What is it to be fully and positively human?

Introduction to – ‘1000 WAYS OF CELEBRATING THE HUMAN SPIRIT’

NB – All newest posts are below this fixed  ‘Intro’.  Use SEARCH for the subjects you are interested in.

.‘Animated’ racehorse by photographer Eadweard Muybridge -  Source WikiPedia

Celebrating the human spirit is positive, and anyway it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

In celebrating the human spirit we can also enjoy humour that is made possible from our foolish ways. Humour is a balm and gives us experience and healing that’s a bit like art or true spirituality.

What matters is whether we are fair, kind, creative, truth-telling and wise. Personally I don’t care whether a person is an atheist or religious.  What good things they produce is what matters.

Why 1000 ways?  Well there are many paths to the top of a mountain, but only one summit.

We either believe in a unitive force behind the universe, of which we are all one infinitesimal part, or we believe that chaos reigns supreme.  It doesn’t matter what we believe – what matters is what we do with what we believe.

We are what we think.  All that we are arises with our thoughts.  With our thoughts, we make our world.  (Buddha)

4th July 2009

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See HERE for ‘My other sites and their connections!‘

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INTRODUCTION:

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” – Aristotle, in The Metaphysics.

Celebrating the good things about the human spirit is positive – at the very least it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness!

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I have found no better representation of my combined interests – Art: Science: Education: Photography etc – than Muybridge’s magnificent horse ‘animation’  .    I reflect on it HERE.

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In celebrating the human spirit we can also enjoy humour, made possible from our ‘foolish ways’. Humour is a balm that gives us experience and healing that’s a bit like art, or true spirituality, or carnivals.  Why does you work?  It release stress – and makes us whole again.

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What matters most is whether we are fair, kind, creative, truth-telling and wise.  Such virtues define the depth of our humanity, regardless of belief systems.

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Personally therefore I don’t care whether a person is an atheist or a religionist.  What ‘good things’ each person produces is what matters.  Regrettably many religions and belief systems don’t lead to light and love because they are corrupted with hypocrisy, manipulation and fundamentalism and a host of such curses.  The best of religion is however love and light – you’ll find it beneath the dung-heap of man-made distortions!

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Why 1000 ways?  Well there are many paths to the top of a mountain – but only one summit.

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We either believe in a unitive force behind the universe, of which we are all one infinitesimal part, or we believe that chaos reigns supreme.  It doesn’t matter what we believe – what matters is what we do with what we believe.

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WHAT ARE WE?

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“We are what we think.  All that we are arises with our thoughts.  With our thoughts, we make our world”. – Buddha

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We are a manifestation of energy – or if you prefer we are each a large bunch of atoms through which the life-force flows.

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See HERE for ‘My sites and their connections!’

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Updated 20th Aug 2009 – NB – All the newest posts are below this continuously evolving ‘Introduction’

What is our Dual Allegiance?

I had the temerity to put two of my photographs with a sublime piece of writing by A J Heschel:

The search for reason ends at the shore of the known;
on the immense expanse beyond it
only the sense of the ineffable can glide.
It alone knows the route to that
which is remote from experience and understanding.

Neither is amphibious:
reason cannot go beyond the shore,
and the sense of the ineffable
is out of place where we measure, where we weigh…….

Click separately to enlarge…

Citizens of two realms, we must all sustain dual allegiance:

we sense the ineffable in one realm;
we name and exploit reality in another.

Between the two we set up a system of references,
but can never fill the gap.
They are as far and as close to each other as time and calendar, as violin and melody,
as life and what lies beyond the last breath.

The tangible phenomena we scrutinize with our reason,
The sacred and indemonstrable we overhear with the sense of the ineffable.

Heschel A. J. (1971), Man is Not Alone, New York: Octagon Books p.8

New slant on having, knowing, being and doing

It’s always great when a new idea bursts in your mind – or simply a new slant that puts in focused place long-held but vaguer ideas.

 

This for me was such an idea;

 

‘What you do is what you you’ve got’.

 

It came from here;

 

 

 

With Eckhart Tolle however I would say that having, knowing, being and doing have more than complex interactions, they have the context of silence – from which their truths arise.

 

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True achievement, success and happiness lie in being fully and positively human -

through our caring our creativity and our criticality –

developed via service to the communities to which we belong.

All postings to this site relate to the central model in the

PhD. Summaries are HERE

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On this site there are 1000+ ideas that you can put to work straight away.

“Why not use the SEARCH, CATGORIES or INDEX to find the ideas for you?”

What’s the difference between spirituality and religion?

What's the difference between spirituality and religion?

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How do you answer the question above?

Below is how far I have got with this issue.

Spirituality is how we relate to the unknown and unknowable – to Ultimate reality – and the meaning and motivation we derive therefrom.

Our worldview, as a consequence, is how we ‘read’ the world. Our worldview includes that of which are conscious, plus that which derives from enculturation.  Becoming more fully conscious of Oneness, and acting accordingly, is our purpose.

Religion is the agreed set of relationships, teachings and customs held in common with any religious group of which one has membership.

Progress in spirituality is measured by regularly bringing oneself to account – in relation to the standards of your spirituality, world-view and religious group/s (if any).

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Etymological issues:

The English word “religion” is derived from the Middle English “religioun” which came from the Old French “religion.” It may have been originally derived from the Latin word “religo” which means “good faith,” “ritual,” and other similar meanings. Or it may have come from the Latin “religãre” which means “to tie fast.”

Doing your own research:

A very good starting point is provided by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance.  See HERE

The definitions I like best from this source are;

George Hegel: “the knowledge possessed by the finite mind of its nature as absolute mind.”

Paul Tillich: “Religious is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern”

Others are;

The Religious Tolerance group tell us that David Carpenter has collected and published a list of definitions of religion, including:

Anthony Wallace: “a set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformations of state in man or nature.”

Hall, Pilgrim, and Cavanagh: “Religion is the varied, symbolic expression of, and appropriate response to that which people deliberately affirm as being of unrestricted value for them.”

Karl Marx: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

Don Swenson defines religion in terms of the sacred: “Religion is the individual and social experience of the sacred that is manifested in mythologies, ritual, ethos, and integrated into a collective or organization.”

Paul Connelly also defines religion in terms of the sacred and the spiritual: “Religion originates in an attempt to represent and order beliefs, feelings, imaginings and actions that arise in response to direct experience of  the sacred and the spiritual. As this attempt expands in its formulation and elaboration, it becomes a process that creates meaning for itself on a sustaining basis, in terms of both its originating experiences and its own continuing responses.”

He defines sacred as: “The sacred is a mysterious manifestation of power and presence that is experienced as both primordial & transformative, inspiring awe & rapt attention. This is usually an event that represents a break or discontinuity from the ordinary, forcing a re-establishment or recalibration of perspective on the part of the experiencer, but it may also be something seemingly ordinary, repeated exposure to which gradually produces a perception of mysteriously cumulative significance out of proportion to the significance originally invested in it.”

He further defines the spiritual as: “The spiritual is a perception of the commonality of mindfulness in the world that shifts the boundaries between self and other, producing a sense of the union of purposes of self and other in confronting the existential questions of life, and providing a mediation of the challenge-response interaction between self and other, one and many, that underlies existential questions.”

My final question – “Why are there so many religious intolerance groups?”

To read the full article by the Religious Tolerance group go HERE

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True achievement, success and happiness lie in being fully and positively human –

through our caring our creativity and our criticality –

developed via service to the communities to which we belong.

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All postings to this site relate to the central model in the

PhD. Summaries are HERE

An open letter to all who recognize Oneness

 

Dear Fellow Travellers

 

1) Like your lives my life, (in a modest way), has (for the last 45 years), been dedicated to;

 

‘the advancement of education in the consideration of the basic unity of all religions, in particular by the provision of courses to provide an understanding of the relationship of man to the universe, the earth, the environment and the society he lives in, to Reality and to God.’

 

and right now the global and local opportunities, and dangers, strike me as unparalleled.

 

2) The great challenge seems to me to concern ‘the how’ of getting wider acceptance of Oneness and oneness as in Perennial Philosophy and the The Golden Rule – raised consciousness that will positively affect decision-making in all of the vital arenas of human concern.

 

3) A great shift in consciousness is taking place.

 

The great shift in consciousness is evidenced by two events.

Firstly in just the last few years what was esoteric is now open and freely available to to all.

 

Secondly millions are responding – in some way shape or form.

 

I have in mind especially the work of Ken Wilber, Karen Armstrong and most recently Eckhart Tolle.

 

Tolle’s writing is highly accessible – in the UK most Sun and Daily Mirror readers could handle it.

 

Of course functional literacy and level of consciousness and not directly correlated! But eleven million had by Week 3 tuned in to Tolle’s course run by Oprah Winfrey – see HERE

 

….. Oprah went further with Eckhart Tolle than she has ever gone with a previous author picked for her book club. She chose to present, with Tolle, a 10-week series of “webinars” – online seminars – with one chapter of the book (which she puts on the bedside table of all of her guest rooms) discussed each week. In the first webinar, transmitted on 3 March, Tolle led Winfrey and the millions of viewers who logged on in several different countries in silent meditation; viewers were then encouraged to submit questions to Tolle via Skype. By the third week, 11 million people were logging on.

 

This surely has no parallel in the whole of humankind’s spiritual history. The course is HERE

 

Not only are ‘the books open’ but there is more than Maslow’s 2% willing a new earth.

 

The question is how can their energy be harnessed and focused for the common good – or do we have to wait until the first nuclear war, simply because those who ‘know’ can’t find ways and means to influence those who actually ‘do the doing’ and make our world as it is.

 

4) We need to be thinking ‘outside of the box’. The old ways may not be sufficient. Keeping the candles of light and hope and truth is something that the precious few have done down through the ages, but now the challenge is to shift up to a larger stage.

 

For example inter-faith dialogue may well be effete (and for some cunning PR) compared to the people who really operate at the ‘hot interfaces’ – e. g. diplomats and business-people.

 

5) Absorbing and responding to this fact seems to me to be the challenge that might bring forth balm for suffering being borne by untold millions.

 

A sufficient proportion of America has said ‘Yes we can’ but even more critical than the decisions Obama will be making over the next 4 or 8 years is how can the light of Oneness be brought into the darkened hearts of religious haters and racists. That Oneness is the Tipping Point. The

‘tipping-point’ is realization of that Oneness – and it needs more than abstract assent.

 

6) My personal experience has led me to realize that individuals need something real and living and breathing through which to connect with ‘foreign’ wisdom traditions.

 

I believed in the oneness of religions long before I came across

a) Jane Clark’s article on Ibn al-Arabi – which created for me a living connection to Islam – and

b) the Bhagavad Gita Chanted in English HERE using a text of the Bhagavad Gita in English HERE

NB Try listening to the chanting whilst reading the text – wonderful! – transporting!

These gave me a living connection to Hinduism.

 

7) Starting points:

 

Perhaps looking very closely and deeply at ‘reverse fundamentalism’ is the way to generate programmes of positive action.

 

Karen Armstrong as you probably know is being given the opportunity to raise up the principle of the Golden Rule via her ‘Charter for Compassion’ campaign see HERE

 

Perhaps making celebratory programmes free to all on the internet…..

 

Perhaps Golden Rule materials free online for Heads and school…….

 

Perennial philosophy and the ‘federal’ Golden Rule – the ‘world language’ to be taught, in addition to their own religions, so that all can communicate with those of other faiths ……

 

What do you think?

 

We who have striven to keep the candles alight have to contribute to ways and means of reaching a sufficiently wider audience to get established some of the foundations for a new earth.

 

All blessings on the further development of your work.

 

Roger

Ten ways to bridge and transcend racial and religious hatred

 

 

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The campaign Charter for Compassion are asking for contributions for the final charter.  Here is my first draft contribution;

Compassion and Peace: ten ways to bridge and transcend racial and religious hatred

 

1 See the Golden Rule as the equivalent to a language in addition to your own – “My ‘mother tongue’ is Islam/Christianity/Buddhism etc but I also speak ‘the Golden Rule’ – so that I can be a sister/brother to peoples of all religions and none.

 

2 Implore people like Barack Obama to spend money on deepening cultural understanding – say 10% of the military budget switched to Arabic/Islamic, Chinese and Russian studies. Generate an ‘open data-base’ of experience learned.

 

3 Encourage all countries to massively increase exchange programmes.  Send everyone with a ‘We’ve got these problems how are my host country dealing with them’ pack – and require a thorrough de-briefing upon return to home country – we must see that the most important problems are held in common, and that we must pool answers.

 

4 Use the knowledge as a data-base for university and school respect for other cultures courses – instead of allowing our societies to continue falsely claiming that the mad fundamentalist minority = the reality of the whole communuity.

 

5 Get celebrity goodwill ambassadors for the GR – include business people , they have more interchange with ‘foreigners’ than any other group.  Get pop groups talking and singing about it.

 

Get Barack Obama talking about it – and Nels Mandela, and Archbishop Tutu etc.

 

6 Start teaching the Golden Rule – one school at a time – everywhere.

 

7 Generate badges, widgets and bling for websites, windows, clothing that conveys messages such as – ‘I speak oneness and diversity’. ‘We support the GR’, etc (Get some adverstising agencies working on it).

 

8 Support studies of fundamentalism – focus on ways and means antidotes and prophylactics.  The best writers on fundamentalism may not be in obvious academic fields – the best I have found is 

 

9 Look for ‘out of the box’ solutions such as brilliant comedians such as Omid Djalili and Shazia Mirza.

If you don’t like strong comedy don’t go – but I suspect that Omid, and the others have ‘lanced more religious boils’ for the general population than all of the politicians and academics put put together!

 

10 Support ways and means for deeper applications of the Golden Rule – we need courses from nursery to university epecially based on the brilliant writings and work of a) Eckhart Tolle, b) Ken Wilber and c) Karen Armstrong.

Eckhart Tolle article HERE

Happiness as nowness: 31 inspirational quotations for December

 

Do photographs live in the now? If so how - where and when and with whom?

My chosen favorite quotations for December and mainly about enlightenment, ‘now’ and the importance of living in the now.  They are not by Eckhart Tolle – but by an extraordinary variety of writers, even though Tolle is the outstanding teacher about now-ness.   My thanks espcially to two of the very best sources of quotations online WisdomQuotes and the Quote Garden

 

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RUMI

1 Into my heart’s night / Along a narrow way / I groped; and lo! the light,……. – Rubaiyat of Rumi

 

ANON

2 Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. – Anon (?)

 

VIKTOR FRANKL

3 “The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” — Victor Frankl

 

W.B. YEATS

4 “Man can embody the truth but he cannot know it.” – W.B. Yeats

 

MARK TWAIN

5 ‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.’ Mark Twain

 

BUDDHA

6 “Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.” (Buddha)

 

SENECA

7 “The greatest remedy for anger is delay.” (Seneca)

 

KEVIN KELLY

8 There is only One machine.

The web is its OS.

All screens look into the One.

No bits will live outside the web.

To share is to gain.

Let the One read it.

The One is us.

Kevin Kelly (see YouTube)

 

KAREN ARMSTRONG

9 “Like poetry, religion is an attempt to express the inexpressible.” – Karen Armstrong

 

M SCOTT PECK

10 Love = “The willingness to extend myself for the spiritual growth of myself or another”. (From “The Road Less Travelled”).

 

ANON and ECKHART TOLLE

11 The voice of God is silence

 

ANON and GHANDI

12  He/She/It has no religion.

 

ANAIS NIN:

13 The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.

 

ANAIS NIN:

14 We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.

 

ANNE FRANK:

15 How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

 

ARTHUR MILLER:

16 The word now is like a bomb through the window, and it ticks.

 

BRENDA PETERSON:

17 The Hopi Indians of Arizona believe that our daily rituals and prayers literally keep this world spinning on its axis. For me, feeding the seagulls is one of those everyday prayers.

 

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN:

18 Eternity is not something that begins after you are dead. It is going on all the time. We are in it now.

 

CORITA KENT:

19 Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed.

 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING:

20 Light tomorrow with today!

 

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:

21 Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies. 

And be it gash or gold it will not come 

Again in this identical guise.

 

HENRY FORD:

22 History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.

 

HUGH PRATHER:

23 To live for results would be to sentence myself to continuous frustration. My only sure reward is in my actions and not from them.

 

THICH NHAT HANH:

24 Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life..

 

JOANNA RUSS:

25 Faith is not contrary to the usual ideas, something that turns out to be right or wrong, like a gambler’s bet: it’s an act, an intention, a project, something that makes you, in leaping into the future, go so far, far, far ahead that you shoot clean out of time and right into Eternity, which is not the end of time or a whole lot of time or unending time, but timelessness, the old Eternal Now.

 

KALIDASA:

26 Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!

Look to this Day!

For it is Life, the very Life of Life.

In its brief course lie all the 

Verities and Realities of your Existence.

The Bliss of Growth,

The Glory of Action,

The Splendor of Beauty;

For Yesterday is but a Dream,

And To-morrow is only a Vision;

But To-day well lived makes 

Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,

And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.

Look well therefore to this Day!

Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!

 

MARGARET BONNANO:

27 It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis.

 

MATTHEW ARNOLD:

28 Is it so small a thing 

To have enjoy’d the sun, 

To have lived light in the spring, 

To have loved, to have thought, to have done…

 

PEMA CHODRON:

29 Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future. In other words, if we’re going to be more cheerful in the future, it’s because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.

 

ROBERT FROST:

30 Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON:

31 The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.

Set your goals to motivate your success – through ’singing’ your ‘uni-verse’

In my work as a life-coach I lead people to develop and focus their life-force so that they can get from where they are at, to where they want to be.

Getting in tune with your self and your life’s purpose is central to such achievement and success.

Getting in tune with you self and your life’s purpose is a matter of harmonization – of vision, goals, plans and action  and of head, heart and circumstances.

To ’sing one’s song’ is a metaphor for finding and staying tuned with your life’s purpose.

Harmonization is also a matter of getting in touch with our inner wisdom.  Chinese wisdom places great emphasis on harmony.  Inner and outer harmony are both important.

Outer harmony depends on inner harmony.
Inner harmony depends on being, doing and having in relation to our life purpose – i.e. getting alignment.

We need to get alignment between head and heart, and between the activities of our inner and outer lives. Then we get ‘flow’ – when we are able to function in energized harmony – like an athlete ‘in the zone’.

Episodes of silence are vital.

If we are in a situation we don’t see as getting us toward our dream then ’see it differently’ – that is see it as a stepping stone, as opposed to a mill-stone!

Decide on your life’s purpose – don’t worry it will evolve via experience – and further reflection.

Locating, tuning and singing your ’song’ also requires a sufficiency of silence and experiences of living in the now – see my Eckhart Tolle articles and better still read and listen to Eckhart Tolle.

Just DECIDE and START!   (‘Ready. Fire. Aim!)

Set your goals – and work your goals day by day.  How? – here’s one way great way.

For every day draw 4 circles.

1st circle =   My Lifelong Dream,

2nd circle  = My Year,

3rd circle  =  My month,

4th circle =   My day.

Keep the 4 circles of your personal universe in harmony via working to your daily goal-setting.

The ‘universe’ as Wayne Dyer reminds us means ‘one song’.

Live your life singing your single, harmonised, song and you will succeed.

Harmony here is what enables us to be focused, and motivated.

Plan and work every day to achieve toward your monthly goals – etc.

Periodically adjust them all according to each other, so you have the motivation of always operating in a single, harmonized universe.

Keep the dream sharply visualized.

Don’t be afraid of adjustments – think of life as a ship’s journey – course corrections are inevitable and necessary.

Occasionally remind yourself of these two quotations;

1 “If you don’t think about the future, you won’t have one.” Henry Ford

2 “The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke’s statement takes us even deeper by telling us that we create our future by what we are.

Balance doing, knowing and having with being.  The current master of ‘being’ is – Eckhart Tolle.

If you don’t plan your journey don’t be surprised if you end up somewhere you don’t want to be!

Have fun singing your song – literally as well as metaphorically.

Keep the dream – even if a ‘credit crunch’ means you have to do stuff that is a temporary delay.

Sometimes just surviving is the biggest step you can make that particular day – but that day in the future will be seen as being just as important – because you didn’t give up!

Survival is sometimes progress.

Sometimes survival is the best singing of your song possible on that particular day.  It’s still worth celebrating – you can’t sing at your own wake!

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I once used What’ll we do with a drunken sailor as a class song but be careful, a full rendition of all verses would remove all desire to go on living!  Others might be shocked as to how brutal was the British Navy of that time.

What’ll we do with a drunken sailor,
What’ll we do with a drunken sailor,
What’ll we do with a drunken sailor,
Earl-aye in the morning?

Chorus:
Way hay and up she rises
Patent blocks o’ diff’rent sizes,
Way hay and up she rises
Earl-aye in the morning

1. Sling him in the long boat till he’s sober,
2. Keep him there and make ‘im bale ‘er.
3. Pull out the plug and wet him all over,
4. Take ‘im and shake ‘im, try an’ wake ‘im.
5. Trice him up in a runnin’ bowline.
6. Give ‘im a taste of the bosun’s rope-end.
7. Give ‘im a dose of salt and water.
8. Stick on ‘is back a mustard plaster.
9. Shave his belly with a rusty razor.
10. Send him up the crow’s nest till he falls down,
11. Tie him to the taffrail when she’s yardarm under,
12. Put him in the scuppers with a hose-pipe on him.
13. Soak ‘im in oil till he sprouts flippers.
14. Put him in the guard room till he’s sober.
15. Put him in bed with the captain’s daughter*).
16. Take the Baby and call it Bo’sun.
17. Turn him over and drive him windward.
18. Put him in the scuffs until the horse bites on him.
19. Heave him by the leg and with a rung console him.
20. That’s what we’ll do with the drunken sailor. Source

You won’t believe the background to this song see WikiPedia HERE

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NB This article was inspired by Steve Chandler’s brilliant ‘100 Ways to Motivate Yourself’, one of my Top 10 Personal Development texts.

Back to the Eckhart Tolle discussion – intellectuality & the mind are as spiritual as prayer & meditation

In the context of discussion with contributor ‘Patrick’ I offer a contribution to the issues I raised concerning the brilliant Eckhart Tolle. I do this via a beautiful poem that describes, with exquisite simplicity, the mystical experience of non-duality, or oneness. The poem is by the renowned Chinese poet Li Po;

The birds have vanished into the sky,

and now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountains and me,

until only the mountains remain.

Li Po (701-762)

IMHO

1 Clearly for Li Po there was, to start with, on that occasion, duality.

2 I’m assuming that Li Po returned from non-duality, back in to duality – unless he sat there until his bones turned to dust.  I assume he returned in order to do the laundry, chop wood, carry water.  Of course he would now do them on the bed-rock of enhanced consciousness derived from his mystical/aesthetic experience of non-duality.  Both wings of being human would be beating – as he scrubbed and carried and chopped. Enlightenment is now – if we let it.

In this world – the contingent world, the world of duality, the ‘Kingdom of Names’ – the complementarity of duality and non-duality is the key. Duality is not a curse, or a failing. When in dynamic inter-relation with non-dual experience it is heaven and perfection. Without non-dual experience it is hell, including the hell of relativity. The purpose of life is not just transcendence and timelessness – it is also immanence and being in time, moment by moment. Complementarity is the key.

3 The non-duality or mystic state is the same as the state of creativity (or the truly aesthetic experience).  We are ‘taken out of ourselves’ as we say in modern parlance.  Art  and ‘religion’ are not similar, they are the same – as Coomaraswami says.  It is the forgetting of self, a loss of ego boundaries, a letting go and letting God etc.  But the artist as well as the mystic comes out of the non-dual state back into the dual state. – and s/he becomes someone who lives with what s/he has created. What s/he has produced might even be a bit of a shock – a bit like the dumb panda who jumps when she sees that something is moving on the floor beneath her i.e the cub to which she has just given birth.  The artist becomes nurturer/appreciator/critic – more or less. They in duality are the left-brain evaluator (criticality mode) to complement their non-dual right-brain creativity mode. Complementarity is the key. One mode, and only one mode is in the foreground at any one time. Duration is from milliseconds to hours in the case of non-duality.

4 The question is are both states normal, desirable and, if the term is acceptable, God-given, i.e. both part of the life’s teaching-machine from which we are supposed to learn.  Or is one state bad, immature, to be got rid of, so that we can be non-dual 24/7?

5 Intellectuality is not the same as intellectualism, just as individuality is not the same as individualism.  In both cases the first is normal, healthy, proper, desirable.  In both cases the second is excessive, unbalanced, undesirable and pathological.  The same difference incidentally exists between sexuality and sexual-obsession. Tolle IMHO makes the mistake of not distinguishing between ego and the egotistic. He also can give the impression that he is trying to invalidate mind per se instead of distinguishing between true mind and the neurotic egotistical mind, trapped as it is by attachment.

Awareness, raised consciousness, is true mind. True mind is ‘xin’ heart-mind, interiority bathed in the light of the intellect and the warmth of true love, without attachment to forms – derived from the complementarity of the modes of duality and non-duality. ‘Without attachment to forms’ doesn’t mean without love of forms. Forms are the means (the only means) by which we can come to understand the essentiality of formlessness.

True love as Tolle says is realization of oneness – complementary to which is the glory of diversity.

God loves our celebrating diversity with Him as much as wanting us to realize oneness.

The one who is awakened is a one as well as a not-one – the Buddha was not non-Buddha – at least as a gateway, a pointer.

Spirituality or transcendence or consciousness is not increased by a diminution of intelligence, or more correctly a diminution of intellectuality. The intellect as enlightened heart-mind is the human spirit. Enlightenment comes from realization of the true Self, as opposed to self, that is the eternal. Unlimited Whole, the Silent One, God the Father, God without Name, the Nameless One etc.

Complementarity is the key. Yin is lovely only in the balanced presence of yang – and vice-versa.

6 ‘Before all else, God created the mind.’ (Koranic tradition)  The intellect is the supreme gift of God to man, the pinnacle of the way in which we are made in His image – providing we realize that all rivers flow back to the one Ocean, from which those parts also have their origin. Complementarity is the key.

7 The fear and misunderstanding of the term ego. The ego is simply the part of the self – the dimension or mode – that deals with immediate reality. As such it is neutral – like the heart or lungs or kidney. Whether it is healthy or diseased – now that is a different matter. The ego is as much part of the enlightened one as with the crass self-obsessive.

God celebrates His Creativity in the uniqueness of me, as well as in His Creation of our species.

We believe what we believe – some we choose to believe, some is ingrained.

The happiest of worlds is one where we can believe different things without feeling an obligation to kill each other! Complementarity is the key.

The ultimate sickness is to know who you are through knowing who you hate.

Enough

Namaste!

Don’t forget the chocolate Mr Eckhart Tolle – enlightenment and wood-chopping, awe and concepts, the Whole and the parts.l

Light is light in whatever lamp it shines

“Concepts are delicious snacks with which we try to alleviate our amazement.” – A J Heschel

Yesterday I wrote a short open letter of questions to Eckhart Tolle.

I also wrote a short introduction to the Dictionary of Concepts in development on a sister site allied to this one.  The latter in part answers the questions.   The introduction to the Dictionary reads;

Everything here on this site, and its allied sites, is about how we have to balance the myriad parts of life, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the Whole – from which everything emanates, including us.

The 1000+ ways or categories are also concepts, and HERE the concepts are gathered as a Dictionary

But our interest in concepts needs to be balanced with interest in the Whole from which all things emanate and take form, and to which they return – in the formless and infinite.

The Whole is nameless because it cannot be conceptualized.  In terms of our experience we can briefly lose ourselves in the non-duality of the infinite Whole.  This is beyond the logic-chopping of religions (and the illogic-chopping!) .  ‘God has no religion’.  God is no-thing.  We can only point – and be silent.  Silence is the language of God.

On the site there is a place you can go, to take you beyond concepts HERE.  Let the few words dissolve as you realize the oneness of the light, and the silence that, embraces others all around the globe, who also rest right now, in the now, and the silence – and let go their egoic forms.

The greatest need humanity has is for all peoples to realize that they are the cells of a single body. That realization comes as we learn to live in the now, and the silence beyond all concepts – that is to feel the Whole.  This has been the mystic teaching, the perennial philosophy, to be found at the heart of all of the world’s wisdom traditions – but so often obscured by the dust of human egotism.

But for those who love chocolate, and beautiful landscapes, and sailing and beautiful bodies we have, during our time in this world, to fly with the wing of ‘duality’ - as well as our experiences of non-duality.  After enlightenment the comes the water carrying and wood chopping.  After the water carrying and wood chopping – enlightenment.  The two are complementaries – at least in this world.  Hooray!   Hallelujah!  Amen!  Om!  Pass the chocolate!

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GIF by candleworld

The Credit Crunch and Managing Motivation: goal-set to motivate your success through ’singing’ your ‘uni-verse’

In my work as a life-coach I energize people to get from where they are at, to where they want to be.

Getting in tune with your self and your life’s purpose is central to such achievement and success.  Getting in tune with you self and your life’s purpose is a matter of harmonization.

Chinese wisdom places great emphasis on harmony.  Inner and outer harmony are both important.

Outer harmony depends on inner harmony.

Inner harmony depends on being, doing and having in relation to our life purpose – i.e. getting alignment.

We need to get alignment between head and heart, and between the activities of our inner and outer lives. Then we get ‘flow’ – when we are able to function in energized harmony – like an athlete ‘in the zone’. Episodes of silence are vital.

If we are in a situation we don’t see as getting us toward our dream then ’see it differently’ – that is see it as a stepping stone, as opposed to a mill-stone!

Decide on your life’s purpose – don’t worry it will evolve via experience – and further reflection.

Just DECIDE and START!   (‘Ready. Fire. Aim!)

Set your goals – and work your goals day by day.  How? – here’s one way great way.

For every day draw 4 circles.
1st circle =   My Lifelong Dream,
2nd circle  = My Year,
3rd circle  =  My month,
4th circle =   My day.

Keep the 4 circles of your personal universe in harmony via working to your daily goal-setting.

The ‘universe’ as Wayne Dyer reminds us means ‘one song’.

Live your life singing your single, harmonised, song and you will succeed.

Harmony here is what enables us to be focused, and motivated.

Plan and work every day to achieve toward your monthly goals – etc.

Periodically adjust them all according to each other, so you have the motivation of always operating in a single, harmonized universe.

Keep the dream sharply visualized.

Don’t be afraid of adjustments – think of life as a ship’s journey – course corrections are inevitable and necessary.

Occasionally remind yourself of these two quotations;

1 “If you don’t think about the future, you won’t have one.” Henry Ford

2 “The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.”  – Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke’s statement takes us even deeper by telling us that we create our future by what we are.  The current master of ‘being’ is Eckhart Tolle.

Have fun singing your song.  Keep the dream – even if a ‘credit crunch’ means you have to do stuff that is a temporary delay.

Sometimes just surviving is the biggest step you can make that particular day – but that day in the future will be seen as being just as important – because you didn’t give up!

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NB This article was inspired by Steve Chandler’s brilliant ‘100 Ways to Motivate Yourself’, one of my Top 10 Personal Development texts.

Twenty things to remember about Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle

Ten things to remember about Eckhart Tolle.

What isn’t Eckhart Tolle saying and doing?

He has impacted on my life as he has on millions of others.  In addition to his general spiritual illumination of our lives and of reality I am interested in how he can illumine specialist areas of life including teaching, parenting and management.  However this first post is an attempt to separate what he is doing and saying from what he isn’t.  Why?  Well take a look at the cistern of hate and mis-representation that has poured out from ‘Christians’ and others on YouTube and elsewhere.

1 He is not a religionist.

2 He has not started a religion.

3 He is not speaking from the point of view of inter-faith but meta-faith or pan-faith and beyond.

4 He doesn’t speak from within a religion, or about others’ religious beliefs.

5 He avoids religion, and thereby teaches the purest heart of religion.

6 His life has been in three stages.

7 Before the age of 29, there was extensive ‘dark-night-of-the soul’ experience.

8 At the age of 29 he had a transformative experience.

9 The subsequent 35 years, his life’s work, has simply been a commentary on that transformative experience.

10 The 35 years is itself split into two phases, the first of which was 30 years processing the experience – via reflection, study and articulation.

11 The writing of his few books, has been over the last half decade, and the meteoric rise in their and his popularity over just the last year or two.

12 He is a Universalist, and one who most of the time avoids the trigger words that set off fundamentalists and ‘exclusivists’ and other professional haters. (That hasn’t stopped a rag-bag of fundamentalists and ‘exclusivists’ and other professional haters from attacking him, especially since Oprah gave him a platform!)

13 He is existentialist by tone and direction.

14 He is not a theologian (thank God), but he is closest theologically to panENtheism.

15 He avoids scholarship (thank God) as one of many ego-traps that potentially ensnare any of us.

16 He is quintessentially the doer as opposed to the talker – but via talking about non-talking and non-duality!

17 He is quintessentially a Universalist.

18 He is directly in the tradition(s) of all of the great mystics.

19

20

I haven’t decided on the 18th and 19th – which ones would you add to the list?

The WikiPedia entry on Tolle is a good place to start if you want to know more about him.

Photo source Flickr

The Whole and the Parts – a personal view updated

I updated the short version of the ‘Whole’ to which all of my posts relate. Please share your own version.

The Whole and the Parts

SunWALK model of being human & the expression of the human spirit

We all go through each day doing particular things but what’s our view of ‘the Whole’ to which all the parts relate? From these two, our sense of the Whole and our myriad thoughts, feelings & action comes the meaning and purpose of our lives.

The Whole for me I see this way;

Humanization is everything. De-humanization is hell. We are human in our caring our creativity & our criticality – acting individually and in community. Through these 4 ways we experience, grow and heal, through them we come to know who we are, our identity, and what it is that we all called to do, our purpose.

However, even when being scientific the ultimate context in which we operate is always mystery. Consequently we are also more or less human in how we relate to mystery and to how others relate to mystery.

From such a model of being human we can create personal, professional & community systems for holistic learning & healing.

Q. What is it to be professionally or personally holistic? My answer: It is to develop that consciousness that enables us to proceed, in all particular acts, with a sacred sense of the Whole, and vice versa. – just as the Zen saying says; “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water”. Q. What’s this universalist approach called? Ans: Perennial Philosophy – the identical core you can find in all of the great wisdom traditions.

Q. What is your ‘Whole’ or world-view to which the particular actions of your life relate?

THE BENEFITS OF STORY-ING our experience – both children and adults

“Let me tell you a story…………………………”

To story = ‘to make a story of’.

Storying = the looking at,  one, several or all aspects of your life as a story.  Storying acts among other things as a ‘glue’ that makes of the parts a whole.  This is both a matter of creation and re-creation.  Stories as films, radio plays, novels, films re-create us.

This storying and re-storying seems to be natural to us as human beings.  “What was your day like dear?” elicits a story, at least a bare narrative.

In Personal & Professional Development the issue is this, ‘How can we use, in Personal & Professional Development, storying, and re-storying, to enable the learner/client to get from where they’re at to where they want to be?’

In teaching & parenting & home-schooling my SunWALK model when applied to education suggests that storying is one, or perhaps, the way to create holistic connections between subjects, between people etc.

The curriculum can be seen as a nesting of stories: each child’s story, their family story, the class story, the school story, the community story etc.

This great-looking series of books for children – click HERE lend themselves to the idea of creating story contexts for all subjects and sets of relationships,  including one that seems to work directly with this idea.  The challenge is how to keep storying going on up through the whole of education.