I Have Come to Shine
I have come to pull you by your ear, and bring you to myself.
I will make you selfless, I will make you fearless,
then I will place you in the heart and the soul of the king of Souls.

I have come like a breeze of Spring to you, oh, field of flowers, so I can keep you by my side, and hold you tight.
I have come to shine on you, as you walk this path.
Like the prayer of lovers, I will help you reach the roof of the heavens.
I have come to take back that kiss
that you stole from me.

You are my catch, my game, my prey, my hunt.
You have escaped my trap so far, but run toward that trap once again. Run, run, or I will chase you there.

Remember what the lion said to the deer. "You are so beautiful, you are so lovely run in front of me,so I can catch you and tear you to pieces."

Be like the deer, accept the wounds
like a shield of a warrior. Don't listen to anything but the whooshing of the arrows heading toward you.

From the dust of the Earth to a human being
there are a thousand steps
I have been with you through these steps,
I have held your hand and walked by your side.
You may think that I have left you on the side of the road.
Don't complain, don't become mad, and don't open the lid of the pot.

Boil happily and be patient. Remember what you are being prepared for.

You are a lion's cub, hidden inside a deer's body, with one strike I will wipe that illusion
and rid you of it.

You are my ball, and you roll because of the strike of my polo mallet. Just remember, it is me who is chasing you even though it is me who is helping you run.

- Rumi, from Hush - Don't Say Anything to God - Passionate Poems of Rumi by Shahram Shiva

Your path lies before you. In each moment it is revealed. There is nowhere to go. There is nothing to do. Sit still and be patient; the secret freedom of your heart's true longing will unravel by itself.

- Jon Bernie

Ten years spent mastering Tai Mai Shu kung fu may keep you fit, flexible, and graceful. But just invest ten minutes reading these four tips and you may well save your life if violence ever does erupt.

These are simple ideas, but not common. They are easily implemented and don't require an arsenal of secret weapons to work. Since most people don't plan to be attacked, these ideas don't occur to them until they are remembering the event later and thinking, "GEE! If only I had ... "

TIP #1 - USE YOUR HEAD

First, stay calm and think as the situation develops. As soon as the adrenaline kicks in, everything will seem to happen in slow motion. If you are calm, if you do not panic, your mind will process thoughts so rapidly that it will seem like you have hours to make a decision about how to react.

Second, the human skull is an awesomely powerful weapon. Bashing your forehead into the goon's nose once is tremendously more effective than slamming your fist into his nose twice.
Similarly, ladies, if you are grabbed, bear-hug style from behind, don't waste your time trying to step on his toes, or elbowing his ribs, or kicking your heel up into his groin. It is highly unlikely any of hose moves will do anything besides anger your attacker.

Instead, start trying to bash his face with the back of your head.

All you have to do is connect once or twice with your attacker's face or collarbone and you have delivered some serious damage.

TIP #2 - ALWAYS HAVE A TOOL HANDY

Always, always, always have something easily and quickly accessible to use as a weapon. Note that I did not say, "have a weapon accessible" which is not always practical or advisable.
I mean, if someone surprises you, there should be something instantly accessible to aid in your defense.

It can be a pen,
a set of keys,
a can of vegetables,
an umbrella --
A N Y T H I N G.

If you remember this one absurdly simple rule about weapons fighting, you will see the potential weapon hidden in virtually everything around you AND be able to use it more effectively:
Anything you find that is hard and fast should be aimed at smashing against something made of bone, and anything with a point to it should be aimed at stabbing into soft tissue.

For example, if you found a blunt stick or a can of vegetables you would target bone: Aim this kind of weapon at the face, the skull, hip, shin, elbow, or kneecap.

However, anything hard or blunt would be less effective to use against, say, an attacker's abdomen.

Conversely, something with a point -- a knife or pen for example -- is much more effective when targeting something soft, like the throat, the eyes, crotch, armpit, or belly. If you do strike at something hard, like the kneecap, chances are the point will bounce off without doing any real damage.

Hard goes to bone, Point goes to soft tissue --

It's as simple as that. Remember this rule, and you will never be without an effective weapon again.

TIP #3 - MOVE ALONG A TRIANGLE (a bit of theory)

There is one tip about self-defense that is so important that entire martial arts systems are based upon it.

The tip? Don't get hit!

I mention that, because moving along a triangle goes a long way toward achieving the goal of not getting hit.

One of the most dangerous mistakes the average person makes during a fight is to move in straight lines. They will move in a straight line, either forward and backward, or side to side.
This is also the mistake that will cause the Tai Mai Shu black belt to get his or her butt whooped in very short order out on the street.

Imagine a vertical dividing line along your body, dividing your body into left and right halves. The aggressor is probably going to attack some point along or around that line: your face, your throat, your heart, your groin.

Moving in a straight line backward or forward will change the distance you are from your attacker, but it does not move your centerline out of the attack path.

Moving laterally (left or right) will change the location of your centerline, but it does not change the distance between you and your attacker.

Your attacker has mentally committed to striking at a particular target. His brain has sent the signal to his fist that your face, your throat, your heart, or your groin (the target he intends to hit) is located at a particular distance out there in a particular direction. When you change the target's coordinates, it spoils the effectiveness of the attack.

Your goal is to move that line of your body out of the path of the attack AND change the distance of the target from your attacker.

Your attacker may be able to recover from a change in target location or a change in target distance alone, but changing both factors is your best bet. Then, even if it does connect, the strength of the attack will be greatly diminished.

Moving along an imaginary triangle changes BOTH.

* * *
*
* * *
Imagine standing with both feet on the pointed end of a triangle and facing the bad guy. The other two points of the triangle can either be in front of you or behind you.

Each of the other triangle points are only about one medium-large step away from where you are now. One point is found one step forward and to the left. Then there's another point one step forward and to the right. Behind you one point of the triangle is one step backward and to the left. The other point is one step backward and to the right.

All you have to do is step one foot onto either of the two available triangle points in front of you or behind you. What have you done to the distance to and the location of the attacker's original target?

Bingo! You have changed BOTH your direction, and your distance.

Simply bring your other foot up, and you are now at the starting point of another triangle. Use this concept every time you move and you will continue to confuse your attacker.

TIP #4 - ALWAYS ADVANCE WHEN YOU SHOULD RETREAT

During a fight, as during a game of chess, the experienced player is already planning the second or third move before the first one is ever completed. In fact, many of the experienced fighters' moves are used solely to get the opponent to react in a predetermined manner.

Fight you own instinct and do not back up.


Your instinct is wrong!

For example, imagine I am throwing a flurry of jabs at you. In my mind, I "know" exactly what you are going to do: backpedal to escape my vicious attack.

In fact, I am counting upon you backpedaling into that corner behind you, then I'll pound you into a liquid, right? How surprised am I going to be when you step forward, along your trusty triangle, and not backward?

I would be very surprised because you are not "supposed" to step into a savage attack; You are "supposed" to step away from it.

Look at this scenario. You've just stepped forward along the triangle. While your attacker is busy trying to adjust his thinking to handle this unexpected event you are now inside his defenses. You now have access to his unprotected ribs, armpit, neck, head, abdomen, flank, and knee -- Suddenly YOU have a virtual smorgasbord of targets.

That's when you slip back to using tip #2:

Smash anything HARD against something made of bone,
Strike anything you have with a point at something soft.

All of these tips are simple common sense. If you are smart you'll never have to use them because SMART people never put themselves in situations which may become violent.
As I see it, the goal of your self-defense training is to have the ability to utterly destroy another person, but the foresight to avoid situations where you might have to demonstrate that ability.

“There were no more than 12,000 crusaders that, in July 1099 after a three year campaign, got to camp under the walls of Jerusalem. Their emotion in sighting the sacred city changed into surprise when the presiding Muslim garrison declared to be ready fot an armistice. That garrison wasn’t Turkish but Arab, because the previous year Jerusalem had been retaken from the Selgiuchi by the Fatimidi, who had never confronted the Franchi. But they didn’t accept the offer perhaps because they thought a non-violent negotiation would have ruined their triumph. Therefore they demanded unconditional surrender.

The defenders, about 1000 men, resisted for 40 days. Then they surrendered. A witness present, Raimondo de Agiles, famous for his zeal described the scene as they were beheaded, killed by harrow or thrown from the towers. Others were tortured for days and days and then torched. The streets were strewn with heads, chopped hands and feet.”

"Those marvelous things lasted until the total consummation of the 70 000 citizens of Jerusalem, including the Jews, who were crowded and burned inside the synagogues.
Then the crusaders gathered in the grotto of the Santa Sepolcro that had hosted the remains of Christ, who had come into the world to preach “misericordia”, there they cried joyfully feeling worthy of him.”

--From vol. 7, pg. 112 of Storia D’Italia by MontanelliOn the first crusade year 1099

1852 Frederick Douglass, a former slave and a leader in the fight against slavery wrote:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?

I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.

To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

Nutritional Stunner

I was struck by the tight relationship between diabetes and soda drinks described in a recent media report of a medical study. It was found the likelihood of diabetes increased by 73% with the consumption of just one soda drink a day. Apparently this is one study in which products like Coke or Pepsi don’t stand out; the large quantity of various sugars in all soda drinks, including the natural products, levels the playing field in the diabetes game. You may already know diabetes is the fastest growing disease in the country and, in the most pessimistic estimates, will result in 1 out of 2 to 3 persons’ affliction with it in only a few years if the current lifestyle of eating/snacking and exercise continues.

Believe me, you do not want to be in that game. Most who are, die, because they feel so discouraged by the presence and persistence—everywhere in their body—of this disease, that they just don’t take good enough care of themselves to survive. And up until the time they die, the cause labeled “kidney failure” or “heart disease” or “stroke” that is really a side effect of the diabetes, their life turns in its spin offs—surprises of fatigue, difficulties with weight, onsets of metabolically driven depression and, I think for many the most heavy is the feeling they are outside the freedom and sweetness of life looking in. Although all this—and much, much, much more—doesn’t have to be so in diabetes, I can tell you that for every 50 persons I have met with it maybe 1 is flourishing free of this basement description. Develop a love affair with good water and leave sodas with your past!

Matt.13

[44] Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field;
the which when a man hath found,
he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath,
and buyeth that field.

For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

~ W. H. Auden ~

about Giannfranco Pace (Chen taiji master from Italy)

"Then In December I had the opportunity to do a one-day workshop with Master Gianfranco Pace, a visiting Chen-style master from Italy who came to demonstrate and work with people. He had a rare touch that really reminded me of Sifu Chung, an ability to absorb any energy directed at him without giving way, the power to move you effortlessly. He was remarkable.I never went back.During the workshop I just kept putting myself in his shoes, imagining myself with the kind of power he had, and realizing that I did not want to spend years of my life learning how to injure people. Which is what it amounts to. The skill with which that man could hurt others effortlessly was astonishing, and frightening."

-David

"The greatest example of softness I've ever seen in Chen Style was demonstrated by Feng Zhiqiang, a famous student of Chen Fake. In 1982, Feng demonstrated his art with other Taiji masters outside of Shanghai in Jading. Feng's power was unbelievably concealed within the softness and resiliency of his joints. When he moved, the ground shook with what seemed like both primary and secondary seismic waves. (He gathered energy and used circulation not emission.) His body appeared to me to be as soft as jelly on the outside and as hard as a diamond on the inside. However, when a Chen family member, who also demonstrated in Jading that year moved, you it could see the force move and easily observe its origins. A definite difference in level and skill could be deduced. Feng Zhiqiang went on to demonstrate push hands and a variety of techniques with such deftness and softness, the power in what he did was clear. The reputation of Chen Style was enormously enhanced among the Taijiquan masters that were there for the demonstration. The one thing that is easy for the initiated to see is Feng's ability to extend and collapse his joints, especially the elbow, without the opponent being able to sense or detect Feng's sophisticated force. (This would not be the case if Feng moved from the waist first and shook in the way that some so-called master Chen Stylists do.)"

Turner had been meditating, by his own estimation, since he was three years old and had always felt isolated from others and unsure of his place in the world because of his inward-directed and deeply spiritual nature. In the presence of Nomura Roshi, who had just arrived from Japan the day before, Turner received instant confirmation of his own experience and promptly accepted him as his teacher. "After being initiated into the way of zazen [meditation] by the Master," he writes, "I continued to practice martial arts and do shikantaza [formless meditation] as if there were no relationship between the two. Imagine how surprised I was when one day as I sat in meditation there was a melting away of barriers, a blaze of light, and I immediately understood the secret of self-defense from the inside out. There was no mystery. When I arose from my seat, I felt as if everything was clear to me." With virtually no formal training in the martial arts, the youthful Vernon Turner had apparently—in "a blaze of light"—become a master.

Speaking of which, his gift offers a few side benefits, Adam says. "Inbasketball, when someone's going to pass the ball, there's a spike in theiraura. It only happens a split second before they pass, but that's enough togive you a bit of an advantage. I get a lot of interceptions that way."

"I had once talked to Billy Conn, the boxer, about professionals versus amateurs - specifically street fighters. One had always heard rumors of champions being taken out by back-alley fighters. Conn was scornful. "Aw, it's like hitting a girl," he said. "They're nothing."

- George Plimpton"Shadow Box"

"So-called solid reality is only crystallized dream. It can be undreamed. There is nothing stronger than dream, because dreams are forms of THE LAW."

-William S. Burroughs

Those of use who think that death is an evil are in error . . . . Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things:--either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. . . . Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is a journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? . . . What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. . . . Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. . . .

-Socrates

"the meaning of jutaijutsu" as Soke was presenting it :

1) Nothing you do should require any more physical "effort" than it takes to merely move your body through empty space without a training partner or opponent;

You Are That Which Never Moves

One day Bhagavan was looking at me intently and said: "It looks as if you are still hankering after meditation."

I replied: "What have I got except endless work in the kitchen?"

Bhagavan said with deep feeling:
"Your hands may do the work but your mind can remain still. You are that which never moves. Realize that and you will find that work is not a strain.

But as long as you think that you are the body and that the work is done by you, you will feel your life to be an endless toil.

In fact it is the mind that toils, not the body. Even if your body keeps quiet, will your mind keep quiet too? Even in sleep the mind is busy with its dreams."

I replied : "Yes, Swami, it is as natural for you to know that you are not your body as it is for us to think that we are the body....Why can't I remember always that I am not the body?"

"Because you haven't had enough of it."

He smiled.

Since everything is but an apparition,
perfect in being what it is,
having nothing to do with good or bad,
acceptance or rejection;
one may well burst out in laughter.

- Longchenpa

"Witnesses reported seeing the Daudi's mother carry him outside to a nearby bench, where paramedics were able to briefly revive him. But the child died about 5 p.m. at Celebration Hospital. "

Here's the kicker... He would likely have been fine to stay with his mom after being revived. But I bet they rushed him to the Hospital and promptly needled him up and started pumping crap into him. Every time I see someone admitted to the medical industry they do this. Stick needles in them and pump them up with crap.

Here, have a little trauma with your trauma...

[Listserv comment about 4 year old child who died after Disney Epcot Center space ride]

When people of this age think about knowledge worth saving, they usually think about belief in the Cartesian mechanical philosophy, that dead matter is the basis of reality, and about techniques for rebuilding and using machines that dominate and separate us from other life.

I'd like that knowledge to die forever, but I don't think it works that way. Humans or any other hyper-malleable animal will always be tempted by the Black Arts, by techniques that trade subtle harm for flashy good and feed back into themselves, seducing us into power, corruption, and blindness.Our descendants will need the intellectual artifacts to avoid this -- artifacts we have barely started to develop even as the Great Bad Example begins to fall.

In 200 years, when they are brushing seeds into baskets with their fingers, and a stranger appears with a new threshing machine that will do the same thing with less time and effort, they will need to say something smarter than "the Gods forbid it" or "that is not our Way." They will need the knowledge to say something like:

"Your machine requires the seed to be planted alone and not interspersed with perennials that maintain nitrogen and mineral balance in the soil. And from where will the metal come, and how many trees must be cut down and burned to melt and shape it? And since we cannot build the machine, shall we be dependent on the machine-builders, and give them a portion of our food, which we now keep all for ourselves? Do you not know, clever stranger, that when any biomass is removed from the land, and not recycled back into it, the soil is weakened? And what could we do with our "saved" time, that would be more valuable and pleasurable than gathering the seed by hand, touching and knowing every stalk and every inch of the land that feeds us? Shall we become allies of cold metal that cuts without feeling, turning our hands and eyes to the study of machines and numbers until, severed from the Earth, we nearly destroy it as our ancestors did, making depleted uranium and polychlorinated biphenyls and cadmium batteries that even now make the old cities unfit for living? Go back to your people, and tell them, if they come to conquer us with their machines, we will fight them in ways the Arawaks and Seminoles and Lakota and Hopi and Nez Perce never imagined, because we understand your world better than you do yourself. Tell your people to come to learn."

Ultimate Ki workout set:

1. Nishino Breathing Method - 1 or 2 reps.
2. CXW style of 1-hand basic Silk Reeling - few minutes each side
3. Systema drill: pushup start position (fully "up"), static hold for 5 minutes.
4. TienShanPai/Shaolin: lunge-step gentle bounces, 30 each side.
5. Silk Reeling low circular sidekicks: a few each side.
6. Wall handstand static hold: 10 or so breaths.

Optional if time permits:
Ravi Singh's 'navel power' - 1st half of the set (about 1 dozen exercises, minus Singh's chants and meditations)

"The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth."

Aldous Huxley 'Brave New World'

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

- Voltaire

If the heart is pure, you are put to use.

Ordinary people have been revolving in circles since time immemorial, being born and dying. Because of clinging fixedly to self-images, false ideas, and misperceptions, the habits of illusion eventually become second nature to them. Even if they suddenly awaken in this life and realize that their essential nature is fundamentally empty and silent, no different from the Buddhas, nevertheless past habits are difficult to remove all at once.

- Master Chinul (1158-1210)

"As soon as you look at the world through an ideologyyou are finished.

No reality fits ideology.

Life is beyond that. That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life. But life has no meaning; it cannot have meaning because meaning is a formula; meaning is something that makes sense to the mind. Every time you make sense out of reality, you bump into something that destroys the sense you made. Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind"

.Anthony de Mello, SJ

Leonard Cohen's poem

"There is
something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man (or woman)
setting the universe in order..."

PENTECOST

Unless the eye catch fire,
God will not be seen.
Unless the ear catch fire,
God will not be heard.
Unless the tongue catch fire,
God will not be named.
Unless the heart catch fire,
God will not be loved.
Unless the mind catch fire,
God will not be known.

~ William Blake

The Little Vagabond

Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold,
But the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm;
Besides I can tell where I am used well,
Such usage in Heaven will never do well.
But if at the Church they would give us some Ale,
And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
119
We'd sing and we'd pray all the live-long day,
Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.
Then the Parson might preach, & drink, & sing,
And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring;
And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at Church,
Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.
And God, like a father rejoicing to see
His children as pleasant and happy as he,
Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the Barrel,
But kiss him, & give him both drink and apparel.

-William Blake, Songs of Experience

Down some cold field in a world unspoken
the young men are walking together, slim and tall,
and though they laugh to one another, silence is not broken;
there is no sound however clear they call.

They are speaking together of what they loved in vain here,
but the air is too thin to carry the things they say.
They were young and golden, but they came on pain here,
and their youth is age now, their gold is grey.

Yet their hearts are not changed, and they cry to one another,
'What have they done with the lives we laid aside?
Are they young with our youth, gold with our gold, my brother?
Do they smile in the face of death, because we died?'

Down some cold field in a world uncharted
the young seek each other with questioning eyes.
They question each other, the young, the golden hearted,
of the world that they were robbed of in their quiet paradise.

Humbert Wolfe, Requiem: The Soldier (1916)

H.Sapiens violated the
first law of a successful parasite, moderation.
===================================
After I'm dead, I
don't really care what happens to the human race. The only way a massive
die-off might affect me after I'm dead is to drive up the price of real
estate in Heaven-or Hell. I'm sure both places will be booked solid until
the powers that be find another planet on which humans can run amok.
===================================
Book: Century's End- "We now know that the idea of the future as a
'better world' was a fallacy of the doctrine of progress." German novelist
Thomas Mann, 1938
===================================
I do not believe that people will stop using technology until the
system completely breaks down.
===================================
One reason I keep hanging on to life's cross of iron
is because I have an apocalyptic vision of a world laid to waste. I pray to
God that I live to see it! No matter how the world ends, it will be a
surprise. One day mankind may be hovering on the irrevocable brink of
nuclear war, with everyone thinking that this will be our common end, only
for everyone to be smashed out of existence at the eleventh hour by a stray
asteroid. No matter what the end, it will arrive accompanied by a load of
irony. I think mankind's end will occur as suddenly as a heart attack.
Everything will appear just as it always has until the blade suddenly
drops.
===================================
"The word "paranoid" is designed to make people not like it. There
is an implicit assumption that there's nothing to be paranoid about. In
fact, in a very dynamic and unsteady universe, paranoia may well be a true
sensitivity to the facts of the matter." -Terrence McKenna
===================================
Book: Cambodia: a book for people who find television too slow,
by Brian Fawcett.
===================================
"In Buddhist writings, mention is often made of "the abyss of birth". An
abyss indeed, a gulf into which we do not fall but from which, instead, we
emerge, to our universal chagrin."
===================================
"When they made a desert, they called it peace." -Tacitus
===================================
"Delusions, errors and lies are like huge, gaudy vessels, the
rafters of which are rotten and worm eaten, and those who embark on them
are fated to be shipwrecked." -Buddha
===================================
"For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as
though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things
that seem than by those that are." -Machiavelli
===================================
* In medicine as in life, until the mind has been prepared to see
something, it will pass unnoticed, as invisible as if it did not exist.
-Ovid, ancient Roman poet.
===================================
* Do you not see how necessary a world of pain and trouble is to school an
intelligence and make it a soul? -John Keats, Letters
===================================
* The mad mind does not halt. If it halts, it is enlightenment.
-Chinese Zen Saying
===================================
* To see truth, contemplate all phenomena as a lie. -Thaganapa
===================================
* Our reason has driven all away. Alone at last, we end up by ruling over a
desert.
-Albert Camus
===================================
You dream you are the doer,
You dream that action is done.
You dream that action bears fruit.
It is your ignorance, it is the world's
delusion that gives you these Dreams.
-Bhagavad Gita
===================================
*"Paradoxically as it may seem, modern industrial society, in spite of an
incredible proliferation of labor-saving devices, has not given people more
time to devote to their all-important spiritual tasks; it has made it
exceedingly difficult for anyone, except the most determined, to find any
time whatever for these tasks." -E.F. Schumacher

Life is like being a skydiver without a parachute. At birth, we aredropped into the Void. At first, we scream in terror, but by and by, werealize that we're not going to die-just yet. So we settle down to thebusiness of living as well as we can in the interim, until the groundfinally comes rushing up to greet us.

http://www.pd.org/topos/perforations/perf8/bigdeath2.html

There is no greater mystery than this -
that being the Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality.
We think that there is something binding our reality and
that it must be destroyed before the reality is gained.

It is ridiculous!

A day will dawn when you will yourself laugh at your effort.
That which is on the day of laughter is also now.

Ramana Maharshi

The year is 1877, southern Wisconsin"...

Dave was 37 years old, and his Whitehall homestead was running smoothly. That year he’d broken 15 acres of virgin prairie land. Number 1 Eureka wheat was sell ing for $1.57 the bushel. The new Baptist church, he reports, was attracting “a goodly attendance.”

Wife Mary’s chronic headaches had virtually disappeared. Sons Archie, age 13, and Jim, 10, were old enough now to help out with chores. Little daughters Kippy, 7, and Alta, 2, were healthy and lively kids, the apples of their father’s eye.Then, on Sept. 11, the day Holcomb’s threshing rig rolled into the yard, Dave reports that “Alta has signs of Diptheria to day.”

Succeeding entries give ample ev idence that life on that prairie frontier wasn’t all barn raisings, spelling bees and socials on the church lawn:

“Sept. 14—Alta has been better to day and played some.“

Sept. 15—Thrashed to day. 810 Bushels of oats & 150 bus. wheat. Alta is quite sick to night.“

Sunday, Sept. 16—did not go to (church) meeting to day . . . Alta is quite sick. Kippy is sick to day with sore throat.“
Sept. 17—Alta is very sick & it is likely to be a hard case for her.

“Sept. 18—-Thrashing to day. have not been near the machine. Was up all night with Alta poor Girl how she suffered till this morn, when death came to relieve her & leave us only sad hearts & the memory of her. Kippy quite sick allready.

“Sept. 19—little Alta was burned to day. We shall see her no more in this world but hope to in the better land. Kip is verry sick.

“Sept. 20—Kip had a verry bad day of it

“Sept. 21—Kip seems some better this mor. but has been bleeding at the nose. . . got Kip nose to stop bleeding

“Sept. 22—Kip seems to be better to day.

“Sunday, Sept. 23—Kip is very low,, but we have hope that she will recover

“Sept. 24—We are in care & sick ness & Trouble but hope God will sustain us in trial & affliction

“Sept. 25—Kippy is some better &, we hope to have her spared to us by the Master. Still she is weak & feverish.

“Sept. 26—Kip is quiet but weak & nervous, took wheat to town. Paid for a doll for Kip $.50

“Sept. 27—Kip is weak & low

“Sept. 28—Kip is some weaker to day & her pulse is low so we are giving her China (quinine)

“Sunday, Sept. 30—Kippy much the same she has no appetite yet. Archie came down with Diptheria this mor[ning].

“Oct. 1—Hazy & damp. Jim came down with Diptheria this mor. Archie is quite bad. Poor Kip is low & weak so that we have to give her China to keep her up. Will (the hired man) went to Independence & got a bottle of Brandy to bathe Kip with to night. Cost $1.25

“Oct. 2—Kip is growing weaker to day. the stimulants give her a nervous life & raise her pulse some. the boys are quite sick still we have hope

“Oct. 3—little Kip parted from us at six 0 clock this mor. Archies throat seems a little softer. Jim rather drowsy. how our poor hearts ache with sorrow but we can only trust in god & pray that he will direct us & give us strength to bear to trust in him.

“Oct. 4—fair cold & blustery. we buried little Kip to day & so we see our hopes & Joys fade & vanish away. yet God will be ever by the side of those who Trust in him. Will plowed to day.”

And so it went. Archie and Jim pulled through that autumn nightmare, went on to keep their own taciturn diaries, to get educations, to make peace (Archie) and war (Jim) with their Maker, to get married and to lead productive lives.

But Alta and Kippy never got to school, never learned to read and write, never were baptized in the muddy waters of the Trempealeau River, never met a beau at the annual Methodist ice-cream social and never discovered what it was like to stand by as a helpless adult and see one’s “hopes and Joy fade & vanish away.”..."

Ultimate Ki workout routine:

1. Spiral energy exercises / Chan si gong: of Chen style taijiquan, follow the version of this taught by Chen Xiaoxing and Chen Xiaowang, not other versions.

2. Abdomen/spine work based on kundalini yoga. Best known to me is "Navel Power" by Ravi Singh. Cheesy presentaiton but very effective. You only need to do the first half, about up to the first standing posture, and the meditation/chanting stuff and also be skipped. Any other yoga-oriented abdomen/spine strength/flexibility routine could be used instead.

3. Strength work: bodyweight stuff is simplest and best. For example I use: Hindu pushups; reverse pushups; gynmastics tuck planche (static hold); gymnastics L-sit (on fists, static hold), and wall handstand pushups or partial dips.

4. Cardio: jump rope in intervals (high intensitiy interval training style).

Key to all the above is the "chan si gong" as that is the best engine of ki generation known to me after practicing dozens of styles and methods over decades.

The strength and other stuff is only there to help build a strong physical platform for the ki, in an efficient and pleasant way.

"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three
requirements for happiness, though if stupidity islacking, all is lost."

--Gustave Flaubert

These are some guidelines the Monk Ryokan wrote down for himself.

Ryokan's Precepts of Right Speech

Take care not to:

talk too much
talk too fast
talk without being asked to
talk gratuitously
talk with your hands
talk about worldly affairs
talk back rudely
argue
smile condescendingly at others' words
use elegant expressions
boast
avoid speaking directly
speak with a knowing air
jump from topic to topic
use fancy words
speak of past events that cannot be changed
speak like a pedant
avoid direct questions
speak ill of others
speak grandly of enlightenment
carry on while drunk
speak in an obnoxious manner
yell at children
make up fantastic stories
speak while angry
name-drop
ignore the people to whom you are speaking
speak sanctimoniously of gods and buddhas
use sugary speech
use flattering speech
speak of things of which you have no knowledge
monopolize conversations
talk about others behind their backs
speak with conceit
bad-mouth others
chant prayers ostentatiously
complain about the amount of alms
give long-winded sermons
speak affectedly like a tea master

—Ryokan (1758-1831)

Theory and Practice

Whichever path one follows, the thing is to follow it,not to argue about it.

A Christian priest once toldBhagavan that he considered the goal of mystic unionenvisaged by Christians to be different from the Hindugoal of moksha[liberation] and superior to it, and Bhagavan replied,"All right, attain that first and then see whether youstill find any difference or anything to criticize".

That was always his reply - to turn the critic fromtheory to practice. Argument did not interest him,only understanding and sincere effort.

Divorce, American Style

The Daily Reckoning

Baltimore, Maryland

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

---------------------

It's all sex and lies.

Everything. The debt bubble. The real estate bubble. The trade deficit
bubble.

Why is there a $600 billion trade deficit? Because Americans want to buy
things they can't afford. Why do they buy things they can't afford? To
pretend to be richer than they are. Why do they want to be appear richer
than they are? Because it gives them higher social status. Why do they want
higher about social status? So they will have better access to the opposite
sex.

We are back in the United States after an absence of several months.
Suddenly, the roads are crowded with Hummers. Why would anyone want to drive
around in a big, awkward, ugly, expensive car when a small, cheap one would
get him where he was going just as well?

Because they want to "maximize their inclusive fitness" say scientists. They
want as many of their genes floating around the gene pool as possible. The
Hummer is like long, bright tail feathers on a bird. Or a big rack of
antlers on a deer. From a utilitarian point of view, they are worthless.
Worse than worthless, as a matter of fact. They increase the risk that
rivals and predators will notice the animal. They take energy to carry
around. And they slow the animal down, making it hard for him to maneuver in
a fight or to get away.

The huge cars are only useful, near as anyone who thinks about such matters
can figure, as conspicuous consumption; they wink to the opposite sex that
the animal is game for a little hanky-panky. If he can carry around all that
extra baggage and still survive, he must be tough. So, too, if a person can
live in a McMansion and drive a Hummer without going bankrupt, he must be a
good prospect for a date.

But it's all relative. If everybody on the block buys a Hummer and puts in a
swimming pool, the man who has those things already loses his edge. He has
to spend even more - bringing himself even closer to bankruptcy - in order
to show off. What can he do? Write poetry and put a feminist bumper sticker
on his old Hummer?

"Forget sensitivity," said a woman over dinner last night. "The man must
show that he's capable... that he's strong... that he knows what he's
doing."

"Yeah," said a divorced friend who has been studying dating strategies, "you
have to be 'the man with the plan.' You signal to the woman that you've got
it figured out... that your time is valuable... and that, if she wants to
hook up with you, she can to so, but
only on your terms. What you don't want to do is to take her out on a date
and spend a lot of money on her. You have to show that you have a lot of
money, but you don't want to give her the impression that she'll be in
charge of how it is spent. That would start the relationship off on the
wrong foot."

Women aren't stupid, of course. They know you can move into a McMansion with
no money down and no money anywhere else. They know you can lease a Hummer
and buy an Armani suit with credit cards. They try to find out if the man
really has money or not. It is the
beginning of the battle between the sexes. The man tries to deceive the
woman about his fitness for procreation. The woman tries to detect the
deception, while deceiving him - with make-up and various artifices - about
her own attractiveness. The poor man has to show more and more evidence that
he's really the one with the large rack and the bright feathers. He has to
take on more and more expensive burdens. Second and third houses... European
vacations... a home theatre... cosmetic surgery. The schmuck needs to spend,
spend, spend - or he's going to be spending his nights alone.

You might say that a "smart" woman would see her way through the foolishness
of it all and prefer a man with no desire to show off - maybe a good, solid
schoolteacher who cares about the environment and drives an old Pinto. But
if she mates with such a man, she dooms her offspring, say the scientists,
for the man is likely to father sons much like himself - men who are only
attractive to smart women. How many of them are there? Her own genes will
find fewer opportunities for reproductive success, in other words... And
what's so smart about that?

In order to spread her genes as widely as possible, a woman needs offspring,
particularly males, who are "high ranking," - that is, those who can carry
around gaudy expenses without going broke. Her best strategy is to make with
a high ranking male. Her good fortune would be to have many sons with him -
high ranking boys who would find many mates of their own. And for that she
must make herself as desirable to him as possible. This, too, begins with
deception and often ends in disappointment. She must spend much of her
time and money as though she were a candidate for public office - that is,
deceiving people about what she is. The scientists call it "impression
management." She must appear high ranking - by wearing expensive clothes
instead of cheap ones... by driving an expensive car, rather than a cheap
one... by living at an expensive address... eating in expensive
restaurants... going on expensive vacations and sporting expensive jewelry.
She must also appear as physically attractive as possible. Remember, it's
all about sex.

Meanwhile, driven by these ancient impulses to sexual reproduction... and
chauffeured by the Fed... Americans arrive at the cusp of bankruptcy.

We evolved to lie to ourselves because it makes us better at lying to
others. Read Wright's THE MORAL ANIMAL.

People like Gandhi or Gates will use any excuse that works to gain social
power (the actual content of their phlisophy is irrelevant). Why? Because
gaining social power tended to increase fitness in the past.

Here are some other folks who got it right:

"In the first place, I put forth a general inclination of all mankind a
perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in
death." -- Thomas Hobbes

"The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie." -- Joseph Schumpeter,
1942

"Wherever men hold unequal power in society, they will strive to maintain
it. They will use whatever means are convenient to that end and will seek to
justify them by the most plausible arguments they are able to devise." --
Reinhold Neibuhr

"In fact, telling primates (human or otherwise) that their reasoning
architectures evolved in large part to solve problems of dominance is a
little like telling fish that their gills evolved in large part to solve the
problem of oxygen intake from water." -- Denise Dellarosa Cummins

Jay

Bhagavan:

Silence is of four kinds: silence of speech, silence of the eye, silence of the ear, and silence of the mind. Only the last is pure silence, and it is the most important.

~ While God sustains the burden of the world, the spurious ego assumes its burden, grimacing like an image on a tower seeming to support it. If the traveller in a carriage which can carry any weight does not lay his luggage down but carries it painfully on his head, whose is the fault? - Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham, verse 17:

~Whatever happens, let it happen; whatever does not happen, Let it not happen.” A mind with this attitude will be well established in the Self.

from: 'Padamalai' by Muruganar, Edited by David Godman.

Recent finding conducted by author have concluded all humans suffer from Bi-polar Disorder. Range is extensive and subject to daily conditions such as weather, degreee of success in the achievement of any desired obect, condition, person, place or thing, bio-rhythms, ad nauseum.

Location: land of wind and ghosts.

"I do not see how one can surrender to suffering."

Forget about surrender for a moment. When your pain is deep, all talk of surrender will probably seem futile and meaningless anyway. When your pain is deep, you will likely have a strong urge to escape from it rather than surrender to it. You don't want to feel what you feel. What could be more normal? But there is no escape, no way out. When there is no way out, there is still always a way through.

So don't turn away from pain. Face it. Feel it fully. Feel it -- don't think about it! Express it if necessary, but don't create a script in your mind around it. Give all your attention to the feeling, not to the person, event or situation that seems to have caused it. Don't let the mind use the pain to create a victim identity for yourself out of it. Feeling sorry for yourself and telling others your story will keep you stuck in suffering. Since it is impossible to get away from the feeling, the only possibility of change is to move into it; otherwise, nothing will shift. So give your complete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert.

At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don't act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present -- present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness.

- Eckhart Tolle

It would make for one hell of a story to leave for the history books. And why are we even here if not to write history and entertain our descendents.

-Viper

The Art of Nothing

Thomas J. Elpel

Westerners who first met the Shoshonean bands of Indians in the Great Basin Desert typically described them as being "wretched and lazy". Many observers remarked that they lived in a total wasteland and yet seemed to do nothing to improve their situation. They built no houses or villages; they had few tools or possessions, almost no art, and they stored little food. It seemed that all they did was sit around and do nothing.The Shoshone were true hunter-gatherers. They spent their lives walking from one food source to another. The reason they did not build houses was because houses were useless to them in their nomadic lifestyle. Everything they owned they carried on their backs from place to place. They did not manufacture a lot of tools or possessions or art, because it would have been a burden to carry.We often expect that such primitive cultures as the Shoshone must have worked all the time just to stay alive, but in actuality these were generally very leisured peoples.

Anthropological studies in different parts of the world have indicated that nomadic hunter-gatherer type societies typically worked only two or three hours per day for their subsistence. Like the deer and other creatures of the wild, hunter-gatherer peoples have nothing more to do than to wander and eat.The Shoshone had a lot of time on their hands only because they produced almost no material culture. They were not being lazy; they were just being economical. Sitting around doing nothing for hours on end helped them to conserve precious calories of energy, so they would not have to harvest so many calories each day to feed themselves.

Today many of us westerners find ourselves fascinated with these simple cultures, and a few of us really dive into it to reproduce or recreate the primitive lifestyle. In our typical western zeal we get right into it and produce, produce, produce. We work ambitiously to learn each primitive craft, and we produce all kinds of primitive clothing, tools, containers, and art, and just plain stuff. True hunter-gatherer cultures carried all their possessions on their backs, but us modern primitives soon find that we need a pickup truck just to move camp! In our effort to recreate the primitive lifestyle we find that we have ironically missed our mark completely-- that we have made many primitive things, but that we have not begun to grasp the true nature of a primitive culture. To truly grasp that essence requires that we let go, and begin to understand the art of doing nothing.

Understanding the art of nothing is a somewhat challenging concept for us westerners. When we go on a "primitive" camping trip, we take our western preconceptions with us. We find a level spot in a meadow to build our shelters, and if a site is not level then we make it so. Then we gather materials and start from scratch, building the walls and roof of a shelter. We do what we are accustomed to; we build a frame house on a surveyed plot in the meadow. Then we gather materials and shingle our shelter, regardless of whether or not there is a cloud in the sky, or whether or not it has rained at all in a month.

Part of the reason we act this way stems from our cultural upbringing. Another part of it is simply because it is easier for those of us who are instructors to teach something rather than to teach nothing. It is much easier to teach how to make something than to teach how not to need to make anything. The do-something approach to primitive skills is to make everything you need, while the do-nothing method is to find everything.For example, the do-nothing method of shelter is to find shelter, rather than to build it. Two hours spent searching for a partial shelter that can be improved upon can easily save you two hours of hard-working construction time, and you will usually get a better shelter this way. More so, the do-nothing method of shelter is to look first at the incoming weather, and to build only what is needed. If it is not going to rain then you may be able to do-nothing to rain-proof your shelter. Then perhaps you will only need to put your efforts into a shelter that will keep you warm, instead of both warm and dry.

There are many things, both small and large, that a person can do, or not do, to better the art of doing nothing. This can be as simple as cupping one's hands to drink from the stream, instead of making and carrying a cup, to breaking sticks to find a sharpened point, rather than using a knife to methodically carve out a digging stick. Hand carved wooden spoons and forks are do-something utensils that you have to manufacture, carry, and worst, that you have to clean. But chopsticks (twigs) are do-nothing utensils that do not need to be manufactured or carried, and you can toss them in the fire when you are done.Henry David Thoreau wrote of having a rock for a paperweight at his cabin by Walden pond. He threw it out when he discovered he had to dust it. This is the very essence of a do-nothing attitude. The do-nothing approach to primitive skills is something that you do. Doing nothing is a way of saving time and energy, so that you can finish your daily work more effectively. One thing that I have found through the years of experimental research into primitive skills, is that there is rarely enough hours in a day to complete all of a day's tasks. It is difficult to go out and build a shelter, make a working bowdrill set, set traps, dig roots, make bowls and spoons, and cook dinner. Hunter-gatherer societies succeeded in working only two to three hours per day, yet in our efforts to reproduce their lifestyle we end up working all day.

Doing nothing is an approach to research; it is a way of thinking and doing. For instance, I do a lot of timed studies of various primitive skills: i.e.: how long does it take to construct a particular shelter? How much of a particular food resource can I harvest per hour? Can I increase the harvest using different gathering techniques? One thing I have noted is that it is only marginally economical to manufacture common primitive deadfall traps. It is time intensive; it adds weight to carry, and the traps often have short life-spans. The do-nothing alternative is to use whatever is at hand, to pick up sticks and assemble them into a trap, without even using a knife. Preliminary tests of this "no-method" have produced results equal to conventional, carved and manufactured traps, but with a much smaller investment of time.Primitive hunter-gatherer type cultures were very good at doing nothing. Exactly how well they did this is difficult to determine, however, because doing nothing leaves nothing behind for the archaeological record. Every time we find an artifact we have documentation of something they did; yet the most important part of their skills may have been what they did not, and there is no way to discover what that was by studying what they did.

Nevertheless, what you will discover for yourself, as you learn the art of doing nothing is that you are much more at home in the wilderness. No longer will you be so dependent on a lot of tools and gadgets; no longer will you need to shape the elements of nature to fit our western definitions. You will find you need less and less, until one day you find you need nothing at all. Then you will have the time on your hands so that you can choose to do nothing, or even to go do something.

(Thomas J. Elpel is the director of Hollowtop Outdoor Primitive School in Pony Montana)

"The very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory. Why go anywhere? Just realize that you are dreaming a dream you call theworld, and stop looking for ways out.

The dream is not your problem.Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another. Love all, or none of it, and stop complaining. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that need be done."

How To Avoid The DraftOr National Service From Cal Steinberger3-30-5

I think, that the majority of our research team is of the opinion that President Bush will be leading our nation to war again against Iran sometime this summer. And, when he does, the war will be just as "fraudulent, and illegal" as is the present war in Iraq. The difference this time, however, is that the Soviet Union and China will be drawn into the fray on the side of Iran. And, the war could escalate very quickly into a "nuclear event" of major proportions. The Zionist-controlled state of Israel will do whatever is necessary to draw us into their mid-East agenda. You may recall during the Presidential debates, Bush repeatedly stated that there would be "no draft of our young people". I would not rely on his integrity for this statement. The government has made many efforts recently to block Americans from fleeing to Canada to escape the draft. I would suggest to you that you make a copy of this e-mail to keep in your files in case any of your loved ones may be called up for their possible "volunteering" into the service.

Thanks Spartacus for alerting us to this.

Regards, Cal

How To Avoid The Draft Or National Service

By Rumor Mill News.com

No dodging. Just refuse to volunteer. Here's how -- I hope that you will not be offended if I tell you how the "draft" works. I realize that most people THINK they know how it works, but in most cases they are in error. And you can avoid the worry when 'College and Canada will not be options [because] in December 2001, Canada and the U.S. signed a "smart border declaration," which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in.' Being willing (and eager) to fight for one's country when it is truly in danger is one thing. Having the courage to refuse to fight in immoral and/or unconstitutional "wars" is quite another matter, I believe. No need to "dodge" the ball if they're not allowed to hit you with it, if you merely 'take your stand' and refuse to VOLUNTEER!

1. Mr. A receives a "draft notice" and is told to report on a certain date to a certain place where he receives his physical and mental tests...then he is classified with a number indicating whether he is A1(first called). Continued here: ...all the way down to 4F(unfit for duty).

2. Mr. A is told that he is to report for "induction" into the military and to appear at a certain military base for that purpose on a date specified.

3. By "LAW" he must appear there...or a warrant for his arrest will be issued.

4. Assuming he reports as directed he will have another brief physical and tests and then is told to "line up on the yellow line (painted on the floor)

5. A Recruiting Officer will then tell all those "joining the army (or whatever) to take one step forward... (Oh, oh, THOSE WHO DID THIS JUST "VOLUNTEERED!")This is done so that no one can "legally" claim they were "forced into involuntary servitude!" "RAISE YOUR RIGHT HAND AND SWEAR ALLEGIANCE." (almost everyone does!...thinking it must be REQUIRED!): "I, (name) do solemnly swear that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America and will defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic, and will obey the orders of the President and the officers appointed over me, so help me God."

6. Those who "voluntarily" stepped forward CANNOT NOW CLAIM THEY WERE "DRAFTED"...they stepped forward voluntarily and took the Oath voluntarily!

7. Assume Mr. B was smarter than Mr. A and HE DID NOT STEP FORWARD ANDTHEREFORE DID NOT TAKE THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. (the recruiter will probably say something like this: "what's the matter with you, don't you know what' step forward' means?" Mr. B responds, "sure I do, but I AM NOT VOLUNTEERING TO SERVE IN THE MILITARY...If you want me you must 'take me' against my will by force!"

8. All of those who "volunteered" will now be excused from the room...and the Mr. B will be cajoled with persuasive arguments...at first...then, when nothing works to change his mind he will be called names and insulted, possibly even assaulted by one or more military people present there as witnesses.

9. IF Mr. B does not weaken, stands his ground, eventually the tormentors will give up and have him arrested on some charge.

However, there is NO lawful way that they can MAKE him go into the military...because of the Constitutional prohibition against "involuntary servitude"...which is why NO ONE IS TRULY EVER "DRAFTED" AND MUST BE "SEDUCED " INTO VOLUNTEERING!

D. R. Graham Ret. Science Instructor and Ret. Military Officer - Australia **************** One thing to say at this point is what the cops are coached to say on the witness stand: "Am I ordered?" If the recruiter says "No" - then obviously you're OK. If the recruiter says "Yes" - then you say "By what authority do you, a military officer, order me, a civilian?" If the recruiter says anything else, repeat the question until you get Yes or No. If the recruiter says "I order you by the authority of the United States Government" then respond: "Which clause of the Constitution gives you, a military officer, to order me, a civilian?" Another thing to say is: "Am I free to go?" If the recruiter says "Yes" - then obviously leave. If the recruiter says "No" then say: "Am I under arrest?" "Am I your prisoner?" "Am I kidnapped?" "If I'm not free, then what am I?" and again, keep repeating the question.

Another thing to say is: "I want an attorney." Another thing to say is, of course, *nothing* at all. I think I would go with "Am I free to go?" because if you get to "Yes" then you can leave and he would look bad ordering an arrest. If you ask the question three times and don't get a yes or no, then say, "Well I must be free to go, because I asked you three times and you won't tell me I'm not." Then I would slowly turn around and leave, and if he keeps trying to interact I would just keep repeating the question. ===

Here's an excerpt from a book: The Army induction officer instructed the draftees to "take one step forward" as their names were called, and said that step would signify their induction into the Army. When reluctant Willie's name was called, he answered present, but did not step forward. After the ceremony, he went home instead of to camp. When the MP's came for him, he went to court for a writ of habeas corpus to retain his freedom. "The officer himself," Willie argued, "said the step forward is what would make me a soldier. As I didn't take the step, I'm still a civilian and the Army has no claim on me." Counsel for the Army replied, "The Army isn't being run by childish games. Willie and a hundred others appeared to be inducted, and he was inducted before the whole group as any fool there could plainly see." Willie retained his civilian status. The court ruled that the draft law required some definite ceremony to transform a civilian into a soldier. As the Army decided to have one step forward constitute the ceremony, and Willie didn't take the step, he wasn't a soldier. U.S. Court of Appeals, 1954 ***************

How To Stay Out of the Military (Draft Resistance) By David Wiggins The legal requirement to register for the draft demands a decision: give up your freedom and your conscience, or conscientiously resist. All the good reasons that would prevent a free man from volunteering for military service, also apply to resisting the draft. How in a "free country" can the first requirement of a young man, when he comes of age, be to sign up to accept orders to kill for the state in an organized way? There is never a need to compel a free man to take up a cause that is both necessary and just; but a man who is drafted is never free, and thus his cause can never be assumed to be either necessary or just. The draft is not simply an academic interest. There is not enough military manpower to sustain the commitments the President has already undertaken. We constantly hear that our troops are "stretched too thin." To assist the United States, both the President and Secretary of State have made serious requests for significant military manpower contributions from other nations. Continued here: These requests have largely fallen on deaf ears. The President has repeatedly stated he will not "back down" meaning, we must assume, that the military forces will continue to be "thinly stretched." Where will they find relief? It appears they are looking at young Americans who are free to volunteer for military duty, but in good conscience, choose not to do so. With certain exceptions, all men residing in the United States are required to register for the draft within 30 days of their 18th birthday. The obligation of a man to register is imposed by the Military Selective Service Act, which establishes and governs the operations of the Selective Service System. In addition to the Military Selective Service Act, the "Health Care Personnel Delivery System" was authorized by Congress in 1987 to deal with large-scale casualties that outstripped the active-duty military's ability to handle them. If implemented, the bill would require a mass registration of male and female health care workers between the ages of 20 and 45. At this time; however, the Selective Service has no statutory authority to draft medical personnel. That authorization would be provided by legislation to be introduced and passed in Congress at the time of a national defense mobilization. That "M-Day" legislative package has not been made available for public comment or congressional debate. See the Center on Conscience and Wars "Health Care Professionals and the Draft" for details regarding the Health Care Personnel Delivery System. The Pentagon is considering other "special skills" drafts, to include military linguists, computer experts, or engineers, which could arise from other immediate needs. "We're going to elevate that kind of draft to be a priority," said Lewis Brodsky, acting director of the Selective Service System. A bill before the House Armed Services Committee would require the induction of young men into the military "to receive basic military training and education for a period of up to one year." More

Best of luck to you! Remember to tell your parents that you never asked to be born into this world. You were perfectly satisfied in the void until their 15 seconds of satisfaction turned into your life of pain. That's what I tell my mom, anyway.

-Anon. internet

30 raccoons, I could not take on bare-handed.

The rules are:

- The raccoons have rabies
- You can only wear a tank top and shorts
- You are drenched with female raccoon hormones before the fight
- The raccoons are all male and roughly 12-16 months old
- The raccoons will have one day of claw-to-hand combat training by experts before the fight.
- You will have one hour of counter-raccoon training.
- The arena is roughly the size of a basketball court, the ground is asphalt
- There are no weapons whatsoever
- You win if all raccoons are unconscious/dead, you lose if you are unconscious/dead.

"The morning glory blooms for an hour. It differs not at heart from the giant pine, which lives for a thousand years."

How refreshing the whinny of a packhorse
unloaded of everything.
~ Zen saying

You need not fear who you are.
A lack of labels or identities does not cause fear.
It is just the reverse - labels cause fear.
Every new label is a new shudder,
for it must now be anxiously protected against all that seems to oppose it,
all that bears a different label.
Since labels are suppressed below the level of awareness,
we deny their existence emphatically.
Even the loud denial could be a clue for us, but it is also rejected.
The only answer to 層ho are you・is total silence.

~ Vernon Howard

"Someone once told Jane Hirshfield, a poet who'd been a nun at TassajaraZen Monastery, that they'd been assigned to write 3,000 words aboutBuddhism. She smiled and said she could say it all in seven. When askedto do it, she replied:
'It's all connected. Everything changes. Pay attention.'"

~ From Buddha-L list

"There are not many men in the world with any backbone left. Realmen got crowded out by weaklings who harnesses the power of financeand legal loopholes. Real power is what you can do in the parking lot after the meeting is over. If the shit were real, I would bedriving some lawyer's car right now. His scalp would be drying onthe grill. Civilization is nearly over with. Your bullshit is falling to the ground. Your little moral are worthless and I amgetting my kicks telling the truth as you drown in your lies andcowardly weakness You don't like the things I have to say? So? Survival species, motherfucker."

- anonymous internet writing

Some think this is a boxing match, others a dance class
We can dance or we can duke it out, but I'm personally
tired of boxing, I found out I can't fight finally and
I am so relieved to be unburdened finally of that delusion.

- anonymous

"Everybody wants to put you in a little box, wants you to have some grand epiphany and bolts in the sky when it comes to this," Sergeant Benderman said recently. "But it's not that way. Here's what happened: I spent six months over there, and I came back and thought about it. What I know is that it's inhumane. It's turning 18-year-old men and women into soulless people."

-Kevin Benderman

When you are completely fed up with it, temporary gratifications, self-centeredness, ambitions, hopes, intrigues, competitions, worries, agonies, sorrows and all, then you may be ready to let it all die, including the one who is at the center, the star of the movie, tragic or ludicrous or whatever. To let the "known," which is limited, completely die, is to make room for the unknown, which includes the known, but is infinitely larger and unpredictable and alive and clear and vibrant with energy! The unknown includes everything and literally has no boundaries, and it does not stay the same from one instant to the next.

To let go of the known, to let it die, including the separate and ficticious mental "self" around which all of its activities revolve, is to come to terms with the simple and obvious fact that it does not exist, except in memory and fantasy. That memory and fantasy is none other than the endless ambition to become something better, to acquire something better, to make something better happen, and to hold on to what you are pretending you own and control. When even the feelings and sensations associated with this repetition are no longer enough, then you will realize you have nothing to lose. That could be in ten or twenty years, or it could be later on this week, or it could be right now. It's up to you.
- Scott Morrison

Are Your Children Crazy? By Jane Orient, M.D.Outside View Commentator

United Press International

3-16-5

TUCZON, AZ (UPI) -- Congress and President Bush apparently think that a lot of children have a "mental health" problem. Or that enough of them do to justify taking millions of dollars from taxpayers to fund a universal "mental health screening" for children, and eventually for everyone. Personally, I think -- from the perspective of a person who never had any -- that almost all children act crazy. Those who don't are, by definition, abnormal, because they don't act like the others.

The main problem with about half of them is that they are boys. Such children are obviously made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails. On the farm there is a solution for that: a procedure for turning boy lambs into non-ram lambs. After a quick little operation, they act like peaceful little lambs instead of aggressive, disruptive rams. We don't do surgery like that on little boys, of course, but we do have our methods: such as behavioral therapy and chemicals.

There are those who argue with some passion that society has to do something. Bad, disruptive, antisocial or depressed little kids make lots of trouble for parents and schoolteachers. Worse, they can grow up into dysfunctional, unhappy or troublemaking adults. That snotty little boy might become a dissenting, nonconformist or even a rebellious man, who could throw a monkey wrench into our smoothly functioning society. We have to catch them early -- for their own good.

Teams of experts are awaiting the infusion of cash. They'll be ensconced in your child's school before you even know it. A bonus is that your little darlings will probably give them quite a bit of information about you also, and then you too can receive therapy you didn't know you needed. Do you sometimes raise your voice? Ever spank them? Hug them inappropriately? Have politically incorrect attitudes? Use forbidden words? Own a gun? Smoke cigarettes, especially indoors? Read extremist literature? Refuse to recycle? Prepare for a knock on the door.

There are many tools at the disposal of the mental health squad. Counseling sessions. Drugs (Ritalin, antidepressants, tranquilizers, maybe some new ones that need to be tested on some experimental subjects of your child's age). Group therapy. Removing the child from the home. (This may be a "last resort," but often the mere threat can accomplish wonders.) If an interview with a child raises concerns, the next step might be a home visit. This could discover poor parenting skills, inadequate housekeeping, harmful literature, or a baby who is crying or has a bruise (signs of abuse?).

It is true that some interventions have potential side effects, say drug dependence or suicide, but to assure the health of the population some shared sacrifice and risk is needed. We will have excellent means of tracking outcomes to improve future therapies. The mental health workers' impressions will all be recorded in the school records. An added benefit could accrue to would-be employers or college recruiters.

Some cautions are in order. Democrats might think that potential future Republicans are crazy. Republicans might think the opposite. Should an extremist Christian be one of the screeners, he might think that nonbelievers are possessed by the devil. And an extremist secular humanist (if such exist) might think that an overly religious child is at risk for mental illness if not already impaired.

In fact, parents ought to be asking some very serious questions before the government experts interview the first child: What are the credentials of the screeners? Most importantly, how many children have they raised to adulthood, and with what outcome? What are the criteria for possible abnormality? What is the scientific validation? How often do different observers agree? Have any long-term studies shown a solid correlation with adult performance in life? Do today's oddball children fail, or might they turn into our greatest achievers? Will you be allowed to get a second opinion? Can you see the record and enter corrections if indicated? Will the record at any point be destroyed, or will the stigma of a diagnosis such as "personality disorder" follow the child throughout life?

What will happen if your child fails the screen? What sort of treatment will be given? Who will supervise it? What if you don't approve of it? What's the very worst thing that the program will have the power to do to you or your child, say if your worst enemy was to gain control of it? Who might profit from the program (perhaps discoverable by asking who lobbied for it)? Do drug companies expect to have a large number of new consumers of their psychoactive drugs? What are the results of studies of long-term use of drugs like Ritalin, which has effects on the brain similar to those of cocaine? Have there even been any such studies? Can you refuse to participate in the program? If you do refuse, what are the repercussions? What is the evidence that the program, at best, will be anything other than a waste of millions of dollars?

Miraculously, throughout human history most of those crazy children have become stable, productive adults without federally mandated psychiatric treatment. Still more amazingly, their parents have managed also. Psychiatry in the hands of government, instead of independent physicians who are working for patients, reeks of Orwell's "1984" or the Soviet era. The very need to ask the questions should tell us the right answer for this program: It's crazy.

- Dr. Jane M. Orient is an internist practicing in Tucson, Ariz., and executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Copyright 2004 United Press International

"That is a point we note all the time. If you are not operating in the Cause-State, and if, when you are training, you are not in the Cause State, then when that situation happens, when the panel door opens and the guys in black get out with the duct tape and weapons, you know what you are going to do? You are going to sit there and go, "Oh my god, this is for real." You are not going to immediately recognize the situation and immediately start picking your targets and go immediately into Cause-State. Because you didn't train that way."
-Tim Larkin (Target-Focus Training)

"Our everyday world often makes us too relaxed--careless--and the transition to the extreme situations is very difficult. It becomes so hard to comprehend that people are here to kill you."
- Vladimir Vasiliev (Systema)

Note about Vlad:
Since Vlad was actually an Alpha trooper for 10 years, he knows his stuff, he had to kill with it and survive, nothing better than that. Most "masters" who teach around Canada, I can mop the floor with them and their theoretical expertize, but Vlad trully scares me with the stuff he can do. He also takes his teachings into further than physical and explains a lot about the philosophy of the art, unlike most martial arts studios, and I liked that aspect. I think understanding the art and its philosophy as well as the physical application are needed to balance out a true martial artist.

Here is what was most interesting to me, the final knife work. Given my experience with tantojutsu, I began this drill with a high degree of skepticism. In all the years that I've practice tanto attacks, I've never met anyone who could effectively and consistently defend against a knife attack. Not because I'm so skilled, but because most defenses try to control the obvious global movements of your arms and body, and aren't very effective against the small local movements of your wrist. The subtle local movements that allows you to cut your opponent, even after they've begun their counter. So after practicing with one partner, and constantly reminding him that there wasn't any point in him continuing to disarm me, since I'd already severed all the muscles in his arm, he agreed that his counters weren't working and politely asked the head instructor, Vladimir Vasiliev, to come show me how it's done. Mr. Vasiliev handed me the knife and encouraged me to attack him, which I did. Even at half speed, and with limited force, it was clear that his counters addressed both my global and the local movements. His defenses first neutralized my local movement and range, then proceeded to disarm me by countering my global positioning, all with very little force exerted on his part. In all the years that I've practiced tanto attacks, this was the first person who'd ever done that. I was impressed. On that alone, in that one moment, I lost my skepticism of Systema, and have found a profound respect for Vladimir Vasiliev.

I discovered from off-list messages, that several
of you still don't understand the "selfish gene metaphor", and thus,
what kind of fundamental human behavior is selected. Do the
math. Here is another oversimplified example to illustrate the
principle.

Assume that two fundamental "genetic sets"
(strains of people) exist represented by ten pairs.
Further assume that this tribe looses 30%
of its population every ten or twenty years due to war, disease, and
famine.

Members of gene set #1 are intelligent, honest, and forward looking.
The mating pairs in this set only have two children because they know
the tribe is over carrying capacity (many die of starvation every ten
or twenty years).

Members of gene set #2 are stupid, corrupt,
chronic liars, and only care about the present.
The mating pairs in this set have an average
of ten children before the female dies.

After 20 years, set # 1 has 20 adults + 20
children = 40 members. Set
# 2 has 10 adults (females dead) + 100 children =
110 members.

A famine kills 30% of the tribe. Now, set # 1 has
only 28 members, while set # 2 has 77 members. T
This is a total of 105 tribe members.

If carrying capacity is maxed out, then set # 1
will quickly die out. If not, then the fraction of gene set #1
will continue to shrink till it encounters max carrying capacity,
then dies out.

What kind of behavior will be selected? The
behavior that puts the most genes into the next generation (if they don't
go into the next generation, they don't go anywhere).

The ancestors of everyone alive today was selected
by a process something like the one described above. We should
expect ourselves -- and those around us -- to be stupid, corrupt,
chronic liars, and only care about the present.

Next time you look in the mirror, take a close
look...

Jay Hanson

The Whole Universe is Plastic One Sunday, while Seung Sahn Soen-sa was staying at the International Zen Center of New York, there was a big ceremony marking the end of one hundred days of chanting Kwanseum Bosal. Many Korean women came, with shopping bags full of food and presents. One woman brought a large bouquet of plastic flowers, which she presented smilingly to an American student of Soen-sa's. As soon as he could, the student hid the flowers under a pile of coats. But soon, another woman found them and, with the greatest delight, walked into the Dharma Room and put them in a vase on the altar. The student was very upset.

He went to Soen-sa and said, "Those plastic flowers are awful. Can't I take them off the altar and dump them somewhere?' Soen-sa said, "It is your mind that is plastic. The whole universe is plastic." The student said, "What do you mean?"

Soen-sa said, 'Buddha said, "When one mind is pure, the whole universe is pure; when one mind is tainted, the whole universe is tainted." Every day we meet people who are unhappy. When their minds are sad, everything that they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch is sad. The whole universe is sad. When the mind is happy, the whole universe is happy. If you desire something, then you are attached to it. If you reject it, you are just as attached to it. Being attached to a thing means that it becomes a hindrance in your mind. So "I don't like plastic" is the same as "I like plastic" -- both are attachments. You don't like plastic flowers, so your mind has become plastic, and the whole universe is plastic. Put it all down. Then you won't be hindered by anything. You won't care whether the flowers are plastic or real, whether they are on the altar or in the garbage pail. This is true freedom. A plastic flower is just a plastic flower. A real flower is just a real flower. You mustn't be attached to name and form."

The student said, "But we are trying to make a beautiful Zen center here, for all people. How can I not care? Those flowers spoil the whole room." Soen-sa said, "If somebody gives real flowers to Buddha, Buddha is happy. If somebody else likes plastic flowers and gives them to Buddha, Buddha is also happy. Buddha is not attached to name and form, he doesn't care whether the flowers are real or plastic, he only cares about the person's mind.

These women who are offering plastic flowers have very pure minds, and their action is Bodhisattva action. Your mind rejects plastic flowers, so you have separated the universe into good and bad, beautiful and ugly. So your action is not Bodhisattva action. Only keep Buddha's mind. Then you will have no hindrance. Real flowers are good; plastic flowers are good. This mind is like the great sea, into which all waters flow -- the Hudson River, the Charles River, the Yellow River, Chinese water, American water, clean water, dirty water, salt water, clear water. The sea doesn't say, "Your water is dirty, you can't flow into me." It accepts all waters and mixes them and all become sea. So if you keep the Buddha mind, your mind will be like the great sea. This is the great sea of enlightenment."

- Zen Master Seung Sahn

Oh, it is so easy to condemn someone we know for sure is wrong. eh?

Gathering together for mutual support makes the condemnation even stronger, and more "right" - see all these people who agree with me? It feels good to be on the "right" side. eh? i am away from "pile" (home) for a couple weeks, and wow! such juicy chances to condemn: what she wears, what movie is worst, what spouse should know better, what child is naughty, what president is wrong, what country is evil, what terrorist should burn in hell... i do not always resist, the logic sometimes sounds good, and i join in... immediately heart and mind start shrinkin', gettin' leaner & meaner, contracting into delusional world while ole "I" is jumpin' up and down with delight!

What would happen if we let labeling people and stuff "wrong" go? "Any" condemnation tightens our shackles. And why are we here, but to be free?

- dharma grandmother on DailyDharma, Zen story from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, by Paul Reps, published by Shambhala.

When Bankei held his seclusion-weeks of meditation, pupils from many parts of Japan came to attend. During one of these gatherings a pupil was caught stealing. The matter was reported to Bankei with the request that the culprit he expelled. Bankei ignored the case.
Later the pupil was caught in a similar act, and again Bankei disregarded the matter. This angered the other pupils, who drew up a petition asking for the dismissal of the thief, stating that otherwise they would leave in a body.
When Bankei had read the petition he called everyone before him.
"You are wise brothers, " he told them.
"You know what is right and what is not right. You may go somewhere else to study if you wish but this poor brother does not even know right from wrong. Who will teach him if I do not? I am going to keep him here even if all the rest of you leave."
A torrent of tears cleansed the face of the brother who had stolen. All desire to steal had vanished."

- Zen story

The Bible of the Christians, like the Koran of the Moslems, never seems to consider that the spiritual experiences in the form of hallucinatory visions by prophet or devotee, reported therein, may, in the last analysis, not be real. But the Bardo Thodol is so sweeping in its assertions that it leaves its reader with the clear-cut impression that every vision, without any exception whatsoever, in which spiritual beings, gods or demons, or paradises or places of torment and purgation play a part, in a Bardo or any Bardo-like dream or ecstasy, is purely illusionary, being based up upon sangsaric phenomena.

- W. Y. Evans-Wentz

The prison of the good

It has been said that the good "sanskaras" can be a medium for maintaining the limited self. When a person looks upon himself as good, he is experiencing self-affirmation through identification with an opposite. It is a continuation of separative existence in a new form. This new house which the ego constructs for itself is difficult to dismantle because self-identification with the good is often more complete than self-identification with the bad. Identification with the bad is easier to deal with, because as soon as the bad is recognized its grip on consciousness is lessened; but to loosen the grip of the good presents a more difficult problem, since the good carries a semblance of self-justification.

The ego changes identification with the evil for identification with the good because the latter gives a greater sense of expansion. But sooner or later, the aspirant perceives the good to be no less a limitation. The difficulty concerning evil is not so much in perceiving what it is, as in dissociation; the difficulty concerning good is in perceiving that it is a limitation. This difference arises because animal *sanskaras* are firmly rooted, owing to ancient origin and long accumulation; but it is important to note that the good binds as much as the evil.

- from "God to Man and Man to God" by Meher Baba

Compare with Yeats, from 'The Sorcerors', below:

IN Ireland we hear but little of the darker powers, and come across any who have seen them even more rarely, for the imagination of the people dwells rather upon the fantastic and capricious, and fantasy and caprice would lose the freedom which is their breath of life, were they to unite them either with evil or with good. And yet the wise are of opinion that wherever man is, the dark powers who would feed his rapacities are there too, no less than the bright beings who store their honey in the cells of his heart, and the twilight beings who flit hither and thither, and that they encompass him with a passionate and melancholy multitude. They hold, too, that he who by long desire or through accident of birth possesses the power of piercing into their hidden abode can see them there, those who were once men or women full of a terrible vehemence, and those who have never lived upon the earth, moving slowly and with a subtler malice. The dark powers cling about us, it is said, day and night, like bats upon an old tree; and that we do not hear more of them is merely because the darker kinds of magic have been but little practised.

- W. B. Yeats

Blessed is the poem that comes through me

but not of me because the sound of my own music

will drown the song of Love.

- Rumi

"Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,it is better that you should leave your work and sitat the gate of the temple and take almsof those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference,you bake a bitter bread that feedsbut half man's hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes,your grudge distils a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels,and love not the singing, you muffle man's earsto the voices of the dayand the voices of the night."

~ Kahlil Gibran

We first Americans mingle with our pride an exceptional humility.Spiritual arrogance is foreign to our nature and teaching. We neverclaimed that the power of articulate speech is proof of superiorityover "dumb creation"; on the other hand, it is to us a perilous gift.
We believe profoundly in silence - the sign of a perfect equilibrium.Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit.those who can preserve their selfhood ever calm and unshaken by thestorms of existence - not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree; nota ripple upon the shining pool - those, in the mind of the person ofnature, possess the ideal attitude and conduct of life.

Ohiyesa
The Ways of the Spirit
The Wisdom of the Native Americans

> I think the U.S. Right/Left divide can
> be loosely predicted in individuals by the question: "Is Man
> naturally evil? Yes or no?""

By couching the issue in the normative term "evil" (or "good/bad") they cannot understand the science. Ask instead wheither it is "true/false".

Is it "naturally evil" for a male lion to murder his predecessor'scubs when he takes over a pride? Who Knows? Who cares? It's true."

Jay -- www.dieoff.org

Overcome your uncertainties and free yourself from dwelling on sorrow. If you delight in existence, you will become a guide to those who need you, revealing the path to many.

-Sutta Nipata, from Buddha Speaks

All prosperity and all adversity, childhood, youth, old age and death, as also suffering, what is known as being immersed in happiness and unhappiness and all the rest of it: all these are the extension of the dense darkness of ignorance.

- Vasitha's Yoga

Energy Radiated from Bhagavan

As told by Wolter Keers, a Dutch teacher and writer who visited Bhagavan in 1950, just before his mahasamadhi:

The first time I saw Bhagavan, even at a distance, I immediately recognised that this was the being I had been looking for all my life. My immediate experiences in his presence cemented that conviction. As I sat before him, I became aware of an all- penetrating, all-conquering love that nothing in me was able to resist. But when I use the word 'love', I don't think I quite encapsulate the driving, unstoppable energy with which Bhagavan effortlessly radiated this dissolving force. If I say that I was repeatedly struck by jolting, shuddering, mind-dissolving bolts of lightning, you will get a better idea of just how powerful his presence was. Or perhaps you won't, because I have discovered that no one who has not experienced this kind of energy for himself can really understand what I am hinting at. You will get the idea of some magnificent being radiating light, but you will not have that experience for yourself.

The Power of the Presence, part three. David Godman

Look here, my son!

He who has forgotten his true nature is alternately born and dies, turning round and round in the unceasing wheel of time, like a feather caught up in a whirlwind, until he realised the true nature of the Self. If he comes to see the individual self and its substratum, the Overself, then he becomes the substratum, i.e., Brahman, and escapes rebirth. Should you know yourself no harm will befall you.

As you asked I have told you this.

- excerpt from Kaivalya Navaneeta (The Cream of Emancipation)

Deeper Than Love
by D.H. Lawrence

There is love, and it is a deep thing
but there are deeper things than love.

First and last, man is alone.
He is born alone, and alone he dies
and alone he is while he lives, in his deepest self.

Love, like the flowers, is life, growing.
But underneath are the deep rocks, the living rock that lives
alone
and deeper still the unknown fire, unknown and heavy, heavy
and alone.

Love is a thing of twoness.
But underneath any twoness, man is alone.

And underneath the great turbulent emotions of love, the
violent herbage,
lies the living rock of a single creature's pride,
the dark, naif pride.
And deeper even than the bedrock of pride
lies the ponderous fire of naked life
with its strange primordial consciousness of justice
and its primordial consciousness of connection,
connection with still deeper, still more terrible life-fire
and the old, old final life-truth.

Love is of twoness, and is lovely
like the living life on the earth
but below all roots of love lies the bedrock of naked pride,
subterranean,
and deeper than the bedrock of pride is the primordial fire of
the middle
which rests in connection with the further forever unknowable
fire of all things
and which rocks with a sense of connection, religion
and trembles with a sense of truth, primordial consciousness
and is silent with a sense of justice, the fiery primordial
imperative.

All this is deeper than love
deeper than love.


~ D. H. Lawrence