Saturday, February 14, 2009

To Lovers Everywhere








To All the women and girls of the World. I wish you a Romantic and Beautiful Valentine's Day. May your men and boys be worthy of you.

To All the men and boy's of the World. I wish you to be worthy of the women and girls in your life. There is a Sufi saying, "God treats you like you treat your lover." Remember that and take it to heart.

I urge you men and boys to return to the Romantic or Chivalrous Paths. There is nothing more noble or enlightening in this World than to learn how to be a good lover in all the many and varied forms. Let us men and boys become troubadours and sing and play and dance with the women and girls of the World now and forever.

May the Gay and Lesbian lovers of the world enjoy the love of this Valentine's Day as well. We are all in this Love together.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Play Time

"Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us." Rilke

Lets play with our pain.

First sit or recline and adjust your body so you are in a relatively comfortable position.

Now notice and release any unnecessary muscle tension. Notice your breathing. If you notice that as you inhale your shoulders rise and you jaw tightens and your breath goes to your upper chest just smile. Gently open slightly and relax you jaws. Breath so that as you inhale your belly expands outwardly like a balloon being filled with air. As you exhale your belly contracts inward like a balloon deflating. Smile like a little baby after a wonderful burp. Now lets find some pain and or discomfort to play with.

Scan your body for pain or just go to a place that obviously HURTS. Stay as relaxed as you can without to much effort. Keep the jaws relaxed and slightly open and the make sure you are belly breathing throughout this play time.

Give yourself time to experience each step in the following play time before going on to the next one. About fifteen seconds is a good average amount of time. Take as long as you like. Just let go of any need or tendency to rush through this practice.

Feel that painful area. Say "Hi" to pain and smile. Can you imagine the painful area as having a personality and being surprised at your greeting and before it can help itself, it smile back at you? Can you imagine the pain spontaneously smiling back at you? There you are smiling at each other.

It does not matter where the pain is or what intensity it is. Just you and pain smiling emphatically at each other.

Now can you imagine the area of the pain is like a little scared child being squeezed inside a big clinched fist? And that big tight fist is being held inside another big clinched fist? Poor little pain held so tightly inside two big clinched fists. Poor little smiling pain.

Can you imagine that you are the two fists squeezing poor little smiling pain? What would it feel like if you as the outer fist softly relaxed the pressure on the inner fist and the smiling pain and very gently opened yourself?

Notice and softly and almost effortlessly relax and release any unnecessary muscle tension around the smiling pain.Ahhh.

Can you imagine how you as the inner fist would feel? Now that the outer fist has opened and relaxed you feel more space and warmth and find yourself effortlessly relaxing , and releasing into it.

Sigh, the little smiling pain has a bit more space it can relax and release and effortlessly open and expand into.
Can you imagine a warm gentle cascade of relaxing, releasing, opening and expanding energy sensations spreading effortlessly throughout your body?

Sigh, such a wonderful gift you have given to smiling little pain.

" Ohhh, Thanks, says smiling little pain. That is better. I can breath easier and relax more. Thank you." Pain smiles more and with less effort. You smile is warmer and more loving.

Now can you imagine you are the inner fist and you can chose to begin to open and relax even more?

Can you imagine that now that you have more space to move into and more blood and energy flows into you, that you are becoming warm and comfortable and open?
Can you imagine how it feels to now just gently open and softly hold little smiling pain?

Can you imagine how wonderful it feel to softly hold the area with warm radiating loving energy just as you are held gently with warm radiating loving energy by your outer hand?

Can you imagine and feel another sweet warm cascade of relaxing and releasing energy sweep through your body in all directions.

" Wow, that's even better smiling pain murmurs sweetly." You smile and the little area smiles. Sometimes the little smiling pain has become just a smile.
No more or much reduced pain.

If the little one wants more release just repeat the play until you stop naturally or the pain is gone or the intensity is less. The more you play with pain the less you will have.

" Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us."

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The Drums Are Calling Us!


We call on all the older people of the world. We call on the youth of the world. We call on you personally, to unite in love and to help the people and creatures of the Mother Planet. We call the People of the Americas. the men and women of Asia and Africa and the people of good will among the Arabs and the Israelis. Come you Turks and Persians. Stand with us oh people of Iraqis and Afghanistan, you Kurds, and Australians, and our brothers and sisters of the Island Nations in all the Oceans and Seas of the World. Let us leave aside the religions and politics that divide us and join in recognition that we are One and need each the other.If we do not do it for ourselves let us do it for those we love and extend that love outward to the whole World.
If you have the desire and the ability to help change the world for the better in any way this is the time to lend a hand. We Baby Boomers and those older and younger than us have another adventure that beckons us. Let us see if we can integrate what we have learned and bring forth new quests. The People needs new visions right now that call us to Unity and action. The youth are waiting for something to happen outside themselves. So are we. Let us unite with them and be the happening. There is much to do and we cannot just sit back and leave it to others. I hear the tribal drums calling those of us who had hope for real change when we were young and saw that fire of celebration and adventure turn to dying embers. Lean down near those embers and gently blow the breath of enthusiasm over them. Believe what can be and watch the fire rise again.

Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.
T. S. Eliot


I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.
T. S. Eliot

If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
T. S. Eliot

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.
Rainer Maria Rilke


It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.
T. S. Eliot

There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.
Rainer Maria Rilke


Fear of the Inexplicable


But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished
the existence of the individual; the relationship between
one human being and another has also been cramped by it,
as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of
endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the
bank, to which nothing happens. For it is not inertia alone
that is responsible for human relationships repeating
themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and
unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new,unforeseeable
experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope.

But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes
nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation
to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively
from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of
the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident
that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a
place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and
down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous
insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in
Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons
and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode.

We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about
us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us.
We are set down in life as in the element to which we best
correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of
years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we
hold still we are, through a happy mimicry,scarcely to be
distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to
mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors,
they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abuses belong to us;
are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we
arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us
that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now
still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust
and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those
ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into
princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses
who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps
everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us.

Rainer Maria Rilke





Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T. S. Eliot

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot


Ulysses
Alfred Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vest the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all to little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads you and I are old;
Old age had yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

It Is A Good Day To Live!




There is a delay in my ability to translate this blog onto video. My wife, who will be behind the camera, has to much work to do right now . She has a test in massage school she needs to study for and some children and other personal problems that demand most of her attention. So no video for a bit.

The Lords of the Wall Streets of the World have made one hell of a mess. Their greed and callous disregard for the consequences of their actions in acquiring vast fortunes is causing untold damage to the planet and people of the world. If there were social justice in this country and around the world the men and women who have created this economic and environmental catastrophe would be in jail awaiting trial for crimes against Humanity. Instead most of them are still enjoying the good life relative to the vast majority of the people of the world. How many will be indicted or convicted? Only a very few. What about us? We will have to deal with the very real and dangerous results of their actions for the rest of our lives.

Such is how it is and such is how it has always been. The rich and powerful have always behaved the way the current ruling classes are behaving. The biggest difference is that their greedy personal-ego driven choices have become more destructive because of the development of modern technologies and chemicals. The vast increase in population and the shortening of physical distances because of communication and transportation advances have combined to create the perfect conditions for world wide suffering. Now there is not only one World but one Ruling Class of the World and one People of the World.The rich and powerful throughout recorded history have hardly ever given a damn beyond a few gestures and words hear and there about the way the vast majority or the world's people and other creatures are forced to live and die.

My wife pointed out to me that not all the super wealthy and powerful are indifferent to the people and planet. There are many exceptions to this. The Gates family, Sores and Warren Buffet. the Kennedy family to name a few. That there are exceptions does not disprove the rule. History has shown over and over in every country in the world that the main concerns of the very rich and powerful have to do with accumulating more wealth and power for themselves and their families and friends, the rest of the country and the world be damned. Even when the occasional leader has stood up for the people how long has it been before they were either killed or brought off. In most cases our saviors soon show that their concerns were masks for their real agendas which was and is, more often than not, more power and wealth for themselves. The people have been and are used as foot soldiers and laborers and cast aside when we are were no longer useful. The best we ever get from them are a few tokens or gestures depending on how prosperous we helped them to become or how threatening we became to them. As I was once told by an old man in Kentucky, " Son, some of need those few gestures. So thank God for them."

What I am saying is that if we look to the rich and powerful to save us or change the world for the better we might as well spend every penny we have left on lotto tickets. We have a better chance at winning the lotto than depending on them to secure our future. So what is to be done? What can we do? Class war does not work. They have to many ways of winning and if we won some of us would soon become them and we would be back to where we are now or worse.So what is to be done?

The good news is that we are doing what is needed right now. People alone and in groups all over the world are reaching out to one another. We are sharing information and giving all kinds of support in a multiplicity of forms to each other. Needs and problems are being recognized and confronted and dealt with by an ever increasing number of people and organizations in and out of governments and institutions. I have to say I feel more hopeful and dedicated than I have ever felt in my life. And many people all over the world feel the same way. It is a good time to be alive.

If you are confused and afraid and in pain of any kind I urge you to become an explorer and an adventure. Become the Fool in the Tarot deck and set out to find a new way of seeing and thinking and being. There are as many paths to understanding and help as there are hearts and feet and minds.Try some things on this blog or follow some of the many links you find here. Reach out to us and we will reach out to you. By we I mean all the people of the paths of Love.

The paths of Love are ways that proclaim the Unity of all beings. The people of the paths of Love want to be of help to all sentient beings in need. We help when and where we can. We do what we can when we can and leave the outcome to the Mother/Father.

One of my Sufi teachers once said that it is like this. We have a need or see another in need. Before we take action we say BishmAllah, which means I will do what I do with the highest awareness I can. Than we will respond to the need in the most beautiful way we can. After we have finished the first action we say inshAllah. That means I will leave the results of my action to the Mother/Father. We observe the results.If we see a need for another action we repeat the process. If the need has been resolved we celebrate. He said it is a beautiful dance with Allah. We are responsible for between BishmAllah and inshAllah. Allah does the rest. Allah leads first by showing the need. We lead next by responding to the need. She/He leads next and so on and so on. The dance continues forever.

I was speaking with a good friend of mine named Candy recently. She had just lost her thirty seven year old son to cancer. We were talking about the condition of the world and our desire to help. Candy has been a good friend and teacher for me since I went to Kent State in 1968. She has been on the spiritual path for over thirty years and has practiced a form of meditation for those years. Candy said that perhaps this world was never created to resolve all the problems that we face but as a place where we could incarnate on to have experiences.

I agree with her. I believe that we came hear for a multiplicity of reasons including just to have the adventure of being human on this planet. My perspective is mainly from the Sufi path. I see a strange and wonderful duality about our species. On the one hand we are human and full of crazy social life and pain. We are as another of my Sufi teacher said, an immature species slowly becoming mature over millenniums. Right now we are in early adolescence. And the adults among us know how difficult adolescence can be. On the other we are divine beings who have chosen to forget who we are while we are pretending to be human. And while we are being human we are simultaneously still Divine beings who in the greater Reality are dancing and singing with the Beloved and with each other. We are dancing and singing together even as we seem to be suffering and hating and fighting each other. You see this in the Hindu story of the Bhagavad Gita ( link to a copy of the Gits http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/gita/ ) and in all the spiritual traditions in one form or another.

What seems to be our reality is an illusion and what seems to be to good to be true is the Truth. The One Truth does not deny the reality of the illusionary truths that confront us day to day. We still need to act as if suffering is real and respond with as much love and help as we can muster at the moment. Such is the nature of who we are and where we are.

As a parting gift I leave you some links to paths worth exploring.

For those in various kinds of pain I urge you to get the book Open-Focus Brain. I have been using the techniques found in this book for all kinds of pain and they work more often than not.

http://openfocus.com/

For many links to a number of different kinds of paths try the following link and have some fun.

http://urbangurucafe.com/wordpress/index.php

A place to go for a Buddhist perspective. I send you to a place on the sight that I have just finished reading. You can go to the Home page from there.

http://www.tricycle.com/web-exclusive/family-dharma-leaning-suffering

A Sufi Zen thing,

http://www.zensufi.com/

And here are a feew more.



http://www.allspirit.co.uk/


http://faculty.virginia.edu/consciousness/

http://sunlightgroup.blogspot.com/

Being able to use intentional imagination is one of the most important ingredients in chi kung and in self healing in general. This truth h...