Quote of the Day – March 31 2012

“Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.”
–Bruce Lee

 

Yet people keep trying to classify, label and sort us to find exactly where we fit into the current systems. Of course it doesn’t work. None of us despite our best efforts can ever easily fit. The systems of labelling decay as do the labellers with it. The only systems that will work are organic ones, ones that will grow and alter with us as we do.
Blessings, G

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Shaping the Vortex by G A Rosenberg

Happy by G A Rosenberg

Blue -Drop Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – March 30 2012

“‘Q: What can each one of us do to help alleviate the suffering of the world?

‘That’s a good question. The first thing is that you be aware of it and recognize it unsentimentally… that you just be aware of what it’s really like. Then the next thing you do is that you don’t get bummed by it, because that makes you contribute to it.’

‘What you do is that you take care of the first thing at hand, which is right between your ears. Fix your head….’

Q: How do you fix your head?

‘You have to tell the truth all the time even in uncomfortable situations, even if there’s great social difficulty.’

‘What that does is that it keeps you from having [things] subconscious; and if you don’t have subconscious you should be smart enough to figure everything else out yourself. If you don’t have subconscious the clear light of God can shine through you. Your own subconscious is the filter that keeps that out.’
–Stephen Gaskin

I was thinking of only using one of the question answer pairs here but I have to admit I find the whole of it pretty awesome. He talks about compassion so off-hand. Recognize suffering and be aware of what it’s really like in an unsentimental fashion. That statement realizes that sentimentality can totally blindside empathy and stop it on its way to compassion if we let it. It seems so easy to put value judgements on what we perceive from others that rather than openly put ourselves in another’s shoes, we both romanticize and trivialize it. I know I have been guilty of this in the past and still catch myself doing it sometimes.
As a friend of mine would say “See how we are”
The total honesty all the time part is something that I wish I had the courage to try. I know that it is a necessity in order to have true lasting communication with others, still it is something I approach as a goal and have been working towards. Closer every day.
Blessings, G

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The Sky Was Filled With Wonder by G A Rosenberg

Flowering Cosmos by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – March 29 2012

“Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave. ”
–G. I. Gurdjieff

A friend of mine was complaining about another friend, about how unfair and tyrannical he was and she really wanted me to agree. She even offered me a transcript of a conversation she had with him as proof. Therein lay the problem.
Within four lines of dialog she was calling him names, telling him what he meant when he said things, willfully misinterpreting his words in the most insulting way possible. In short acting in a manner that fit fully what she was accusing him of. What seemed like a classical case of projection.

How often I have found myself getting angry at someone with whom I’ve had some interaction only to find that not only was I getting angry at the other person for doing things I did myself but that the other person was not actually doing it. My subconscious was sending me a wakeup call by bouncing my own stuff back at me. Lately I have started listening more and more. It’s amazing how insidious our robots, the part of us that react on automatic pilot can be. Luckily, if we are working towards awareness and practicing reflection, meditation and self-knowledge it becomes easier to catch ourselves. Well, most of the time.
Blessings, G

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Colour Wars by G A Rosenberg

Bedazzled by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – March 28 2012

“The teachers we need will always be there when we need them; no reason to track down somebody else’s.”
–Jed McKenna

Sometimes the teacher’s we most need to learn from tend to be the unexpected ones. Someone enters our life, it could be a teacher, a student, a customer who comes into our store and that person either in a moment or over the course of years. This person might not be a teacher for anyone else but he or she becomes our teacher because they are uniquely qualified to convey that thread of truth which we need at that time.
No ‘guru’ can teach us what that person can. When we need those teachers, they are there or at least I have found that to always be so. BLessings, G

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Cosmic hang five by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – March 27 2012

“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”
–Mahatma Gandhi

 

This reminds me of the Richard Bachman quote, “Argue for your limitations and sure enough they’re yours” It seems for so long I’ve told myself that I could not do certain things and worse yet believed others that I could not do them that I never really tried.
Three years ago I would never have believed that I would be consistently creating visual art that people liked. I had some talent with Photoshop but saw it as an extension of my computer skills not as anything visual.
Then I started feeling some awakenings of consciousness. Then I started hanging out and talking to some very cool people who encouraged my writing efforts and told me that self-expression was of great importance. I started meditating more and creating more. I didn’t think much of it. I have always done some writing and now I had more to express than I had in years. I even started making youtube videos. Out of this came more amazing friendships, more roads to exploration of myself, the universe and our interconnectedness and more need for self expression.
One day in order to avoid writing an essay, I decided to start a new project. I had always practiced meditation and reading with the tarot. What would it be like to do a poem or haiku for each of the cards. I would do one a night, choosing the card at random for 78 nights, just to see if I could do it. This was my project in 2009. You can find some examples here (http://grosenberg.wordpress.com/page/100/ ) and the pages surrounding it.

The project was completed successfully and then I started considering if, properly illustrated this collection of haikus might make an interesting book.  I decided to start using my Photoshop skills to start doing collage work. I surprised myself by actually being quite good at it.  It satisfies a need of self-expression in me like few things I have done before and that some of my work has touch others amazes me in ways I never thought possible.

If I had continued telling myself that I couldn’t draw or I couldn’t do visual art than none of that would have been possible. What other ways have I limited myself  by never tryings? What ways do you do it? More and more I believe it is our destiny to self-actualize in as many ways as possible and very little is impossible.

Blessings, G

 

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Heart Shine by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – March 26 2012

“And so, please practice! Please let that be your guide. And I believe that you will find, if your practice matures, that Spirit will reach down and bless your every word and deed, and you will be taken quite beyond yourself, and the Divine will blaze with the light of a thousand suns, and glories upon glories will be given unto you, and you will in every way be home. And then, despite all your excuses and all your objections, you will find the obligation to communicate your vision. And precisely because of that, you and I will find each other. And that will be the real return of Spirit to itself.”
— Ken Wilber

Of Elephants and New Age Folly

Five Blind Men and the Elephant

Once upon a time, five blind men came upon an elephant.

“What is this?!” asked the first one, who had run headlong into its side.

“It’s an Elephant.” said the elephant’s keeper, who was sitting on a stool, cleaning the elephant’s harness.

“Wow! So this is an Elephant! I’ve always wondered what Elephants are like!” said the man, running his hands as far as he could reach up and down the elephant’s side. “Why, it’s just like a wall! A large, warm wall!”

“What do you mean, a wall?” said the second man, wrapping his arms around the elephant’s leg. “This is nothing like a wall. You can’t reach around a wall! This is more like a pillar. Yeah, that’s it! An Elephant is exactly like a pillar!”

“A pillar? Strange kind of pillar!” said the third man, stroking the elephant’s trunk. “It’s too thin, for one thing, and it’s too flexible for another. If you think this is a pillar, I don’t want to go to your house! This is more like a snake. See, it’s wrapping around my arm! An Elephant is just like a snake!”

“Snakes don’t have hair!” said the fourth man in disgust, pulling the elephant’s tail. “You are closer than the others, but I’m surprised that you missed the hair. This isn’t a snake, it’s a rope. Elephants are exactly like ropes.”

“I don’t know what you guys are on!” the fifth man cried, waving the elephant’s ear back and forth. “It’s as large as a wall, all right, but thin as a leaf, and no more flexible than any piece of cloth this size should be. I don’t know what’s wrong with all of you, but no one except a complete idiot could mistake an Elephant for anything except a sail!!!”

And as the elephant stepped aside, they tramped off down the road, arguing more loudly and violently as they went, each sure that he, and he alone, was right; and all the others were wrong.

Whereas the truth is that the elephant is… the elephant.

from http://revolutionmagik.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/the-five-blind-men-the-elephant-the-integral-vision/

Whenever I hear someone say that ‘everyone has their reality’, I am reminded of this story.
Rather than trying to perceive the elephant or acknowledge it
it is saying, “yes your’s is like a tree stump, mine is like a rope’ we all have our own way of seeing an elephant
without acknowledging that there is some way the elephant all fits together, in other words , to integrate the views
it feels sloppy because after all the talk about tree stump and rope… there is STILL an elephant standing in front of them

Literally the ‘elephant in the room’ in much of New Age talk
To be honest, I find this attitude somewhat fear based. This could be because many of the people who I’ve spoken to who have it seem to have an issue with people disagreeing with them, very often confusing disagreement with disrespect
It feels as if they have a fear of being seen wrong about something in public
Which leads to why they insist on relative truth, and how truth is different for everyone, and let’s agree to disagree… because in a sense it is a way of avoiding responsibility that their truth may somehow be intimately connected to the very soul of the Universe, and that it is more than about if they see a rope or a tree stump

I tend to take for granted that if the universe is as R Buckminster Fuller said it to be an Asynchronomously apprehended phenomenon (that is too vast to be understood completely all at once) then we are ALL incorrect in some things
working together, combining our views of the universe, testing which of each view is more accurate (and yes disagreeing in order to come to a greater understanding ) we can come to a greater knowing and understanding of ourselves and the greater universe we are but parts of

“The thirst to be boundless is not created by you. It is just life wishing to know itself.”
– Sadhguru.

How can all our realities be different when the desire we all hold originated from the very same soul?
Even our differences are illusions… and that’s what takes courage to see…
Fear keeps us seeing differences… courage helps us see similarities… courage helps us connect… unify.

Blessings, G

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Meditation at the Centre by G A Rosenberg

Memories of Atlantis by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – March 25 2012

“Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.”
–John Adams

A friend of mine asked me what significance the card below, the seven of cups had to my life at this time. At first I told her that as a choice of card to do it was fairly random. I should have known better. Random is a pretty arbitrary term and I gave up believing in coincidence long ago.
The seven of cups is all about choices that are mostly illusory and reasons for those choices. Most of the time many of us choose according to our needs, whether love, fear, desire for safety or money..but ultimately we choose according to our nature and our needs.
This past week, I have been contemplating a difficult decision. I have looked at it from many different angles and argued several different points of view, driving my partner half crazy in the process. Ultimately tho no matter how much I agonize, no matter how dramatically I show that I hate deciding, there is no choice, I will act according to my nature. Knowing this, i can give it a rest and at least be sure of having some clarity.
How often do we put ourselves into this loop of anxiety over indecision? We tell ourselves we have the freedom to choose anything. Our own being ultimately decides. Trusting that, we can calm ourselves down quite a bit.
Blessings, G

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Seven of Cups by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – March 24 2012

“Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.”
— Virginia Woolf

Possibly the imperceptibility of these attachments is why we allow fiction to reflect our lives more accurately sometimes than the ‘true’ stories that we tell…
Tonight I’ve been reading some of the mythological stories about Anansi, the spider, a trickster deity from West African and American folklore. Not terribly surprising, I found that a rather famous story that I’ve recounted here before, one that Uncle Remus told about Br’er Rabbit, was originally about Anansi

Anansi and the Tar-Baby

Once Mrs. Anansi had a large feed. She planted it with peas. Anansi was so lazy he would never do any work. He was afraid that they would give him none of the peas, so he pretended to be sick. After about nine days, he called his wife an’ children an’ bid them farewell, tell them that he was about to die, an’ he ask them this last request, that they bury him in the mids’ of the peas-walk, but firs’ they mus’ make a hole thru the head of the coffin an’ also in the grave so that he could watch the peas for them while he was lying there. An’ one thing more, he said, he would like them to put a pot and a little water there at the head of the grave to scare the thieves away. So he died and was buried.

All this time he was only pretending to be dead, an’ every night at twelve o’clock he creep out of the grave, pick a bundle of peas, boil it, and after having a good meal, go back in the grave to rest. Mistress Anansi was surprised to see all her peas being stolen. She could catch the thief no-how. One day her eldest son said to her, “Mother, I bet you it’s my father stealing those peas!” At that Mrs. Anansi got into a temper, said, “How could you expect your dead father to rob the peas!” Said, “Well, mother, I soon prove it to you.” He got some tar an’ he painted a stump at the head of the grave an’ he put a hat on it.

When Anansi came out to have his feast as usual, he saw this thing standing in the groun’. He said, “Good-evening, sir!” got no reply. Again he said, “Good-evening, sir!” an’ still no reply. “If you don’ speak to me I’ll kick you!” He raise his foot an’ kick the stump an’ the tar held it there like glue. “Let me go, let me go

sir, or I’ll knock you down with my right hand!” That hand stuck fast all the same. I’ll you don’ let me go, I’ll hit you with my lef’ hand!” That hand stick fas’ all the same. An’ he raise his lef’ foot an’ gave the stump a terrible blow. That foot stuck. Anansi was suspended in air an’ had to remain there till morning. Anansi was so ashamed that he climb up beneath the rafters an’ there he is to this day.
Stanly Jones, Claremont South Ann from  Jamaican Anansi Stories collected by Martha Warren Beckwith

I’ve always loved this story and for me it provides a great metaphor for what happens when we dislike something, the more we strike out at it, the harder we stick Blessings, G

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Cosmic Web Mandala by G A Rosenberg

An Open Letter to Vimeo

Something a bit different this morning. A frien of mine had an amazing account on Vimeo where he shared some fairly rare and important non-commercial films and documentaries that he felt would be of benefit for all to see. Vimeo cancelled this account. Here is Vajra’s Description of the situation and his response to Vimeo

Vimeo just deleted my entire collection of inspirational, educational videos that I had collected to help inform those looking for information that isn’t being mass-marketed as fact by Fox & co. It included Spirit Science videos, RSA Animates, Adam Curtis’ brilliant documentaries that tell us what’s really happening under the surface, Nassim Haramein’s lectures on a new way of looking at science using sacred geometry… and other very empowering info.

Vimeo said in a letter, “Your videos have been removed for violating the Upload Rules of Vimeo. Vimeo does not allow TV Shows, movie trailers, or stuff you found on the web. If you believe this was in error, please reply to this email in a civil manner with your reasoning (“I see other people do it” is not a valid reason).”

So, I replied,

Hi,

I joined Vimeo because I felt the principles behind your company respected the rights of every person to share information – which is a great gift of the Internet age. So much access to information, to which the excessive restriction of copyright laws are in itself a violation of basic human rights. There are only few companies that understand this now, and they happen to be the ones who see sense. Saying that piracy and copyright infringement costs the original artists and companies severe losses is NOT AN EXCUSE. First of all, they make more than enough. You and I both know this. We need a place where we can actually share information that EMPOWERS people, and that is what I was using my account on Vimeo for.

Just as one must fight against an unjust law that once made African-Americans secondary citizens, in the same way the excuse of copyright infringement (which you and I both know is largely being pushed with the agenda of having a monopoly on the kind of information people receive) simply cannot be accepted as it is an unjust law set up for the purposes of discrimination and vested interests.

Pls forward this message to the heads of Vimeo. You have a choice ahead of you. To stand up for what is right, or to back an unfair law that seeks only to enslave people.

I for one will try and find a place to share information where they see the common sense of what I am saying here. Bottom Line: People have a right to information that they are not getting through mass media. And we share this information through social network and social media related sites such as yours. All such sites are going to be faced with this choice in the coming days.

Dissapointed. I will be sharing this letter in blogs, tumblr and other places where the truth behind these words can be spread.

I realize this topic is controversial and that Vimeo among other sites have been threatened (and faced) with lawsuits and have thus become hyper-vigilant, going overboard in terms of policing themselves. I do find something non-courageous in this stance. Like so many other areas, I also find that this is another in which one solution does not fit all situations yet find too few willing to use discernment.