externals (which will change and decay) in finding and providing happiness and fulfillment.
Some daily activities suggested for regaining control and purifying the mind and heart (so they can tune-in/hear) are: chanting the maha mantra, eating purified food known as prasadam (karma-free food), and engaging the mind in reading and understanding the transcendental science. If you're into physical modes, hatha yoga (and the various styles kundalini, Bikram, vinyasa etc.) regulates and calms the nervous system and the mind and detoxifies the organs. This modality facilitates mind-body communication and creates space for self-reflection, making the smart choices easier to understand, identify and commit to.
Feel free to email any questions or submit them here.
He explains what (forgotten) "human sense" actually is - to seek the eternal body which matches our eternal soul and to stop repeating our births in this material world.
The common thread of logic is that nature facilitates your desire: if you like to eat meat, you will get a tiger's body, if you always like to sleep, you will get a bear's body, if you like to expose yourself you will get a tree body etc etc.
How? Our consciousness is directly related to the physical world and the desires the soul is conditioned to take on leave marks and impressions which will carry forward (karma), inciting birth after birth, until they are extinguished or fulfilled. You can imagine that the storehouse of desires have the potential to be limitless, and that we've all gone through millions of births.
How can one extinguish these marks, burn the seed of samskara? To start: by purifying the mind and senses. Then it's key to understand the hierarchy of power -- in an empowered being, the intellect takes its cues from the soul which is in communication with the unchanging and omnipresent Supersoul (the all-knowing God aspect present in all living beings). From there, the intellect communicates to the mind which controls the senses to obey the higher purpose and desire. In our current age, Kali Yuga, the age of quarrel and hypocrisy, it's all (all is) upside-down. The senses are in control: they say, I want this xyz, so the mind believes, yes I need to have cake, sex, meat, pleasure, alcohol, fill in the blank, to be happy, and immediately calculates how to obtain material fulfillment (because as long as the senses are in control, it's a question of the material world) without pausing to question.
As a result, the intellect is blotted out and dragged down and the individual soul desires are conditioned to obey the senses and take on sense desires, engaging in an endless cycle of chasing fleeting pleasures.
However, we can flip the script and liberate the soul from slavery to the outside. We can learn to instead listen to and feed the soul-desires which are where true (not-bound-by time or scarcity) fulfillment rests. Once we can make the choices to engage our mind and senses to tune in, we will gain the irrevocable knowledge, wisdom and control to become detached, to no longer be dependent on the externals (which will change and decay) in finding and providing happiness and fulfillment.
Some daily activities suggested for regaining control and purifying the mind and heart (so they can tune-in/hear) are: chanting the maha mantra, eating purified food known as prasadam (karma-free food), and engaging the mind in reading and understanding the transcendental science. If you're into physical modes, hatha yoga (and the various styles kundalini, Bikram, vinyasa etc.) regulates and calms the nervous system and the mind and detoxifies the organs. This modality facilitates mind-body communication and creates space for self-reflection, making the smart choices easier to understand, identify and commit to.
Feel free to email any questions or submit them here.
I'm here to awaken a new relationship in body, mind, heart and spirit:
To remind. To inspire purification. To stave off hard hearts. To shine the torchlight of knowledge in all the dark corners that keep fear, delusion and inaction empowered. To welcome hearty and relevant debate. To break the norms. To question senseless and destructive habits. To elevate consciousness and keep ego to the ground, listening to the roots. To uplift the similarities which bring us together. To tear down the ignorance that keeps us pitted against one another. To hold a space for comfortable silence. To speak to the eternal part of you. To light up the individual to step into her and his role of highest good and purpose. To find the balance. To call a spade a spade. To share what's true and steady in the flow of change. To take advice and lend an ear. To praise the noble. To admit. To walk the walk down the road less traveled. To lead the way in full disclosure. To share the compass and help recalibrate yours. To outline the necessary boundaries, and transgress the ones that aren't. To hug when it's not expected. To love when it's not deserved.
I'm here to Shake. It. Up.
Where are you?
To remind. To inspire purification. To stave off hard hearts. To shine the torchlight of knowledge in all the dark corners that keep fear, delusion and inaction empowered. To welcome hearty and relevant debate. To break the norms. To question senseless and destructive habits. To elevate consciousness and keep ego to the ground, listening to the roots. To uplift the similarities which bring us together. To tear down the ignorance that keeps us pitted against one another. To hold a space for comfortable silence. To speak to the eternal part of you. To light up the individual to step into her and his role of highest good and purpose. To find the balance. To call a spade a spade. To share what's true and steady in the flow of change. To take advice and lend an ear. To praise the noble. To admit. To walk the walk down the road less traveled. To lead the way in full disclosure. To share the compass and help recalibrate yours. To outline the necessary boundaries, and transgress the ones that aren't. To hug when it's not expected. To love when it's not deserved.
I'm here to Shake. It. Up.
Where are you?
It's dawned on my head
in an unshakable way
that what we see is what we see
because we harbor it
how'd it get there is an answer
you should look up, look into
you should take it upon yourself
to wonder
why do I believe
what I say
and think
and feel
and what about
any of those things
is actually
real?
Originally posted at MogaYoga
in an unshakable way
that what we see is what we see
because we harbor it
how'd it get there is an answer
you should look up, look into
you should take it upon yourself
to wonder
why do I believe
what I say
and think
and feel
and what about
any of those things
is actually
real?
Originally posted at MogaYoga
“It’s like we left all our baggage at home and just brought our instruments…”
“The Big Easy Express” won a G-rammy for best long form music video
because they filmed a cross country tour, Cali to the Big Easy, in a
dope train, in what looks to be the most intelligent and
awesome-quotient-maximization use of that dope train, with a crew of
musicians and down-home shin diggers harkin’ from the Great Gatsby era
fueled by truth in song (and maybe some bathtub brew?)
This just hits all the right notes, y’all
O. My. Goodness.
It's this right here that gets the rappess/poetess/stunter/fun-hunter/covered-up hipster/absurdity huckster in me all giddy.
Just get a load of these 'lyrics'!!!!
They be like, "Oh, that Gucci - that's hella tight."
I'm like, "Yo - that's fifty dollars for a T-shirt."
Limited edition, let's do some simple addition
Fifty dollars for a T-shirt - that's just some ignorant bitch (shit)
I call that getting swindled and pimped (shit)
I call that getting tricked by a business
That shirt's hella dough
And having the same one as six other people in this club is a hella don't
Peep game, come take a look through my telescope
Trying to get girls from a brand? Then you hella won't
Then you hella won't
(Goodwill... poppin' tags... yeah!)
I'm like, "Yo - that's fifty dollars for a T-shirt."
Limited edition, let's do some simple addition
Fifty dollars for a T-shirt - that's just some ignorant bitch (shit)
I call that getting swindled and pimped (shit)
I call that getting tricked by a business
That shirt's hella dough
And having the same one as six other people in this club is a hella don't
Peep game, come take a look through my telescope
Trying to get girls from a brand? Then you hella won't
Then you hella won't
(Goodwill... poppin' tags... yeah!)
He said,
I am the Supersoul,
seated in the hearts of all living entities
I am the beginning,
the middle,
and the end of all beings
of lights I am the radiant sun,
and among the stars
I am the moon
and of bodies of water
I am the ocean
of vibrations I am the
transcendental om
of sacrifices I am the chanting of the
holy names
and of immovable things
I am the Himalayas
of all trees I am
the banyan tree,
of horses know Me to be Uccaihsrava,
produced during the churning of the ocean for nectar
of lordly elephants I am Airavata
and among men I am
the monarch
of weapons I am
the thunderbolt
among cows I am
the surabhi
of causes for procreation I am Kandarpa, the god of love
and of serpents I am Vasuki
and among the dispensers of law I am Yama, the lord of death
among subduers I am time,
among beasts I am the lion
and among birds I am Garuda [eagle]
of purifiers I am
the wind,
of the wielders of weapons I am Rama
of fishes I am
the shark
and of flowing rivers I am
the Ganges.
Of all sciences I am
the spiritual science of the self
and among logicians I am
the conclusive truth.
Of letters I am
the letter A
and among compound words I am
the dual compound.
I am also inexhaustible time,
and of creation I am Brahma.
I am all-devouring death,
and I am the generating principle
of all that is yet to be.
Among women I am fame, fortune, fine speech, memory, intelligence, steadfastness and patience.
Of months I am Margasirsa [November - December],
and of seasons I am
flower-bearing spring.
I am also the gambling of cheats
and of the splendid I am
the splendor.
I am victory, I am adventure, and I am
the strength of the strong.
Among all means of suppressing lawlessness I am punishment,
and of those who seek victory I am morality.
Of secret things I am silence,
and of the wise I am the wisdom.
Furthermore, I am the generating seed of all existences.
There is no being--moving or nonmoving--that can exist without Me.
O mighty conqueror of enemies,
there is no end to My divine manifestations.
What I have spoken to you is but a mere indication of My infinite opulences.
Know that all opulent, beautiful and glorious creations spring from
but a spark
of My splendor.
With a single fragment of Myself,
I pervade and support this entire universe.
I am the Supersoul,
seated in the hearts of all living entities
I am the beginning,
the middle,
and the end of all beings
of lights I am the radiant sun,
and among the stars
I am the moon
and of bodies of water
I am the ocean
of vibrations I am the
transcendental om
of sacrifices I am the chanting of the
holy names
and of immovable things
I am the Himalayas
of all trees I am
the banyan tree,
of horses know Me to be Uccaihsrava,
produced during the churning of the ocean for nectar
of lordly elephants I am Airavata
and among men I am
the monarch
of weapons I am
the thunderbolt
among cows I am
the surabhi
of causes for procreation I am Kandarpa, the god of love
and of serpents I am Vasuki
and among the dispensers of law I am Yama, the lord of death
among subduers I am time,
among beasts I am the lion
and among birds I am Garuda [eagle]
of purifiers I am
the wind,
of the wielders of weapons I am Rama
of fishes I am
the shark
and of flowing rivers I am
the Ganges.
Of all sciences I am
the spiritual science of the self
and among logicians I am
the conclusive truth.
Of letters I am
the letter A
and among compound words I am
the dual compound.
I am also inexhaustible time,
and of creation I am Brahma.
I am all-devouring death,
and I am the generating principle
of all that is yet to be.
Among women I am fame, fortune, fine speech, memory, intelligence, steadfastness and patience.
Of months I am Margasirsa [November - December],
and of seasons I am
flower-bearing spring.
I am also the gambling of cheats
and of the splendid I am
the splendor.
I am victory, I am adventure, and I am
the strength of the strong.
Among all means of suppressing lawlessness I am punishment,
and of those who seek victory I am morality.
Of secret things I am silence,
and of the wise I am the wisdom.
Furthermore, I am the generating seed of all existences.
There is no being--moving or nonmoving--that can exist without Me.
O mighty conqueror of enemies,
there is no end to My divine manifestations.
What I have spoken to you is but a mere indication of My infinite opulences.
Know that all opulent, beautiful and glorious creations spring from
but a spark
of My splendor.
With a single fragment of Myself,
I pervade and support this entire universe.
An interesting break to take and ask, from this list:
What do you have (implying, "thanks, I'm set on what I've got")
What don't you have
What do you want more of
?
Intelligence
Knowledge
Freedom from doubt and delusion
Forgiveness
Truthfulness
Control of the senses
Control of the mind
Happiness & Distress*
Birth
Death
Fear
Fearlessness
Non-violence
Equanimity
Satisfaction
Austerity
Charity
Fame & Infamy*
*you can't have one without the, other
What do you have (implying, "thanks, I'm set on what I've got")
What don't you have
What do you want more of
?
Intelligence
Knowledge
Freedom from doubt and delusion
Forgiveness
Truthfulness
Control of the senses
Control of the mind
Happiness & Distress*
Birth
Death
Fear
Fearlessness
Non-violence
Equanimity
Satisfaction
Austerity
Charity
Fame & Infamy*
*you can't have one without the, other
"Late Poem"
by Cynthia Zarin
" . . . a matter of changing a slide in a magic lantern."
I wish we were Indians and ate foie gras
and drove a gas-guzzler
and never wore seat belts
I’d have a baby, yours, cette fois,
and I’d smoke Parliaments
and we’d drink our way through the winter
in spring the baby would laugh at the moon
who is her father and her mother who is his pool
and we’d walk backwards and forwards
in lizard-skin cowboy boots
and read Gilgamesh and Tintin aloud
I’d wear only leather or feathers
plucked from endangered birds and silk
from exploited silkworms
we’d read The Economist
it would be before and after the internet
I’d send you letters by carrier pigeons
who would only fly from one window
to another in our drafty, gigantic house
with twenty-three uninsulated windows
and the dog would be always be
off his leash and always
find his way home as we will one day
and we’d feed small children
peanut butter and coffee in their milk
and I’d keep my hand glued under your belt
even while driving and cooking
and no one would have our number
except I would have yours where I’ve kept it
carved on the sole of my stiletto
which I would always wear when we walked
in the frozen and dusty wood
and we would keep warm by bickering
and falling into bed perpetually and
entirely unsafely as all the best things are
—your skin and my breath on it.
by Cynthia Zarin
" . . . a matter of changing a slide in a magic lantern."
I wish we were Indians and ate foie gras
and drove a gas-guzzler
and never wore seat belts
I’d have a baby, yours, cette fois,
and I’d smoke Parliaments
and we’d drink our way through the winter
in spring the baby would laugh at the moon
who is her father and her mother who is his pool
and we’d walk backwards and forwards
in lizard-skin cowboy boots
and read Gilgamesh and Tintin aloud
I’d wear only leather or feathers
plucked from endangered birds and silk
from exploited silkworms
we’d read The Economist
it would be before and after the internet
I’d send you letters by carrier pigeons
who would only fly from one window
to another in our drafty, gigantic house
with twenty-three uninsulated windows
and the dog would be always be
off his leash and always
find his way home as we will one day
and we’d feed small children
peanut butter and coffee in their milk
and I’d keep my hand glued under your belt
even while driving and cooking
and no one would have our number
except I would have yours where I’ve kept it
carved on the sole of my stiletto
which I would always wear when we walked
in the frozen and dusty wood
and we would keep warm by bickering
and falling into bed perpetually and
entirely unsafely as all the best things are
—your skin and my breath on it.
Addressing "The Blessings of Atheism", or "The Curse of Willfull Ignorance"
On
Sunday, January 06, 2013
0
comments
This article on "The Blessings of Atheism" from The New
York Times' Sunday review opinions page, and the 'believers' therein
addressed, are simply misplacing the role and existence of 'God'.
Suffering (employed in this article to defeat the possibility of a
loving God) is part of material, human life, and ignorance is attachment
to the physical and material entity, namely, the body and mind, which
are causing this suffering. This is not God being merciless,
this is man being ignorant of our true nature (I am not the body, I am
not the mind, I am something divine). Sentimentality is the
cause of all this grief, which if one were rooted in true knowledge,
would be able to transcend via the understanding that our purpose is not
to control and enjoy for our selfish pleasure -- to be the masters of
external nature -- but to submit, and serve the higher potency of God,
therein becoming the masters of our internal animalistic propensities
and receiving automatic benefit from 'watering the root'. I admit, it
might seem extreme to be cold and indifferent to suffering and death,
but one could argue that that's just viewing detachment in an extreme way, or, "it doesn't matter til it's you in the hot seat". What I'm arguing against, is
the use of suffering and death -- inherent results of material existence
-- as reasons to refute the existence of God when we have the chance to
look as suffering and death as reasons to serve God and be delivered
from the material world (while still inhabiting it!) by this service.
This isn't about squaring off in 'the next world' by doing good here in
this world, this is about doing good now as the means and the ends, not
for the benefit of the human entity, but to give the goodness up to the
all-pervading God entity which, when served, naturally controls our
material ignorance, and liberates us, a kind of service which true religion promotes.
True empathy is serving the soul of man and not merely the body.
So maybe atheists are true believers with misplaced ends. That is, by merely engaging in charity and welfare service for the benefit of material man, we are missing the completion of the benefit chain. The big gap, the missing link that atheists circle around endlessly is that the common man we're lamenting over and giving charity to cannot make the most of this sort of goodness if he in a state of ignorance (which 99% of men/women are) regarding his true purpose (ignorantly serving body/senses/material reality instead of serving God) and his true Self (ignorantly identifying with his body and mind instead of endeavoring to realize the spirit soul, paramatma, that we are part and parcel of God). This does not mean give up your material duties and work to live in a cave, as the skeptical "yogis" out there love to say, or stop serving the 'materially-blinded common man'. This is about re-routing your service in the world to serve God directly, instead of your own limited material world of fleeting happiness, binding sense gratification, and misery-causing selfishness. And it is OVERWHELMINGLY possible for man to know if God exists. Man is just willfully ignorant in this endeavor, choosing instead to invest time and effort in sense pleasure and selfish materialistic life. There is plenty of scriptural guidance and transcendental scientific*** knowledge to satisfy even the most ignorant. Trouble is, one can't see what his eyes are not looking for.
For more information, start exploring Krishna consciousness.
***The definition of science:
1. The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment
2. A systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject
When your observation and experiment lead to a body of knowledge which understands that the material world is inherently a never-ending cycle of birth, old age, disease and death (a systematic understanding of the behavior of the physical and natural world ie material world) you might come to the stage when you ask yourself, “Is that is? What else is there?”. That’s when you might be lead to understand your nature as either a slave to the senses or a controller of the senses. Seeing as most of the world is under the bondage of the senses, setting that example for our eyes to see and minds to believe, it is hard to understand that it is possible to control them, transcend them, and come to the understanding that those senses were given to us to serve a higher good, a higher energy which (although apparently malefic if you identify with material misery, death and the like as proof that there is no God, see my argument above) if put at the center, will inherently take care of you. That’s the transcendence of it all, get over yourself, serve the source of all-that-is (which you first have to leave room for in your skeptically-conditioned mind), and use the benefit of that service to apply it to the darkness in the world. Experiment!!
If you're searching, don't stop there. Searching on its own is useless and any 'evidence' obtained from searching is merely speculation. Krishna consciousness gives you practical material answers and asks you to apply them in this life, for a better, higher life here and later (whether or not you want to believe in that 'later' part).
If this has piqued your interest and you're looking for some more answers and have more questions,
Here's a book that's a good start.
True empathy is serving the soul of man and not merely the body.
So maybe atheists are true believers with misplaced ends. That is, by merely engaging in charity and welfare service for the benefit of material man, we are missing the completion of the benefit chain. The big gap, the missing link that atheists circle around endlessly is that the common man we're lamenting over and giving charity to cannot make the most of this sort of goodness if he in a state of ignorance (which 99% of men/women are) regarding his true purpose (ignorantly serving body/senses/material reality instead of serving God) and his true Self (ignorantly identifying with his body and mind instead of endeavoring to realize the spirit soul, paramatma, that we are part and parcel of God). This does not mean give up your material duties and work to live in a cave, as the skeptical "yogis" out there love to say, or stop serving the 'materially-blinded common man'. This is about re-routing your service in the world to serve God directly, instead of your own limited material world of fleeting happiness, binding sense gratification, and misery-causing selfishness. And it is OVERWHELMINGLY possible for man to know if God exists. Man is just willfully ignorant in this endeavor, choosing instead to invest time and effort in sense pleasure and selfish materialistic life. There is plenty of scriptural guidance and transcendental scientific*** knowledge to satisfy even the most ignorant. Trouble is, one can't see what his eyes are not looking for.
For more information, start exploring Krishna consciousness.
***The definition of science:
1. The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment
2. A systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject
When your observation and experiment lead to a body of knowledge which understands that the material world is inherently a never-ending cycle of birth, old age, disease and death (a systematic understanding of the behavior of the physical and natural world ie material world) you might come to the stage when you ask yourself, “Is that is? What else is there?”. That’s when you might be lead to understand your nature as either a slave to the senses or a controller of the senses. Seeing as most of the world is under the bondage of the senses, setting that example for our eyes to see and minds to believe, it is hard to understand that it is possible to control them, transcend them, and come to the understanding that those senses were given to us to serve a higher good, a higher energy which (although apparently malefic if you identify with material misery, death and the like as proof that there is no God, see my argument above) if put at the center, will inherently take care of you. That’s the transcendence of it all, get over yourself, serve the source of all-that-is (which you first have to leave room for in your skeptically-conditioned mind), and use the benefit of that service to apply it to the darkness in the world. Experiment!!
If you're searching, don't stop there. Searching on its own is useless and any 'evidence' obtained from searching is merely speculation. Krishna consciousness gives you practical material answers and asks you to apply them in this life, for a better, higher life here and later (whether or not you want to believe in that 'later' part).
If this has piqued your interest and you're looking for some more answers and have more questions,
Here's a book that's a good start.
L: I still feel different though
A: different from what
L: From what I expect it to be I guess. Joining a belief or cause
A: it's not a belief or cause
it's every human being's true nature
that's just more delusion framing Truth as 'belief'
belief is an extrapolation of faith
faith is the deep knowledge that you are part of something greater
a conviction
belief is an opinion supported by a cause or group of people who have invented some rules
but faith is connected to the unshakable source of all-that-is
L: Wow
A: and at the heart of that is the need to love
it's the soul's purpose
and we cover it up with lust
and envy
and greed
because material reality drags us, our senses control us
instead of us controlling our senses
L: This is so much right now. But.. Yes, I do hear this
A: haha well when you wake up you can read it again
and take it with a nice hot cup of tea
and take care of your self
A: different from what
L: From what I expect it to be I guess. Joining a belief or cause
A: it's not a belief or cause
it's every human being's true nature
that's just more delusion framing Truth as 'belief'
belief is an extrapolation of faith
faith is the deep knowledge that you are part of something greater
a conviction
belief is an opinion supported by a cause or group of people who have invented some rules
but faith is connected to the unshakable source of all-that-is
L: Wow
A: and at the heart of that is the need to love
it's the soul's purpose
and we cover it up with lust
and envy
and greed
because material reality drags us, our senses control us
instead of us controlling our senses
L: This is so much right now. But.. Yes, I do hear this
A: haha well when you wake up you can read it again
and take it with a nice hot cup of tea
and take care of your self
Sometimes I wonder if God sits and laughs
at how little it takes to impress our silly human forms
He must be wondering
That's it?
You're just going to stop there?
And we do.
We don't go much farther
Yet there's a silent begging
Deep within us:
Shake the dust
from Me!
your real soul
Stop shooting
for this fool's gold
As Michelangelo said,
The greatest danger for most of us
is not that our
goal
is too high
and we miss it
but that it is too low
and we reach it.
The greatest danger these days,
is not that we're not
ambitious
creative
successful
enough
but that we're using
our skills
our talents
our abilities
for all
the lowest, easiest, silliest, most useless things
most tasteless things.
So aim high, my friends
Get out of your circle
your cycle
of comfort
Of same
sense
slavery.
And go for what might make you
truly
challenged,
not to prove that you can do it
but to admit that you
are not the center of the world
at how little it takes to impress our silly human forms
He must be wondering
That's it?
You're just going to stop there?
And we do.
We don't go much farther
Yet there's a silent begging
Deep within us:
Shake the dust
from Me!
your real soul
Stop shooting
for this fool's gold
As Michelangelo said,
The greatest danger for most of us
is not that our
goal
is too high
and we miss it
but that it is too low
and we reach it.
The greatest danger these days,
is not that we're not
ambitious
creative
successful
enough
but that we're using
our skills
our talents
our abilities
for all
the lowest, easiest, silliest, most useless things
most tasteless things.
So aim high, my friends
Get out of your circle
your cycle
of comfort
Of same
sense
slavery.
And go for what might make you
truly
challenged,
not to prove that you can do it
but to admit that you
are not the center of the world
Be full and content with it all coexisting. The spiritual and the base. The love and the fear. Let it swirl in you who are confident in the present and open to the ever-elevating heights of a future.
Whatever you wish, if it comes from deep inside, if you hold to it not with clinging desperation — but with gently cupped hands, forming the motion, guiding the change as you listen for its desire and direction — it shall develop and grow with the seeds of magic inside, ready to continually reproduce as old layers die with the tides.
Tangled in projections of imperfect senses
Believing them to tell the truth,
We replace oceanic satisfaction
With the lie of satiation, material proof
Freedom!:
Get knocked down and smile
See yourself as nothing grand
Humbled with a heart perhaps above your head,
Seek and find pure, selfless love
Shine its light on ignorance
Or, atleast try
Believing them to tell the truth,
We replace oceanic satisfaction
With the lie of satiation, material proof
Freedom!:
Get knocked down and smile
See yourself as nothing grand
Humbled with a heart perhaps above your head,
Seek and find pure, selfless love
Shine its light on ignorance
Or, atleast try
____
Guess who’s poetic?
This bundle of contradictions, that’s who!
(false ego identification is a bitch)
This bundle of contradictions, that’s who!
(false ego identification is a bitch)
Transform again
So I can say I thought I knew you back when
Happily whisper to my heart in a wink,
I just don't know him like I did
Transformed again
While that dress I'm in looks foreign to your constant eyes
Still settles on your soul's remembered ties
Sparks your mellow memory in a nick of causeless time
Transform again
To please that eternal form
As it watches your forgetfulness
Lose your little self to the ultimate
Die to live, die to live
Transformed again
Squirming, emerging against the tides
Bashed into false dreams countless times
Finally waking restless mind
To the lightness of an ebbing sigh
Transform again
Questions cloaked in answers
Wrangled into extra time
Compromise broken control
And let your soul sweetly abide
Transformed again
An instrument in those knowing hands
Dropped the sound of suffering
Deliver me your tonic place of rest
Appealing fallen to uncover best
Transform again
Lift the veil, recieve a taste
Bridge low lands and the mirrored page
Invest in cleansing ways to see the same
If you will, reunite on the eternal train
Transformed again
Calling out your name
From an ocean of darkness, this ever-changing game
Hearing, a new plant springs to sustain
Roots to the source, an evergreen thumb digging to remain
Transformed again
By this love like a river
Feeding rapid flames in veins to steady
A nearer kind of me, simply and no longer
Transformed again
So I can say I thought I knew you back when
Happily whisper to my heart in a wink,
I just don't know him like I did
Transformed again
While that dress I'm in looks foreign to your constant eyes
Still settles on your soul's remembered ties
Sparks your mellow memory in a nick of causeless time
Transform again
To please that eternal form
As it watches your forgetfulness
Lose your little self to the ultimate
Die to live, die to live
Transformed again
Squirming, emerging against the tides
Bashed into false dreams countless times
Finally waking restless mind
To the lightness of an ebbing sigh
Transform again
Questions cloaked in answers
Wrangled into extra time
Compromise broken control
And let your soul sweetly abide
Transformed again
An instrument in those knowing hands
Dropped the sound of suffering
Deliver me your tonic place of rest
Appealing fallen to uncover best
Transform again
Lift the veil, recieve a taste
Bridge low lands and the mirrored page
Invest in cleansing ways to see the same
If you will, reunite on the eternal train
Transformed again
Calling out your name
From an ocean of darkness, this ever-changing game
Hearing, a new plant springs to sustain
Roots to the source, an evergreen thumb digging to remain
Transformed again
By this love like a river
Feeding rapid flames in veins to steady
A nearer kind of me, simply and no longer
Transformed again
You were there, sitting in a vinyl chair, waiting for the needle to start pulsing. Contemplating the symbolism of void. The void, that feeling matched your emotions at the time, your insides. It matched the window you'd alternately crack open or shroud in darkness, depending on whether or not you needed to know there was a world beyond your own.
The void also housed your optimism, like a blank canvas you'd ever carry to allow you a freshness, an option of hope and possibility.
You wanted to understand that emptiness, so you drew four lines around it. Some neat little geometry to structure. But you also considered that with knowing something, came the possibility of forgetfulness, of complacency, of predictability. So you were pleased when the flip-side hit; that emptiness simultaneously casts out commitment to any one specific image, idea, or desire.
Some kind of safety reassured you there.
Now if only you could control the vice-grip of your desires and settle in the stream. Looking back, you wonder if that thought had ever crossed your mind until recently.
Needing understanding. You now wondered if the missing piece was not being understood, but showing understanding.
You wanted to understand but your soul, your soul wanted to transcend.
And your mind drew a faulty map.
Looking back, you wonder if you missed a step.
The void also housed your optimism, like a blank canvas you'd ever carry to allow you a freshness, an option of hope and possibility.
You wanted to understand that emptiness, so you drew four lines around it. Some neat little geometry to structure. But you also considered that with knowing something, came the possibility of forgetfulness, of complacency, of predictability. So you were pleased when the flip-side hit; that emptiness simultaneously casts out commitment to any one specific image, idea, or desire.
Some kind of safety reassured you there.
Now if only you could control the vice-grip of your desires and settle in the stream. Looking back, you wonder if that thought had ever crossed your mind until recently.
Needing understanding. You now wondered if the missing piece was not being understood, but showing understanding.
You wanted to understand but your soul, your soul wanted to transcend.
And your mind drew a faulty map.
Looking back, you wonder if you missed a step.
Dear love
Your face changes over time
It once was his
It now is mine
It's all of ours, all of the time
Dear love
I haven't been able to get you off my mind
Out of my heart
Where my knowledge ends
Dear love
There you begin
Dear love, you make things so wonderfully hard
You want us to be free but instead you blind
Dear love
Wasn't that your magic
All of this time
Your face changes over time
It once was his
It now is mine
It's all of ours, all of the time
Dear love
I haven't been able to get you off my mind
Out of my heart
Where my knowledge ends
Dear love
There you begin
Dear love, you make things so wonderfully hard
You want us to be free but instead you blind
Dear love
Wasn't that your magic
All of this time
Sister's got serrius soul
Wherever one goes, youth is the same.
Music ties em together through the decades.
Drinks pour with similar thirst which awaits,
the other end of the scene holds stories of love and jealousy just as we'd seen.
Mirrors will always show just what it is you bring.
1am, 160 proof, 28 degrees Celsius
someone tell me please,
what are my coordinates
Music ties em together through the decades.
Drinks pour with similar thirst which awaits,
the other end of the scene holds stories of love and jealousy just as we'd seen.
Mirrors will always show just what it is you bring.
1am, 160 proof, 28 degrees Celsius
someone tell me please,
what are my coordinates
It is imperative that you realize and believe in your wholeness, completeness and worthiness as a person, as a living entity. The sad truth, however, is that you are quite possibly fragmented, missing pieces, incomplete, and actually -- not at all perfect.
You have been sold to probably all your life. Magazines, TV shows, advertising, movies, Hollywood, Bollywood, pop music, pharmaceutical companies, big box stores, Proctor & Gamble, General Mills, your friends and possibly your family -- all these major machines have employed, fed, and worked millions of people tirelessly to convince you to buy their product because you're just not good enough. Their slick marketing and advertising, while selling the benefits and necessity of xyz, subversively suggests that you are not yet quite right, and so, need to get xyz in order to be better, more beautiful, more happy, more complete, to live a dream life (their dream, not yours). So you may have believed & bought it. On top of it, you took a look around and you saw all these other people apparently doing well with these xyz apparatus. If you're female, as a young girl, you may have hungrily flipped through Seventeen, Glamour, Vogue, and the countless other magazines to give you the scoop on what's hot, who's hot, how to look hot, and why you're not hot unless you've got it.
What you may not be aware of is that, by being sold to, by believing in your inadequacies and then taking others' prescribed actions to obtain xyz as a necessary element to achieving wholeness, hotness, happiness, you were moving in the opposite direction of where you already were and actually away from what they're trying to sell you -- happiness, hotness, perfection, worthiness, value as a human being. It is by holding ground in what, who, you already were (are), pre-brainwashing, that you can totally be what it is they're selling you. At this point it might be too late. You've got the closet full of whoozits and whatsits and all of a sudden they hold real value in your life, and you've taken second place. And you might think they're harmlessly fun and cool. But that's just feeding the system -- it's still sending visual cues to the not-clued-in consumer world, up-holding a (essentially destructive) system of social currency obtainable by purchasing power, conspicuous consumption and parading instead of one based in self-worth sourced in compassion, introspection, love, and sharing. You are (were?) whole. And you can, with a bit of awareness and discrimination, actually hold solid ground in that place among the clouds of sell-speak.
Now, that's not to say that you're devaluing yourself vis-a-vis yourself by indulging in these purchases, but it is still upholding the system to fool others, propagating advertising via your daily life amidst these things. It's fun to be part of the crew. To feel the shiny clink of social currency in your hands as you show up in that outfit, that car, that restaurant and bar, with -- those people. But while they're there, seemingly having it all, you may have been robbed of your self-worth by trading it in for a belief that you didn't already have it and that now you do -- but only because you've got the outer signifier. In that process, you lost what was always, and should always be, innate in your being, in your attentiveness to your self and not that 'other'.
While stripped of everything society ever told you is important, you still have inside you, you always were, just what it is you're seeking.
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90's rockin is where it's at today!
This song by Rhye caught my ears from the second those strings started softly pushing notes across the air waves to my already throbbing head, thanks, last night (feeling poetic)
Lyrics, interesting. Google open. Tap tap tap. Search.
Oh, Fader featured their video. Oh, it's "very NSFW". Double caught me. Click. Play.
Share:
And my head feels better somehow... Download it here, courtesy of Urban Outfitters
Lyrics, interesting. Google open. Tap tap tap. Search.
Oh, Fader featured their video. Oh, it's "very NSFW". Double caught me. Click. Play.
Share:
Rhye - Open from Rhye on Vimeo.
And my head feels better somehow... Download it here, courtesy of Urban Outfitters
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I immensely enjoy learning languages in general and Sanskrit is a whole new bag. With yoga’s steady-growing popularity I thought it’d be helpful to elucidate the many words that yoga philosophy rests upon. Their meanings are often multi-layered and as with words in general, it’s not so much the signifier but what it stands for that’s important and rich.
Each word is a drop of gold and the language and alphabet are fascinatingly efficient. Nothing wasted. Total value. In the package of one little mot (that’s French for word) awaits a world of philosophy, driving you through a tunnel of productive pondering to come out a littler wiser, a little deeper, a little cooler ;)
If you like it, pass it on, follow, spread the good words — let’s get there together.
Originally posted at MogaYoga
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By Allen Ginsberg
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cassady holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars holy the hideous human angels!
Holy my mother in the insane asylum!
Holy the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas!
Holy the groaning saxophone!
Holy the bop apocalypse!
Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace & junk & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements!
Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions!
Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut!
Holy the vast lamb of the middle class!
Holy the crazy shepherds of rebellion!
Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria & Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow
Holy Istanbul!
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucinations holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!
Berkeley 1955
And to see James Franco embody this...
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cassady holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars holy the hideous human angels!
Holy my mother in the insane asylum!
Holy the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas!
Holy the groaning saxophone!
Holy the bop apocalypse!
Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace & junk & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements!
Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions!
Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut!
Holy the vast lamb of the middle class!
Holy the crazy shepherds of rebellion!
Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria & Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow
Holy Istanbul!
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucinations holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!
Berkeley 1955
And to see James Franco embody this...
Rainstorm rolled in on the dawn
Woke me up with a flash of lightening striking in my mind
Opened my eyes
As the thunder roared through me
and my dream spoke out loud in reality
Boom, so close to home
Woke me up with a flash of lightening striking in my mind
Opened my eyes
As the thunder roared through me
and my dream spoke out loud in reality
Boom, so close to home
To spend a day with me
We enjoy everything that is free
Expand our hearts without dropping a dime
Feeling richer and fuller than you ever have in your life
To spend a day with me,
We put in more than we take
Pay off our debts to the bank of time with the love we make
To spend a day with me,
To be richer than ballin online for the world to see, waitin on a future delivery
Delayed gratification can come now
To spend a day with me,
Means experiencing how
It's to scour the pantry of stored memory
And cook a meal that will fill your dying soul, while we keep the glass at half-empty
For the present with me is spacious eternity
To spend the day with me is allowing freely
It's kicking up your heels, creating from what you don't know you've got
When consuming second-hand goods only emptied out your pot
It's re-covering what bared and burned in the sun
It's reading prose aloud that you've written for another, one-to-one
To spend a day with me requires pride in all the things you can do as you chose not to,
Like uncovering what's on the dark side of the moon
A day with me is like finding that missing shoe
And the foot, too
This is what I wish for you
To spend a day with your truth
To find 'me'
In all that you pursue,
In all that comes to you
We enjoy everything that is free
Expand our hearts without dropping a dime
Feeling richer and fuller than you ever have in your life
To spend a day with me,
We put in more than we take
Pay off our debts to the bank of time with the love we make
To spend a day with me,
To be richer than ballin online for the world to see, waitin on a future delivery
Delayed gratification can come now
To spend a day with me,
Means experiencing how
It's to scour the pantry of stored memory
And cook a meal that will fill your dying soul, while we keep the glass at half-empty
For the present with me is spacious eternity
To spend the day with me is allowing freely
It's kicking up your heels, creating from what you don't know you've got
When consuming second-hand goods only emptied out your pot
It's re-covering what bared and burned in the sun
It's reading prose aloud that you've written for another, one-to-one
To spend a day with me requires pride in all the things you can do as you chose not to,
Like uncovering what's on the dark side of the moon
A day with me is like finding that missing shoe
And the foot, too
This is what I wish for you
To spend a day with your truth
To find 'me'
In all that you pursue,
In all that comes to you
I want you in my memoir
Your heart speaking history
Visions carrying the future
To the same resting place I'd chosen
Unbeknownst to these two souls
All the binds their strings would weave
their innocent trickery
Word play
Night play under cover
Designed to try their hand at the creator
The pen dropped down for them
Ready to receive
Because their very impulse ran with ink
Cut them open and it would spill
Orderly as none other could arrange
Chaos sublime drained from their veins
Depth could not be measured
It did not scare
Neither he nor she
concerned with normalities
They just kept moving
Yes they gave into cravings
Guilt-ridden for the thought of it
Assuaged by a spirit
Some clinics called it psychotic
They
They knew the labels undermined
The visions they flung farther from plain sight
Could it really be alright
Is anybody hurting?
Then I must go on
They weren't living for a memoir
But the day, inevitable, came
When time stood at the intersection
reality set in
Something here's truly brewin
And it's too late to give in
So on they went
Living their dreams
Painting their nightmares
For the balance
For the delicacy
Of hearing the beat
The beat of a single reason
To live in step with what drove the story
Onwards
Innards
Spread forwards
Grace of pain
Repaired transmissions
Broken promises
Pieced together again
When?
Ink, blood, spit, love
Cut from the cloth
Collaged harmony
As best they could
They knew one day,
One day they would
Your heart speaking history
Visions carrying the future
To the same resting place I'd chosen
Unbeknownst to these two souls
All the binds their strings would weave
their innocent trickery
Word play
Night play under cover
Designed to try their hand at the creator
The pen dropped down for them
Ready to receive
Because their very impulse ran with ink
Cut them open and it would spill
Orderly as none other could arrange
Chaos sublime drained from their veins
Depth could not be measured
It did not scare
Neither he nor she
concerned with normalities
They just kept moving
Yes they gave into cravings
Guilt-ridden for the thought of it
Assuaged by a spirit
Some clinics called it psychotic
They
They knew the labels undermined
The visions they flung farther from plain sight
Could it really be alright
Is anybody hurting?
Then I must go on
They weren't living for a memoir
But the day, inevitable, came
When time stood at the intersection
reality set in
Something here's truly brewin
And it's too late to give in
So on they went
Living their dreams
Painting their nightmares
For the balance
For the delicacy
Of hearing the beat
The beat of a single reason
To live in step with what drove the story
Onwards
Innards
Spread forwards
Grace of pain
Repaired transmissions
Broken promises
Pieced together again
When?
Ink, blood, spit, love
Cut from the cloth
Collaged harmony
As best they could
They knew one day,
One day they would
In the middle of creating and consuming
Stood I
An afternoon colluding for glorious use of time
Lost among stacks
Hot sun beating upon my sweater'd back
The artifacts ran through me
Alive they came
senses awakening
The dust off lithographs
First editions
Copies of Playboy from 1975
A flip clock set at 4:20
Time stopped and yet I was flying
Flung into eras, lives, fake, real, felt,
stolen glimpses at god
stolen glimpses at god
Soon the words hit a wall
My eyes turned sore
Standing, a chore
In the air
A record played,
A record played,
With the right song
turned on
At first a tear
At first a tear
Heavy loneliness
Solitude of exploration
Confronting the reality of this journey
bittersweetly beautiful
bittersweetly beautiful
pausing to glimpse others' experience
For a moment, sharing my solitude
With yet more mute partners
My mind keeps bringing me the thought of ice cream,
a cool shady knoll
A book and leaving this nice store.
So off I go
But before I dive into pleasure and respite,
Soften my eyes to the inner night
The inner light
I'll drop a pin on this time
Of drifting into death
To spark it with my life
Though ink and digital pages remain as set
There's a timelessness to the exploration
Eventual appreciation
It does not wait for me
It does not know of me
It is as if my inner compass
Had been waiting
All this time
For me to drive by and turn my head
See the sign,
pointing,
painted
pointing,
painted
In my language, in black and red
Have a moment, take it in by writing it out with your heart beating loud
On
Monday, May 28, 2012
0
comments
If only my mirror had a camera on it we could YouTube me dancing for you and you and you and you
All these on-the-spot moves grooving to run this town with confident swoops
in hips ripping emotion from the one who felt it n bringing it to transform the state I'm in on a whim
Wham there she goes soft as petals from the man laid out for drama in the landscape gasping through colored fields, spinning webs to gauge the life in your head
Wait where was I ah yea back again with the dance--
Selling the shit out of my fidelity to the moment and nothing but the music control me with your fireworks going off as my belly roars in icy hot pleasure of feeling dropping lower to the floor on hands and knees tumbling around through the leaves of grass on grass growing out our destinies stain me with your making memories please as performers for the love of self and others what's the difference any more if not just to keep keepin score four and seven years ago where were you when you finally let go in each instant still talking to the walls as flowers bloom outside your window, innit, don't let the beat go on an on an on an on without my banging on my bongos, bongo bongo bong
All these on-the-spot moves grooving to run this town with confident swoops
in hips ripping emotion from the one who felt it n bringing it to transform the state I'm in on a whim
Wham there she goes soft as petals from the man laid out for drama in the landscape gasping through colored fields, spinning webs to gauge the life in your head
Wait where was I ah yea back again with the dance--
Selling the shit out of my fidelity to the moment and nothing but the music control me with your fireworks going off as my belly roars in icy hot pleasure of feeling dropping lower to the floor on hands and knees tumbling around through the leaves of grass on grass growing out our destinies stain me with your making memories please as performers for the love of self and others what's the difference any more if not just to keep keepin score four and seven years ago where were you when you finally let go in each instant still talking to the walls as flowers bloom outside your window, innit, don't let the beat go on an on an on an on without my banging on my bongos, bongo bongo bong
5 Communication Tips to Help You Get What You Want and Change the World! (mayday)
On
Thursday, May 03, 2012
0
comments
We're all just looking for something real. Something to hold on to that won't disappear
disappoint
missing the point
realize what's real must be free
and what's free can't be held on to
not for happiness
at least
It's the holding that saddens,
disappoints
you wrap your fist around it
it feels good in your hand. And while you enjoy the feeling, slowly seeping
the growing in your hand starts ceasing
a story for some...
feeling dirty trying to make a buck off of what i love
so i embrace what i hate to pay for what is my fate
to love in darkness, to light fire to the pure
break down to find an out of the trap of needing a cure
you can't heal what's not there
you can't lose if it's there without a form
but you can change your definitions
keep the structure
fill in the smile behind the destruction
shut your mouth and move me with your body
moving in space
your voice will be in your poise
the authentic you
in the gaze that lasers through my skin
your mind will move me like a mountain
your heart pounding in my head
you move your hands
across all of time and space
I shift
I'll lay with you when you hit the bed
not questioning, or demanding, not needing
not speaking
holding total understanding in the fresh air
radiating
resonating
with you
with they all too
it doesn't matter how beautiful your lens is
how clear the shot
when you can feel the real
coming out at you through the moments
when you can hold the irreal
by acknowledging your existence
in contrast
_______________.
I'll be there with you
spending our time remembering
no
I want to forget and live
forget so that time can't hurt me
you want to let yourself feel again
but it's just easier to
oh these lines fill my head
............................._
cause when the rich are rich, they really are poor
and when you've got too much it'll drive you to the floor
babe I'm tellin' you,
stay hungry too
and I know and I know and I know
the hardest hunger is that which you choose
but here's the silver lining, it's the hardest to lose
and when you hold to that bit of control
and you've got a grip
make sure you stay loose
don't let it slip
disappoint
missing the point
realize what's real must be free
and what's free can't be held on to
not for happiness
at least
It's the holding that saddens,
disappoints
you wrap your fist around it
it feels good in your hand. And while you enjoy the feeling, slowly seeping
the growing in your hand starts ceasing
a story for some...
feeling dirty trying to make a buck off of what i love
so i embrace what i hate to pay for what is my fate
to love in darkness, to light fire to the pure
break down to find an out of the trap of needing a cure
you can't heal what's not there
you can't lose if it's there without a form
but you can change your definitions
keep the structure
fill in the smile behind the destruction
shut your mouth and move me with your body
moving in space
your voice will be in your poise
the authentic you
in the gaze that lasers through my skin
your mind will move me like a mountain
your heart pounding in my head
you move your hands
across all of time and space
I shift
I'll lay with you when you hit the bed
not questioning, or demanding, not needing
not speaking
holding total understanding in the fresh air
radiating
resonating
with you
with they all too
it doesn't matter how beautiful your lens is
how clear the shot
when you can feel the real
coming out at you through the moments
when you can hold the irreal
by acknowledging your existence
in contrast
_______________.
I'll be there with you
spending our time remembering
no
I want to forget and live
forget so that time can't hurt me
you want to let yourself feel again
but it's just easier to
oh these lines fill my head
............................._
cause when the rich are rich, they really are poor
and when you've got too much it'll drive you to the floor
babe I'm tellin' you,
stay hungry too
and I know and I know and I know
the hardest hunger is that which you choose
but here's the silver lining, it's the hardest to lose
and when you hold to that bit of control
and you've got a grip
make sure you stay loose
don't let it slip
