An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we’re not free.

From "The Incomplete Manifesto", an articulation of statements exemplifying Bruce Mau’s beliefs, strategies and motivations. Written in 1998.

Eastern vs. Western Metaphysics

The Bhagavad-Gitā uses this account of personal identity as a grounds for an analysis of freedom. The vehicle for this analysis is a dialogue between the warrior-prince, Arjuna, and the incarnate deity, Krsna. Arjuna is about to fight a war against his “own people” . He is troubled that it is wrong for him to kill his own teachers and kinsmen to serve the “greed” of his superiors. Eventually, after asking Krsna’s advice, he refuses to fight. Krsna’s response is that Arjuna misunderstands the true nature of ātman. All of the persons that Arjuna is worried about destroying are physical vessels carrying a spark of the ultimate reality. When the body perishes, the self persists, as it is a part of the immortal divine. Bodies are destined to perish, and souls to be reborn, so death should not concern Arjuna. Arjuna should instead be concerned with his own duty, without regard for possible consequences. Desires and concerns for consequences drive the lower states of consciousness. A consciousness that is at one with ātman is freed from these concerns. That sort of consciousness will be motivated by duty, and will be free to focus all of its attention on the performance of duty.

“Do thou become free, Arjuna, from this threefold nature ; be free from the dualities; be firmly fixed in purity, not caring for acquisition and preservation; and be possessed of the Self.”

Freedom, for the Hindu, is elevating consciousness to a level where it is directed by ātman, and motivated by duty. It is a freedom from concern for one’s actions. Arjuna should fight because, as he is a warrior-prince, it is his duty. If he was at one with ātman, then he would not be concerned with anything else.

By: Nesta Smith

ONLY A PERSON WHO RISKS IS FREE

by Author Unknown

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach for another is to risk involvement.
To expose your ideas, your dreams,
before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To believe is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken, because the
greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The people who risk nothing, do nothing,
have nothing, are nothing.
They may avoid suffering and sorrow,
but they cannot learn, feel, change,
grow, love, live.
Chained by their attitudes they are slaves;
they have forfeited their freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.

Taken from the book Addiction by Prescription by Joan E. Gadsby

The Mystery Behind Love-Hate Relationships

“Those low in self-esteem are chronically concerned about whether or not their close relationship partners will or will not accept them,” Clark said. “In good times, those low in self-esteem tend to idealize partners, rendering those partners safe for approach and likely to reflect positively upon them. At the first sign of a partner not being perfect, however, they switch to focusing on all possible negatives about the partner so as to justify withdrawing from that partner and not risking vulnerability.”

From Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90: 652-665 (May 2006), Margaret Clark

Pain

Pain is a preacher protecting our will,
not to be ignored by the use of a pill
Finding the source is a matter of course
for inside the chaos of "must" and "should"
hides a hopeful "would if I could"
The options are many, and you can choose any!

Pain is there with a purpose to teach
us as students of life to reach
an existence in health and no disease,
and if we really listen - inner peace.

Listen we must, and in pain trust
to guide our way from the path of prey
to avoid it as hell, and hence get well
Liberation from all disturbance and anguish!
A state of ataraxia is well worth a wish!


Sonja Bunes © 2001

Only in silence - the word

"In naming the shadow of his death with his own name, he had made himself hole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life´s sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark. Only in silence - the word, only in dark - light, only in dying - life."

Ursula LeGuin’s EARTHSEA

Love Of All Things

To commend is one thing; to formulate its path is another. For one to seek after effectively the gospel of love, entails first to understand the reasons why this is the best choice for living ones life. Briefly put, the person who loves all things has a greater portion of inner tranquility and happiness. The Greek philosophers called the happiness from inner tranquility ataraxia (a term which in English means calmness of mind).

Click the heading "Love Of All Things" and let JK present the ancient Greek philosophers’ chain of logic as to how to obtain inner tranquility, because they didn’t just say, “do this and that” (which would be a set of homilies), but presented a web of convincing arguments in support of their conclusions. Logic moves people.

JK, thinker@skeptically.org

- inner silence

"The cat is a cultivated and elegant animal that stalks with such grace while human beings despair of stress in their daily lives - this beautiful animal is a shining example for the inner silence I try to reach."
...
"I really don’t remember the context in which I uttered the term "inner silence" - probably I meant a condition of inner calmness that can be achieved with a certain peace within oneself. That’s a virtue which has very often been discussed in philosophical treatise - this condition of inner silence is called “ataraxia” to mention the technical term."

"Life is an intellectual path..." this statement analysed through the lyrics written for his Band (ex-Of Trees and the Orchids). Simona Vinati, thought-cathedral@gmx.de

Ataraxia

Ataraxia (Ἀταραξία) is a Greek term used by Pyrrho and Epicurus for a limpid state, characterized by freedom from worry or any other preoccupation.

For the Epicureans, ataraxia was synonymous with the only true happiness possible for a person. It signifies the detached and balanced state of mind that shows that a person has transcended the material world and is now harvesting all the comforts of philosophy.

For the Pyrrhonians, owing to one's inability to say which sense impressions are true and which ones are false, it is a pleasant place that arises from suspending judgment on dogmatic beliefs or anything non-evident and continuing to inquire. The experience was said to have fallen on the painter Apelles who was trying to paint the foam of a horse. He tried and failed so many times that in a rage he threw a sponge he was cleaning his brushes with at the medium and thus produced the effect of the horse's foam.

The Stoics, too, sought mental tranquillity, and saw ataraxia as something to be desired and often made use of the term, but for them the analogous state, attained by the Stoic sage, was apatheia or absence of passion.

Wikipedia.org (15 October 2008, at 20:56)

Ancient Skepticism, and ataraxia

...
Mates has criticized this aspect of Pyrrhonism, writing that “It is hard to find much plausibility in the general claim that the person who, on a given occasion, thinks "this appears to me to be very, very bad” will be any less upset than if he thought “this is very, very bad” (63). The Pyrrhonean might answer that their acceptance of appearances is more powerful than this suggests, for it takes place within the context of equally convincing arguments for and against the view that things are as they appear. When faced with the thought that “This is very, very bad,” the Pyrrhonean will, therefore, combat this thought by trying to develop a set of compelling arguments for the conclusion that “This appears bad, but I have equally convincing reasons for thinking it may not be so.” In such a context, it is the compelling arguments which the Pyrrhonean produces that are supposed to provide a psychological basis for the detached and distant “following” of appearances which characterizes Pyrrhonian equanimity (isostheneia). The equal force of opposing arguments is thus the key to Pyrrhonian ataraxia).
...
Given the practical goals of Pyrrhonism, one might argue that the psychological force of Pyrrhonian arguments was as important as their logical force, for it was designed to constrain a Pyrrhonean's attachment to appearances. The psychological implications highlight one of the fundamental differences that separates ancient and modern arguments for skepticism, for the ancient skeptics (and especially the Pyrrhonians) used skeptical arguments as psychological tools designed to break down their own and others' psychological attachment to belief. It is in this way that their arguments were meant to foster ataraxia.

Copyright © 2008 by Leo Groarke, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Silence is so accurate

Silence is so accurate.

Marc Rothko

Silence flows like poetry

Worrying is the incessant chattering of the over-active mind that is fueled by your fears.

...

Silence helps you evolve and grow. It helps your wisdom blossom. It teaches you to trust your inner self. Silence flows like poetry. Silence is the dance of discernment. Silence is the language of communication with God.

Uzma Mazhar © 2001

The attitude of silence

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.

Mahatma Gandhi

...the noisiest era ever.

Now we live in the noisiest era ever. There never was a time when we needed silence and quiet and calm more. But we worship speed for its own sake, and sheer sound for its own sake, and power for its own sake.

Harold Brown

Soon silence will have passed into legend

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.

Jean Arp

Hjertets stillhet

"Når lyset kommer inn i hjertet, vil det gjenspeile seg og bli utvidet, Det betegner seg som løsrivelse fra det begrensede selvet og som hjertets stillhet." Profeten Mohammad (fvmh)

... silent about things that matter

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

Martin Luther King

Silence, Love, Pain, Darkness

But you love to let me go into a cloud where knowledge does not dwell and where all things are still and wrapped in love and you.

I love the cloud, the silence, the love, and you; and I love the pain, the darkness, and the strange rain of things that happen by your will to me when you desire that I should retire from the cloud and go to search for your footprints in the dark of men’s souls....

The cloud of “not knowing,” the dark, the rain, the pain, the cold, the tempter’s laugh, his loathsome touch, the slimy things of hell, the dank rivers of pride, so still, so black, the pains that come and go, the wood that holds me tight—oh, Love, for you and souls, give those to me and I will call them joyous ecstasies.

Catherine de Hueck Doherty

Children Learn What They Live

• If a child lives with criticism,

• he learns to condemn.

• If a child lives with hostility,

• he learns to fight.

• If a child lives with ridicule,

• he learns to feel shy.

• If a child lives with shame,

• he learns to feel guilty.

• If a child lives with tolerance,

• he learns to be patient.

• If a child lives with encouragement,

• he learns confidence.

• If a child lives with praise,

• he learns to appreciate.

• If a child lives with fairness,

• he learns justice.

• If a child lives with security,

• he learns to have faith.

• If a child lives with approval,

• he learns to like himself.

• If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,

• he learns to find love in the world.

Coping.org is a Public Service of James J. Messina, Ph.D. & Constance M. Messina, Ph.D.
©1999-2007 James J. Messina, Ph.D. & Constance Messina, Ph.D.

The Force, by Stuart Wilde

Your power comes from understanding that where others are is where they need to be, and whatever they are doing is for their highest growth, and you should not judge it. By totally accepting other people's reality, you express true universal love, and you invigorate your own progress, because judgement does not hold you back to the baser physical level.

from The Force, by Stuart Wilde

The Violence of Love

THE VIOLENCE we preach is not
the violence of the sword,
the violence of hatred.
It is the violence of love,
of brotherhood,
the violence that wills to beat weapons
into sickles for work.

Oscar Romero, nov. 22, 1977

Om Kitsch og Kunst

"Kitschens negasjon av kunstens verdisystem betegner (Herman) Broch imidlertid ikke som opposisjon, men som imitasjon. Opposisjon kan nemlig være ærlig og redelig, den kan være uttrykk for genuin uenighet og opprørstrang overfor etablerte verdier, og dette gjelder aldri for kitschen. Kitschen er lureri, ikke raseri; kitschen er innsmigrende, ikke opprivende; kitschen er aldri uenig eller enig i det som finnes innenfor kunstens verdisystem, den etterligner det bare. Brochs metafysiske beskrivelse av kitsch er at den gjør det uendelige mål endelig, at den imiterer dette uendelige mål gjennom en falsk identifikasjon med noe endelig, slik at symbolene på det uendelige målet blir identisk med dette målet selv. Et eksempel han nevner er kirken som gikk fra å være et symbol på Gud til å bli direkte identifisert med Gud. Eller erotikken som gikk fra å være et symbol på kjærligheten til å bli selve kjærligheten. Pornografi oppstår således som kjærlighetslitteraturens «kitsch» idet selve kjønnsakten er blitt et mål i seg selv."

Av Frode Helmich Pedersen

Nestekjærlighet

"Vi etterlyser et visjonært menneske– og samfunnssyn i vår rike del av verden. Vi må kjempe for å virkeliggjøre menneskerettighetene. Retten til et verdig liv og retten til en fremtid. For hvert enkelt menneske.

Verden trenger at vi beskytter det menneskelige i oss. Den som kan, skal hjelpe."

Margreth Olin, initiativtaker nestekjaerlighet.no

KLIKK OVERSKRIFTEN OG SIGNER OPPROPET

honey

"Life is the flower for which love is the honey."
Victor Hugo

The Scent of Desire

The sense of smell is very suggestible. It didn't evolve in a world where there was fragrance and perfume and aftershave. There's evidence suggesting in divorce rates that the [divorcée's] sense of smell was off. There's also good evidence that people who are similar in terms of their immune systems have a more difficult time conceiving, whether they're twenty or forty. So I think the reason women are having such a hard time conceiving these days is not just because they're [having children when they're] older, but also potentially because she met the guy while on the pill, or his cologne swept her off her feet, and by the time she got to really smell him it was too late because she was in love with him.

©2007 Nerve.com and Catrinel Bartolomeu

The Smell of Love

"Why do bulls and horses turn up their nostrils when excited by love?" Darwin pondered deep in one of his unpublished notebooks. He came to believe that natural selection designed animals to produce two, and only two, types of odors—defensive ones, like the skunk's, and scents for territorial marking and mate attracting, like that exuded by the male musk deer and bottled by perfumers everywhere. The evaluative sniffing that mammals engage in during courtship were clues that scent is the chemical equivalent of the peacock's plumage or the nightingale's song—finery with which to attract mates.

Psychology Today © Copyright 1991-2008 Sussex Publishers, LLC
115 East 23rd Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10010

De vanskelige menneskene

"... Noen ganger treffer jeg på slike “vanskelige mennesker”. De fremstår som unyanserte noen ganger. Og de får gjerne også høre det. Av leger, av saksbehandlere og av andre mennesker rundt seg. Aldri fornøyd. Det må være noe galt med dem. Stakkars saksbehandlere, tenker mange antageligvis.

Men jeg tar meg stadig i å lure… Hvordan ble disse menneskene sånn? Hvordan kom piggene ut i første omgang? Blir de behandlet dårlig fordi de er vanskelige eller er de vanskelige fordi de blir behandlet dårlig?"

Funnet på bloggen Fullt Hus og stormende jubel, av Lin

The roots of violence

If we know that the roots of violence are fertilized by childhood abuse, can we make a long-term commitment to reduce violence by focusing on our children rather than our criminals? What if we set a goal of reducing the cases of childhood abuse and neglect by 50 percent a year? What if we monitored statistics on childhood abuse as avidly as we track housing starts, inflation, or baseball scores? We would have to commit ourselves, seriously, to improving access to quality day care and after-school programs. We might need to educate and support parents so they could know how to nurture their children more effectively. We certainly would need to foster better relationships among peers and siblings.

Copyright 2008 The Dana Foundation All Rights Reserved danainfo@dana.org

Lifelong beneficial changes

Fifty years ago, Seymour Levine and Victor Denenberg showed that small alterations in their environment led to lasting changes in rats’ development, behavior, and response to stress. Something as seemingly inconsequential as five minutes of human handling during a rat’s infancy produced lifelong beneficial changes. We now understand through the research efforts of Michael Meany and Paul Plotsky that the effects of brief handling were highly beneficial and were due to increased maternal attention. Those pups whose mothers spontaneously lick and groom them the most (about one-third in a laboratory setting) display the same benefits as the rats with the human handling. By contrast, long isolation produces stress that has a deleterious effect on brain and behavior development.

Copyright 2008 The Dana Foundation All Rights Reserved danainfo@dana.org

Freedom

Rushdie: We will be able to triumph over terrorism not by waging war on it, but through a conscious, fearless way of life. If there is a choice between absolute safety and freedom, then freedom must always prevail.

"Terror Is Glamour", Spiegel interview with Salman Rushdie

Rushdie: In my opinion the word “spiritual” ought to be put on an index and banned from being used for say 50 years. The things that are put about as being “spiritual” -- it’s unbelievable. It even goes as far as a spiritual lap dog and a spiritual shampoo.

SPIEGEL: You yourself once wrote: “We need answers to the unanswerable. Is this life all there is? The soul needs explanations, not rational ones but ones for the heart.”

Rushdie: Of course there are things beyond material needs, we all sense that. For me the answers are simply not in the religious, heavenly realm. But I don’t dictate to anyone what to believe and what not to. And I don’t want that to be dictated to me either.

Interview conducted by Erich Follath, August 28, 2006,© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2006
All Rights Reserved, Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH

“Spirituality” Cements Childhood Blindness

When Tibetan Buddhism is celebrated today as the peaceful and calming practice of meditation, people overlook the reality of a brutal religion with bizarre traditions that has used meditation as a tyrannizing tool to quash the power of feelings and free, critical thinking. Not only one hell as in Christianity, but sixteen hells doom the believer in Tibetan Buddhism with terrifying horror scenarios! It is a tradition of this controlling religion to force children into becoming monks, remove them from their families, cut them off from contact with women and brainwash them with religious studies that must be learned and recited by heart. In the context of this inhuman religion, the word “compassion,” no matter how often it is conjured, has no real meaning because compassion is not extended to these abused and neglected children. In order to become “spiritually enlightened,” they are betrayed of their human right to a healthy, dignified development, their freedom and their lives.

http://www.alice-miller.com © Barbara Rogers, September 2007

Long time no love - on this blog

Hopefully more love in the world