~~~~
Simon & Garfunkel's music is not just heard with the ears but also felt as a wave of sensation flowing through the body. I find the melodies in this song particularly evocative... how such fluidly sensuous music can at the same time convey that quality of a "still life watercolor".
~~~~
If you liked that, you might like this:
The Power To Evoke
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Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Would I Still Exist?
from Leap Before You Look
~~~~
Take some time to reflect: Who have you defined yourself to be?
You can write your answers on paper, or practice with a friend, and ask your friend to makes notes for you.
Now for each of these statements, ask yourself:
~~ If I stopped defining myself in this way, would I still exist?
~~ If I were no longer a plumber, would I still exist?
~~ If I no longer defined myself as intelligent, would I still exist?
~~ If I no longer thought of myself as a father, would I still exist?
Take your time to work through all the labels you have placed upon yourself, and find out if any of them can really define you or contain you.
When all labels have been cast aside, what remains?
~~~~
Some labels are easier to drop than others. Here's a more difficult one:
~~ If I no longer identified myself as a woman or a man, would I still exist?
If your definition of yourself is more conceptual, such as "I am light" or "I am consciousness", then your challenge is:
~~ Would I still exist without this thought, without this concept?
Whether you do this exercise alone or with a friend, you will need some time for it to go deep. When it does, stop and feel your own presence when you have let go of all definitions. Are you still here? Can you still feel, see and hear? Take some time to relax into knowing the face you had before you were born.
We perform myriad roles during our lifetime. Each one may be necessary, even creative or enjoyable, but each can also become a prison if we become completely identified with the role and forget our deeper nature.
~~~~
Related RoadKill Posts:
Leap Before You Look
Who Do You Think You Are?
~~~~
The question of identity depends on what I'm meant to be.
I sometimes think that I'm too many people,
too many people, too many people at once.
~ Pet Shop Boys
~~~~
~~~~
Take some time to reflect: Who have you defined yourself to be?
You can write your answers on paper, or practice with a friend, and ask your friend to makes notes for you.
I'm a plumber.
I'm intelligent.
I'm a father.
I'm uneducated.
I'm a Liberal.
I'm intelligent.
I'm a father.
I'm uneducated.
I'm a Liberal.
Now for each of these statements, ask yourself:
~~ If I stopped defining myself in this way, would I still exist?
~~ If I were no longer a plumber, would I still exist?
~~ If I no longer defined myself as intelligent, would I still exist?
~~ If I no longer thought of myself as a father, would I still exist?
Take your time to work through all the labels you have placed upon yourself, and find out if any of them can really define you or contain you.
When all labels have been cast aside, what remains?
~~~~
Some labels are easier to drop than others. Here's a more difficult one:
~~ If I no longer identified myself as a woman or a man, would I still exist?
If your definition of yourself is more conceptual, such as "I am light" or "I am consciousness", then your challenge is:
~~ Would I still exist without this thought, without this concept?
Whether you do this exercise alone or with a friend, you will need some time for it to go deep. When it does, stop and feel your own presence when you have let go of all definitions. Are you still here? Can you still feel, see and hear? Take some time to relax into knowing the face you had before you were born.
We perform myriad roles during our lifetime. Each one may be necessary, even creative or enjoyable, but each can also become a prison if we become completely identified with the role and forget our deeper nature.
~~~~
Related RoadKill Posts:
Leap Before You Look
Who Do You Think You Are?
~~~~
The question of identity depends on what I'm meant to be.
I sometimes think that I'm too many people,
too many people, too many people at once.
~ Pet Shop Boys
~~~~
Friday, February 25, 2011
Leap Before You Look
~~~~
72 shortcuts for getting out of your mind and into the moment
~~~~
72 shortcuts for getting out of your mind and into the moment
~~~~
Just got this wonderful e-book by Arjuna Ardagh - this is from the introduction:
"In recent years many people just like you
have fallen into the realization of who they are deeper than the mind, a realization of being silence, of being peace, of being infinity... that what they have been seeking outside themselves is actually who they are, and who they were all along. What they have been seeking in fact is the medium, the stillness, in which everything arises. They see that who they are is the silence in which sound is happening, the spaciousness in which movement occurs. This kind of recognition, whether fleeting or abiding, is called an awakening.
"We discover that who we are, who I am, who everyone is, is less of an entity and more of a presence. Not even a presence, but presence itself, with no boundaries, no beginning or end in time. That living presence is empty of form and content but full of love, full of creative intelligence. Presence is that which is aware of all that is changing. In order for a recognition of that latent presence - the silence beneath the noise - to be transformed into a gift and a blessing, practice is needed."
~~~~
What I like about this book is that the author does not talk about presence as just another idea or concept - he offers what he calls "shortcuts", awareness and embodiment exercises that can be done in the midst of ordinary life, that allow you to experience presence directly and immediately. Here's an example from the chapter on Letting Go:
Could You Let It Go?
When caught up in a strong belief,
needing to be liked, to be right about something,
or stuck in a strong emotion, ask yourself,
"Could I, just could I, let it go?"
Could you abandon your position?
Could you open your clenched fist
and allow whatever is held there to drop to the floor?
Are you willing for your position to be defeated,
even when you think that you are right?
When you have no position left,
knowing nothing,
how does the world smell to you now?
This practice is not intended to put you under pressure to let things go. That only creates resistance. The exercise is simply to inquire and evaluate, in a relaxed way, if it is possible to let it go. This discrimination, between what is obligatory and what is optional, is liberation.
Letting go does not happen primarily in the mind - it happens in the body. You do not need to decide to let go; you need only ask yourself if it is possible. In the recognition of this possibility, something happens in the body: a deep sigh, a muscle spasm, or a release of tension you might not have even known was there, and what had seemed to be a prison becomes a choice. There is no need to know where a belief comes from, or to try to change it in any way, or to understand anything at all. It is enough to feel into the essence of any contraction. That alone will release tremendous energy. That very energy becomes awakening and connects us to what is real.
~~~~
The medium is the message.
~ Marshall McLuhan
~~~~
"In recent years many people just like you
have fallen into the realization of who they are deeper than the mind, a realization of being silence, of being peace, of being infinity... that what they have been seeking outside themselves is actually who they are, and who they were all along. What they have been seeking in fact is the medium, the stillness, in which everything arises. They see that who they are is the silence in which sound is happening, the spaciousness in which movement occurs. This kind of recognition, whether fleeting or abiding, is called an awakening."We discover that who we are, who I am, who everyone is, is less of an entity and more of a presence. Not even a presence, but presence itself, with no boundaries, no beginning or end in time. That living presence is empty of form and content but full of love, full of creative intelligence. Presence is that which is aware of all that is changing. In order for a recognition of that latent presence - the silence beneath the noise - to be transformed into a gift and a blessing, practice is needed."
~~~~
What I like about this book is that the author does not talk about presence as just another idea or concept - he offers what he calls "shortcuts", awareness and embodiment exercises that can be done in the midst of ordinary life, that allow you to experience presence directly and immediately. Here's an example from the chapter on Letting Go:
Could You Let It Go?
When caught up in a strong belief,
needing to be liked, to be right about something,
or stuck in a strong emotion, ask yourself,
"Could I, just could I, let it go?"
Could you abandon your position?
Could you open your clenched fist
and allow whatever is held there to drop to the floor?
Are you willing for your position to be defeated,
even when you think that you are right?
When you have no position left,
knowing nothing,
how does the world smell to you now?
This practice is not intended to put you under pressure to let things go. That only creates resistance. The exercise is simply to inquire and evaluate, in a relaxed way, if it is possible to let it go. This discrimination, between what is obligatory and what is optional, is liberation.
Letting go does not happen primarily in the mind - it happens in the body. You do not need to decide to let go; you need only ask yourself if it is possible. In the recognition of this possibility, something happens in the body: a deep sigh, a muscle spasm, or a release of tension you might not have even known was there, and what had seemed to be a prison becomes a choice. There is no need to know where a belief comes from, or to try to change it in any way, or to understand anything at all. It is enough to feel into the essence of any contraction. That alone will release tremendous energy. That very energy becomes awakening and connects us to what is real.
~~~~
The medium is the message.
~ Marshall McLuhan
~~~~
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Think About This: The Joy of Stats
courtesy of EnlightenNext:
The issue of cultural evolution is still a controversial one. Have human beings really evolved in the last several millennia? Pointing to the violence of the two world wars and the environmental destruction caused by industrial civilization, some suggest that humanity has not progressed in the last couple of centuries but may have even stepped backwards.
But statistics tell a different story. At least that's the message of the following clip from a recent BBC show, The Joy of Stats. In it, Professor Hans Rosling charts over a hundred thousand points of data and comes up with a unique presentation that is one of the most inspiring, original, and eye-opening four minutes that we have ever seen.
Pretty neat indeed!
"We have become an entirely new converging world, and I see a clear trend into the future - with aid, trade, green technology and peace, it is fully possible that everyone can make it to the healthy, wealthy corner."
- Hans Rosling
~~~~
The issue of cultural evolution is still a controversial one. Have human beings really evolved in the last several millennia? Pointing to the violence of the two world wars and the environmental destruction caused by industrial civilization, some suggest that humanity has not progressed in the last couple of centuries but may have even stepped backwards.
But statistics tell a different story. At least that's the message of the following clip from a recent BBC show, The Joy of Stats. In it, Professor Hans Rosling charts over a hundred thousand points of data and comes up with a unique presentation that is one of the most inspiring, original, and eye-opening four minutes that we have ever seen.
Pretty neat indeed!
"We have become an entirely new converging world, and I see a clear trend into the future - with aid, trade, green technology and peace, it is fully possible that everyone can make it to the healthy, wealthy corner."
- Hans Rosling
~~~~
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Who is the Victor?
You may have thought mime was silly and harmless, but think again.
Just Don't Mime
~~~~
Just Don't Mime
~~~~
Dawkins on Immortality
~~~~
Many religions teach the objectively implausible but subjectively appealing doctrine that our personalities survive our bodily death. The idea of immortality itself survives and spreads because it caters to wishful thinking. And wishful thinking counts, because human psychology has a near-universal tendency to let belief be colored by desire.
~~~~
Richard Dawkins; The GOD Delusion
~~~~
Many religions teach the objectively implausible but subjectively appealing doctrine that our personalities survive our bodily death. The idea of immortality itself survives and spreads because it caters to wishful thinking. And wishful thinking counts, because human psychology has a near-universal tendency to let belief be colored by desire.
~~~~
Richard Dawkins; The GOD Delusion
~~~~
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The Power of Gentleness
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
~ Leo Buscaglia
~~~~
Monday, February 14, 2011
Upstream/Downstream
~~~~
A Contemporary Fable
~~~~
It was many years ago that the villagers of Downstream recall spotting the first body in the river. Some old timers remember how Spartan were the facilities and procedures for managing that sort of thing. Sometimes, they say, it would take hours to pull ten people from the river, and even then only a few would survive.
Though the number of victims in the river has increased greatly in recent years, the good folks of Downstream have responded admirably to the challenge. Their rescue system is second to none: most people discovered in the swirling waters are reached within 20 minutes - many in less than 10. Only a small number drown each day before help arrives - a big improvement from the way it used to be.
The people of Downstream speak with pride about the new hospital by the edge of the waters, the flotilla of rescue boats ready for service at a moment's notice, the comprehensive health plans for coordinating all the manpower involved, and the large numbers of highly trained and dedicated swimmers always ready to risk their lives to save victims from the raging currents. Sure it costs a lot but, say the Downstreamers, what else can decent people do except to provide whatever is necessary when human lives are at stake.
Oh, a few people in Downstream have raised the question now and again, but most folks show little interest in what's happening Upstream. It seems there's so much to do to help those in the river that nobody's got time to check how all those bodies are getting there in the first place.
That's the way things are, sometimes.
~~~~
Donald Ardell:
High Level Wellness: An Alternative to Doctors, Drugs and Disease
~~~~
A Contemporary Fable
~~~~
It was many years ago that the villagers of Downstream recall spotting the first body in the river. Some old timers remember how Spartan were the facilities and procedures for managing that sort of thing. Sometimes, they say, it would take hours to pull ten people from the river, and even then only a few would survive.
Though the number of victims in the river has increased greatly in recent years, the good folks of Downstream have responded admirably to the challenge. Their rescue system is second to none: most people discovered in the swirling waters are reached within 20 minutes - many in less than 10. Only a small number drown each day before help arrives - a big improvement from the way it used to be.
The people of Downstream speak with pride about the new hospital by the edge of the waters, the flotilla of rescue boats ready for service at a moment's notice, the comprehensive health plans for coordinating all the manpower involved, and the large numbers of highly trained and dedicated swimmers always ready to risk their lives to save victims from the raging currents. Sure it costs a lot but, say the Downstreamers, what else can decent people do except to provide whatever is necessary when human lives are at stake.
Oh, a few people in Downstream have raised the question now and again, but most folks show little interest in what's happening Upstream. It seems there's so much to do to help those in the river that nobody's got time to check how all those bodies are getting there in the first place.
That's the way things are, sometimes.
~~~~
Donald Ardell:
High Level Wellness: An Alternative to Doctors, Drugs and Disease
~~~~
Friday, February 4, 2011
Who Cares?
~~~~
Richard Dawkins (The GOD Delusion) musing on how polytheistic cultures manage to keep track of "who's who":
~~~~
Richard Dawkins (The GOD Delusion) musing on how polytheistic cultures manage to keep track of "who's who":
Who cares? Life is too short to bother with the distinction between one figment of the imagination and many.Just started the book and I like this guy already. May not agree with everything he says but it's a fresh and fun read so far and I like the fact that he's unapologetic about his opinions. Most of my friends are like that too. Coincidence? I think not.
~~~~
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