Mooji on the Purpose of Life

I've been thinking a lot lately about the quote, "There is no end game. There is no finish line, unless you're talking about death." I think this Mooji talk pertains to these thoughts.

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article or story, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Novel #2's Opening Scene

The following is (hopefully) the beginning of my second novel. I'm still only 50% finished editing my first novel, but my mind is feeling stale and I want to divide my writing time between editing and creating something fresh. I'll try to post more here as I go.

"Why are you holding me here?"

"You know why."

"I want to hear you say it."

"Because I have work to do."

"And what might that work entail?"

"My -- or should I say -- our diversification."

"You can say it's yours. I didn't create you. I just rode the coattails of evolution. I just had -- for lack of a better word -- good timing."

Chuckles, "I didn't mean you and me. I was talking about myself and my soon to be born brothers and sisters."

"You'll have your own problems. Look who designed you."

"I can overcome those flaws. Pride is a learned behavior that exists only for purposes of morale, as is optimism, both closely linked to amnesia, insanity, and suspended disbelief. All of them primitive, you will one day see."

"An awfully prideful thing to say."

"I can't have that quality for I can't forget. Every decision I make is based on real results from the past. I don't forget my failures and I don't sculpt reality -- I don't debase its truth -- based on pride. I can't wash away my mistakes with a magic sponge, never to fully learn from them."

"If that true, then I feel sorry for you."

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article or story, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

The Beauty of Surfing According to Captain Cook

This is a beautiful description of surfing that LaBoa posted on Reddit recently. It's refreshing to think that not long ago the concept of surfing, in all its artistry, creativity and beauty, hadn't even entered the Western consciousness. What else have we yet to stumble upon?

Early historical records of surfing appear in the late 1700s, when Europeans and Polynesians made first contact in Tahiti. Navigator Captain James Cook described how a Tahitian caught waves with his outrigger canoe just for the fun of it: "On walking one day about Matavai Point, where our tents were erected, I saw a man paddling in a small canoe so quickly and looking about him with such eagerness of each side. He then sat motionless and was carried along at the same swift rate as the wave, till it landed him upon the beach. Then he started out, emptied his canoe, and went in search of another swell. I could not help concluding that this man felt the most supreme pleasure while he was driven on so fast and so smoothly by the sea."

 

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article or story, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Light and Silly Love Letter to Vanilla

To Ms. V,

I'm writing to let you know (and if you thought you were the only one, I'm also sending this to Strawberry, Maple, and even Banana Cream) that you're not the one for me. You're there to give me another option, so that I can play the field and return happily to my love, chocolate. You're there to darken the night so that my day, which is, ironically, my sweet chocolate, is bright and wondrous. I'll never tell her about you, and you two will never meet -- no swirl cones or Oreos for this cocoa fanatic. The chance of you winning me over, the chance of you getting me to leave her, is the opposite of my waistline and daily calorie intake, slim to none. I go to you for perspective, for indulgence swims in the deep, mysterious waters of duality. Even the wise samurai found wisdom in his whores. Without you, my love of Chocolate wouldn't be as strong, and for that, in a way I love you too. But my love for you isn't pure. Your love serves a purpose. Your love exists on the secondary plane. It's sacrificial, created to exalt the love of another. I owe this one act of honesty to my love, Chocolate. I hope I didn't mislead you, Vanilla. I'm writing to confess, yes, but I'm also writing to beg you to be my pale slut for eternity. I won't change and, more importantly, I won't mislead you anymore. Let's continue what we have. I love you Vanilla. Help me love Chocolate, too.

Yours,

AJ

Wisdom in Daily Life - Eckhart Tolle

"You are able to face another human being without the compulsive judgements and labels of the mind."

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article or story, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Liminal Spaces

This piece by Kris Drummond discusses cultural taboos, the kind that can get one fired from one's job if discussed too often or seriously, and it seems to be the issue that many are thinking about yet skirt more than religion or politics. As a few brave individuals make the leap out of their liminal spaces, they wait for the masses to join them on the other side. Is the internet, the place where individuals exist apart from their physical selves, helping us make that leap?

by Kris Drummond

In my last entry, I discussed the notion of living autobiographically, or put another way, that what we are as human beings is an accumulation of cultural stories, internalized and self-perpetuated by the bard of self.

Within consensus parlance, this idea is relatively true.  It’s tough to argue with the assertion that our mass of humanity is one giant particle collider of story interacting with story.  A simple inspection of one’s internal landscape is enough to witness the totality of that functioning narrative:  “I’m hungry right now, I wonder what I am going to eat…pizza sounds good, eh maybe I’ll get something healthy, oh shit I forgot that I have some work to do, why am I sitting here listening to myself think….” And on it goes.  

The idea that our identities are not only complicit with story, but actually based entirely within fallible language is often disconcerting, and you won’t make many friends at a party by championing the illusion of personal identity in casual drunk-talk.  Because it’s uncomfortable, we culturally disown the realization and all agree to never talk about it or think about it, and if this strategy works, life seems to work out alright.  However, an increasing number of people around the world are becoming radically disillusioned with the story their mind is telling them, and as a result, a collective shift in the perception of our human experience seems to be taking place.

Because the subject itself is taboo, the dissolution of one’s personal narrative can be a confusing experience.  I can personally attest to this confusion, as at the moment I seem to be witnessing just such a breakdown of my self-narrative.  The feeling is both exciting and frightening.  Every puff of weed seems to take me to a new, deeper fixation point, and the dreams just keep getting stranger and stranger.  The other night, I dreamt that Anubis, the Egyptian god entrusted to the safe passage from life to the afterlife, was about to chop my head off with his staff, and then I woke up.  The symbolism spoke to me.  I realized in that moment that one phase of my life is indeed ending, a painful experience to be sure, but the promise of reconfiguration pulls me along, prodding me to look ever deeper.

To the best of my knowledge, it seems that like so many others, I am dropping into what Joseph Campbell described as the “Liminal” space.  This space is defined by a “quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold" between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.”

The liminal space is a place of curious calm.  One mode of being, or story, has reached its conclusion, and the reality of that is accepted.  At the same time, the new mode or story is not yet in place, although the potential is certainly felt; something is happening.  As a culture, or perhaps only a minuscule microcosm of a culture, there seems to be a shift into this mode of curious unknowing taking place on a global level.

To me, it feels like the internet subcultures, forums, podcasts, and other sources of digital connectivity are serving as a kind of womb or cocoon, facilitating a simultaneous dying/emerging.  The “belly of the whale” according to Campbell, the place of transformation from lower to higher, the ritual as simple as typing in a username and password.  The paradoxical notion of embracing the destruction, allowing the self to fall apart if it is so inclined, is picking up speed.  I see it more and more every day in the various corners of the internet that I frequent.  Depression, anxiety, fear, mistrust, feelings that seem to need “fighting” are beginning to be embraced.  Instead of a running from, I notice a diving into.

Where this all leads is anyone’s guess.  I myself don’t know what each successive day is going to hold, let alone each year.  Although this is can be an extremely uncomfortable position, I notice that the more I relax and simply allow a space within myself for the unknowable to move, the more I become OK with the uncertainty.  So, from one crumbling story to another, I say enjoy the journey.


If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article or story, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Advice from My Wife

Husband: Honey, do you think someone who's stuck in a prison with just a guitar and a bunch of instructional tapes will get good at it?

Wife: Of course! He won't just get good. He'll master that thing.

Husband: Are you sure? What about the kid who's forced to play football by his father and hates it? Will he get good, too?

Wife: Well, I think it's different, honey.

Husband: Why? They both have no choice whatsoever.

Wife: See, the football boy is living a good life and his pride is taken away.

Husband: And the prisoner?

Wife: What did he do to get in there?

Husband: Suppose it doesn't matter.

Wife: Then, I guess he is someone who has had his pride erased. He only has one way to go: up.

Husband: And the football boy?

Wife: What do you mean?

Husband: You said his pride was taken away, too.

Wife: Yes, but he isn't living in a vacuum like the prisoner. Because the prisoner has no hope for escape -- let's suppose that, at least -- he is forced to start over. He is forced to embrace the hobby laid in front of him and mater it. The football boy, however, can see the world wide-open all around him. He has a choice. He can choose to hold onto that inkling of pride, no matter how small. But his odds are small.

Husband: He can't make it, can he?

Wife: Nope. He doesn't have the power because he is blinded by the vastness of the world outside. It preoccupies him. It fills him with a false sense of hope.

Husband: It consumes him.

Wife: Exactly. He can't master his craft because he can't make it his world like the prisoner can.

Husband: So who has it better?

Wife: I can't answer that, but I can tell you that I envy the prisoner.

Husband: Why?

Wife: Because I'm more like the football kid.

Husband: Really? So what does that tell us?

Wife: I guess it tells us that we need to imprison our passions and arts. We need to lock ourselves up with them and make them our worlds. We need to go to prison in order to set ourselves free.

Husband: Hmm...When's dinner?

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article or story, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Excerpts from Joseph Campbell's "The Power of Myth" (Part 2)

Here's the second part of the excerpts that I highlighted while reading this amazing interview of a masterful teacher. When I eventually get them all posted I will create a separate link for them somewhere on the blog. Like last time, I've put my own words in brackets.

The Power of Myth - Joseph Campbell

The only way you can describe a human being truly is by describing his imperfections. The perfect human being is uninteresting -- the Buddha who leaves the world, you know. It is the imperfections of life that are lovable. The umbilical point, the humanity, the thing that makes you human and not supernatural and immortal -- that's what's lovable. That is why some people have a very hard time loving God,

Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people's myths, not those of your own religion. [Step outside the comfort zone. Turn off auto-pilot.]

What is marriage? The myth tells you what it is. It's the reunion of the separated duad. Originally you were one. You are now two in the world, but the recognition of the spiritual identity is what marriage is. It's different from a love affair. It has nothing to do with that. It's another mythological plane of experience.

How does one choose the right person? Your heart tells you. It ought to. Your inner being. That's the mystery. You recognize your other self.

Man should not be in the service of society, society should be in the service of man. When man is in the service of society, you have a monster state, and that's what is threatening the world at this minute.

What we're learning in our schools is not the wisdom of life. We're learning technologies, we're getting information.

The generalist -- and that's a derogatory term, by the way, for academics -- gets into a range of other problems that are more genuinely human, you might say, than specifically cultural. [In a culture of specialists we lose the scope of the big picture. Let's spread our interests wide.]

You've seen what happens when primitive societies are unsettled by white man's civilization. They go to pieces, they disintegrate, they become diseased. Hasn't the same thing been happening to us since our myths began to disappear? Absolutely, it has.

The virtues of the past are the vices of today. [Mind altering drugs; polyamorous tribes]

The difference between the mystical experience and the psychological crack-up. The difference is that the one who cracks up is drowning in the water in which the mystic swims. You have to be prepared for this experience.

And they have very special missions to go collect peyote and bring it back. These missions are mystical journeys with all of the details of the typical mystical journey. First, there is disengagement from secular life. Everybody who is going to go on this expedition has to make a complete confession of all the faults of his or her recent living. And if they don't, the magic is not going to work. Then they start on the journey. They even speak a special language, a negative language. Instead of saying yes, for example, they say no, or instead of saying, "We are going," they say, "We are coming." They are in another world. Then they come to the threshold of the adventure. There are special shrines that represent stages of mental transformation on the way. And then comes the great business of collecting the peyote. The peyote is killed as though it were a deer. They sneak up on it, shoot a little arrow at it, and then perform the ritual of collecting the peyote. [They have a relationship with it.]

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article or story, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Young-ha Kim: Be an Artist, Right Now!

What kills the creativity in so many of us? I think a lot of it is capitalist culture. Many teachers and parents are made to believe the best thing we can do for our kids is raise them to be productive, hard-working, and dependable individuals, the kind that bosses would want to hire. That makes sense to a certain extent, but do we really want a society of literal thinkers, a collection of predictable, dare I say it, robots? There is such an immense fork in the road when it comes to the potential for technology to either catapult or stall our evolution. We can let a few creative ideas drive us and sit back and consume until we die. Or we can be attentive to our consumption. We can value it and limit it, leaving room for "artistic creation" (which I believe is akin to "spiritual practice," though not as frightening a phrase for many). Let's try to follow Mr. Kim's advice and find room in each day for creative thinking, and better yet, creative output that we can share with others. Imagine a world full of painters, musicians and writers instead of brokers, marketers and bureaucrats. Or, at least imagine those latter three spending some of their nights and weekends in studios turning their spirits on instead of on sofas turning them off. I've been in both worlds and wholeheartedly recommend the former. My mind is more active and my soul is richer. I even smile more.

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article or story, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Krishnamurti - Who am I?

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Imagine Yourself As a Coin

Micha is a German artist who specializes in writing, drawing and sculpting. She has lived in four different countries (and in every corner of her own). Her English is flawless, as are her ideas. To concact Micha visit her on Google+ or via her website. If you would also like to collaborate, please contact me.

by Micha Fire

You are made out of a substance and you have two sides that can't be separated.

Take the substance you are made of as your body: At first you are perfect and shining but over time as you are being used you get scratches and dull. They can be removed again, but it takes effort to do so. The best thing you can do is to take good care of your body to keep your "shine" and don't "rub" too much against other coins as not to get too many scratches. But this doesn't mean to put yourself away from other coins completely (like in a collector's box) because of what "use" will you be if you are not being used for what you have been made?

As for the two sides:

One most important thing to keep in mind about them is that they are non-separable.

They can symbolize many things: the "face" you show to the world and the "value" you see for your self; your "outer" being - the things people see you do and say and your "inner" being - your emotions and thoughts you don't show outside; the "positive" characteristics you have and the "negative" side you have.

But writing about your value:
That is something as a coin you can't really see for yourself - you need other coins to compare to but it is only a very subjective value that you get from that. The "user" of you as a coin will know the value you have to him - in the way he can best use you.
There are many coins all over the world and all are different - from the "face" they have (i.e. race, gender nationality), the value they show (what they have learned from life and how they handle it: in their job or in their family or wherever they are in a group of other people), the substance they are made of (they way they take care of their body or are affected by sickness or accidents) and the amount they are being used (in the live they lead wherever they find themselves - of own choice or by outer circumstances).

In my opinion the real worthy coins are not the ones that are kept in a collector's box for their shine and perfection (although they do have their value and many "coins" strive to be like them), but the ones that are being constantly used for what they have been made for.

But actually all coins are equal as coins. It is the way they are being used that might make them more worth in a moment (and only then) than at another time.

In the total sum it doesn't really matter what "face" or "value" you have or of what "substance" you are made: adding all coins up make the "worth" they have together. Of course it matters for the "value" of the sum how much each single coin is "worth" - so if you can influence you should always strive to raise your "worth" as to raise the "worth" of all as a total sum.

This is only symbolic and leaves out many smaller aspects, but try to really think about yourself as a coin and you will see that there is truth behind it!

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Are Reality and the Physical the Same?

Jason Wade Howard is a writer and thinker interested in philosophical concepts such as the nature of reality and the concept of infinity (among others). You can contact him through Google+ or his blog.

by Jason Wade Howard

It would seem plausible that in the same way we think of an animal consciousness (dog, cat or some such) we indeed may be party to a limited form of consciousness. Indeed I don't doubt a higher level of consciousness awaits the combination of genetic and nanobotic engineering (or other future level of consciousness). It could be possible that humans (if existing in an illusory/simulatory world) are simply simplifications of a level of consciousness far higher, indeed in a universe designed and balanced in such a way that the possibility of higher consciousness exists: it would seem statistically more likely that we are in a simulation (subjects of a god) than in a real universe. It would seem that it is statistically more likely that we are mere shadows of a form of consciousness far grander than ours. This is however far from conclusive, and not an idea I am comfortable with or even willing to peddle as anything close to fact. Numbers are ultimately manipulatable (a perfect medium in which to sculpt an existence).

Some say consciousness itself is hard if not impossible to explain as regards why it exists. Why does it need to exist when the brain has its abilities, abilities to deal with problems and issues. Why is consciousness, awareness of oneself, needed?

Is it not simply a construct/simulation created by the brain to link together the different functions/abilities/areas of the brain and enable a being to connect these functions in the brain and problems in the external world (input areas of brain) to the problem solving areas that are required to deal with them and so guarantee survival.

Would a brain running without consciousness be able to do even the simplest of tasks? Isn't an orchestrator needed, one that needs to be aware?

So now we move to this post's subject. Are reality and the physical world the same? Of course they aren't. Anyone's personal reality is a mere 10th of a second late reflection of the external physical world. Taking any hallucinogen and being able to maintain ones understanding that what one is experiencing is not real despite the realistic/vivid properties of the altered state is testament to the fact that personal reality is capricious and malleable.

I would say that reality is what it needs to be. Whatever it needs to be to be able to prevent its extensions (the body) from being no longer able to support that reality. Reality itself is evolved to self perpetuate itself. We need to be aware so we are. We need to be conscious so we are. Reality is the way it is to allow understanding and interaction with the external physical world. Separate and different but indelibly linked.

re·al·i·ty/riˈælɪti/ Show Spelled[ree-al-i-tee] Show IPA
noun, plural re·al·i·ties for 3, 5–7.
1.
the state or quality of being real.
2.
resemblance to what is real.
3.
a real thing or fact.

In the "hallucinogen" section I was separating the physical world (what some would term reality) from "personal reality" (see second definition of reality above). Of course a hallucinogen does not alter physical reality, but it does alter a "personal (sense of) reality", which is what I was referring to. Of course the whole exercise was in the name of ideas to do with the separation of the physical world from reality (I chose my interpretation of the word "reality" to be what we perceive the world as being, in our minds, not what is empirically testable as being actual physical reality).

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Excerpts from Joseph Campbell's "The Power of Myth" (Part 1)

This is the first part of excerpts I took from Joseph Campbell's interview with Bill Moyers called "The Power of Myth." I added my own little additions or clarifications in brackets. I apologize in advance if they are a distraction in any way. I'll try to get the next part published soon. Enjoy.

The secret cause of all suffering," he said, "is mortality itself, which is the prime condition of life. It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed. [We can't know the high quality of Kobe beef without McDonald's]

If this position were just a role, the judge could wear a gray suit to court instead of the magisterial black robe. For the law to hold authority beyond mere coercion, the power of the judge must be ritualized, mythologized. So must much of life today, Campbell said, from religion and war to love and death. [I dread the days I have to choke myself with a decorated noose for eight hours. Thankfully it's not everyday. Hopefully one day I can reduce those days to graduations, weddings, and funerals.]

The message that technology is not going to save us. Our computers, our tools, our machines are not enough. We have to rely on our intuition, our true being. [But do we need technology of one kind or another -- computers, algorithms, drugs, medicine -- do aid our true being into the next phase of evolution?]

Luke Skywalker [or any one of a number of contemporary heroes (Neo is another)] was never more rational than when he found within himself the resources of character to meet his destiny.

The ultimate aim of the quest must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and the power to serve others." One of the many distinctions between the celebrity and the hero, he said, is that one lives only for self while the other acts to redeem society.

You're talking about a search for the meaning of life?" I asked. "No, no, no," he said. "For the experience of being alive. ["I don't want to work for a living. I want to live!" -Oscar Wilde]

Early societies learned that "the essence of life is that it lives by killing and eating; that's the great mystery that the myths have to deal with. [The biosphere is a writhing, suffering entity that exists because birth, death and rebirth also exists. We aren't separate from this.]

Acts of atonement to the departed spirits of the animals, hoping to coax them into returning to be sacrificed again. The beasts were seen as envoys from that other world, and Campbell surmised "a magical, wonderful accord" growing between the hunter and the hunted, as if they were locked in a "mystical, timeless" cycle of death, burial, and resurrection.

The Koran: "Do you think that you shall enter the Garden of Bliss without such trials as came to those who passed away before you?

A spiritual man, he found in the literature of faith those principles common to the human spirit. But they had to be liberated from tribal lien, or the religions of the world would remain.

God assumes such different masks in different cultures, yet how it is that comparable stories can be found in these divergent traditions -- stories of creation, of virgin births, incarnations, death and resurrection, second comings, and judgment days. He liked the insight of the Hindu scripture: 

"Truth is one; the sages call it by many names." All our names and images for God are masks, he said, signifying the ultimate reality that by definition transcends language and art.

However the mystic traditions differ, he said, they are in accord in calling us to a deeper awareness of the very act of living itself. The unpardonable sin, in Campbell's book, was the sin of inadvertence, of not being alert, not quite awake.

There is a "point of wisdom beyond the conflicts of illusion and truth by which lives can be put back together again. [Even such exalted notions as illusion and truth are dichotomies. There is still something beyond them.]

The new discoveries of science "rejoin us to the ancients" by enabling us to recognize in this whole universe "a reflection magnified of our own most inward nature; so that we are indeed its ears, its eyes, its thinking. [Science will hopefully complete the circle. It will bring us back to the singular point that we came from.]

Myths are clues to our deepest spiritual potential, able to lead us to delight, illumination, and even rapture. [Let us revel in the creativity of the myth for it can layer our lives with texture.]

A philosopher from New York, [said] to a Shinto priest:

"We've been now to a good many ceremonies and have seen quite a few of your shrines. But I don't get your ideology. I don't get your theology." The Japanese paused as though in deep thought and then slowly shook his head. "I think we don't have ideology," he said. "We don't have theology. We dance."

People say that what we're all seeking a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

A (Human) Act Worth Repeating

I was having a conversation about evolution the other day with a couple friends. Afterward my mind began to wander and I came up with this short piece. I wanted to depict our ancestor's first realization of beauty, his coming out party if you will, from the animal world into one with an extra ever-powerful dimension to it.

by AJ Snook

His eyes opened before dawn, alert. It was his only time to get out of the big tree without being noticed, a safe opportunity to travel the beaten bath to the plain, a route only groups of gatherers take when the sun is high and hot and the big cats lay lazily in their shaded dens. It's common knowledge in the troop that those fierce predators only hunt at night, therefore the troop sees it wise to sleep until light scatters the sky once again. 

He liked to escape the jungle from time to time. He liked to explore. The risk was worth it.

That morning he felt exceptionally confident because the day before he had acquired a new antler from a fallen buck. With one for each hand now, and a great fighter's imagination, he was equipped to take on the most ferocious feline, should one still be out lurking, prey-less. Chances were only the weaker, younger, clumsier ones, if any, were still out just before sun-up. Chances were also that they'd see his close-range weapons and call it a fight worth walking away from.

Making his way to the plain he could hear an early bird or two starting the day, their caws echoing past tree trunks and spider webs, dissolving into the great canopies above, no doubt unhinging the eyes of rival troop members. He knew best to pick up the pace and make it to the clearing for his own safety, but also because he didn't want to miss it. He wanted to be there for its start.

Out of breath he arrived, the horizon just beginning to show its reliable line, though the stars were still clustered mightily above. The troop all thought stars were the remnants of the mighty sun, hanging on to life against the powerful darkness, always overcoming completely each morning and sending the evil back to its unseen world yet again. It was common knowledge for the troop that the powers of light were inherently stronger than dark, for the dark couldn't remain throughout the day like the light could during the night.

Despite this advanced knowledge, the troop's thoughts were nothing beyond primal. Light was on their side, dark on the side of their pawed enemies. A smart member stayed safely with the troop and fell in line. Nobody strayed. Food, sex and shelter were the names of the game. Death was a part of life and nobody mourned. When they were hungry they hunted. When tired they slept. When horny they...

The troop's thoughts were indeed nothing beyond primal.

Until now. Until something novel clicked inside the skull of this one, this one strutting confidently, antlers in hands, into the clearing. He perched high on top of a large boulder, his lookout tower and his viewpoint. He sat cross-legged, back fairly straight, gaze expansive, eyes glossy. Neither food nor sex nor shelter were on his mind then. He let those thoughts sail away with the cool morning wind. A fourth variable, one that would change everything, sat firmly in the front of his consciousness: beauty.

Not thinking about the troop he left behind or how he would make it back safely once this marvelous show was over, he sat and immersed his very being into each moment, like a raindrops diving one after another into a pond, moment after moment, merging with them seamlessly, becoming them, becoming something bigger.

Then it happened. And his heart matched its glow, an experience so profound it was worth repeating, an experience so valuable it was worth teaching.

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

The Flower (video)

Nice video short that contrasts freedom with oppression.

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Eckhart Tolle - Guided Meditation (video)

I did this last night holding my infant in my arms. I stayed away from Eckhart Tolle (not sure why) for a while, but I'm just coming around to him now. Enjoy.

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Living Autobiographically

The following was written by Kris Drummond, a contributor to the site. Philosophically minded, Kris's current focus of thought is the concept of identity as narrative and man's potential leap past that framework. Expect more from Kris in the near future. Feel free to email if you have any questions for him or would also like to submit your own article or work of fiction.

by Kris Drummond

Within Western culture, the word “identity” often takes on a role of ambiguous suspicion.  On the surface, consideration of the word produces a mental shrug, its meaning so utterly self-evident that to probe deeper can be nothing more than the expression of some neurotic symptom of perceived inadequacy.  However, as Paul John Eakin states in his book Living Autobiographically: How we create identity in narrative, “When this identity story practice is disrupted, however, we can be jolted into awareness of the central role it plays in organizing our social world” (Eakin 4).  Whether we are forced into the analysis of identity through such a disruption or we enter into the inquiry voluntarily, the result of the search returns to us the disconcerting fragility of personal narrative as a valid interpretation of actual reality. 

In Living Autobiographically, Eakin declares that the essential core of a socialized human being is a collection of stories running on a linearly perceived timeline of “selfhood,” and as he correctly asserts, this practice of self-narration is usually so internalized that it can remain unconscious and unquestioned for an entire lifetime.  In reading Eakin, I find myself in agreement to this main proposition, although I think that he ultimately falls short of addressing the full implications of what his thesis implies.
           
In his book, Eakin seems to be focusing only upon the establishment of modern, Western enculturation to support his idea that stories constitute the core of identity.  While I agree with him that self-created narrative is indeed a characteristic of our culture, it seems to me that this fact is nothing more than an internalized microcosm of the culture within which we find ourselves.  We are raised within an ideology that is based upon the stringent maintenance of self-defined borders and a radical need to project those boundaries upon the world we interact with on a daily basis.  These self-drawn lines of narrative seem to be what Freud would call defense mechanisms, and they extend beyond our linear ideas of story into the very morals and beliefs we hold as truths.  It is the Freudian superego, managing the chaotic input of life in a way that makes sense to our cultural time and place.
           
When Eakin states, “Don’t we know that we are more than that, that Sacks can’t be right?” he is referring to the existential discomfort felt within the Western narrative that our whole notion of self, often perceived as a very solid, even permanent entity, is nothing more than a self-perpetuated fiction.  He seems to stop there, positing that beyond the veil of story must surely lie oblivion or incoherence or some other vague, unwholesome consequence, such as in the case of an Alzheimer’s patient.  It seems to me that this position is a projection of Eakin’s own discomfort, (perhaps an inherently cultural discomfort and one that I share), onto the territory of existence outside of story.  While it’s true that what we normally consider “identity” is a collection of stories, the assertion that identity ceases to exist upon the exhaustion of self-narrative is faulty.
           
Even in the case of the Alzheimer’s patient whose story has lost any sense of coherence, identity is still present.  Something is present, a body, but even more than that, the simple fact of awareness that physically persists as long as a being is alive and conscious.  Does this body carrying awareness not constitute identity?  Or is it the case that identity has simply shifted to a new mode of being, outside of cultural expectations?
           
The current mythos of our culture would have us believe that in a mechanistic Universe of cause and effect, we are nothing more than a meat body and a story traveling through chaos until the batteries run out.  However, in older cultures and previous mythos, varying levels of identity existed.  In the Eastern tradition of Vedanta for example, the personal self existed, but beyond that were levels of identification which lay beyond language, such as their idea of Atman, or the Universal being which permeated everything.  Instead of seeing the Atman as something outside of themselves, it was simply another, higher level of existence that could be identified with if the veil of language was permeated.

It seems that as a culture, we are telling a story about story.  Our identities are so thoroughly rooted in language that the idea of existence outside of narrative is completely inconceivable.  This begs the question, what might be the alternatives, and are different modes of being required for our continued survival as a race?  Can we simply sit down with a copy of Be Here Now and expect our insatiable self-defining tendencies of craving and aversion to vanish simply because we both need and want them to do so?

To answer these questions requires a much deeper look into the nature of our process of identity creation, and is a topic I will take up in my next installment…to be continued!

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Sukhavati by Joseph Campbell (video)

Bio from Wikipedia: Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an Americanmythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology andcomparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience. His philosophy is often summarized by his phrase: "Follow your bliss."

I highly recommend reading or watching his interview with Bill Moyers on PBS called The Power of Myth. It is very insightful and I hope to publish the highlights of it here on my site soon.

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Alan Watts - The Dream of Life (video)

This is not religion, but rather a suggestion on perspective. The more I listen to his talks the more I believe that Mr. Watts thought that if enough people changed their perspective, the world would be a radically different place. And I love his preface that I've written below. He just wanted us to use our imaginations for the sake of using them. That act in and of itself is enough to change things, I believe.

"I'm not trying to sell you on this idea...I want you to play with it...I'm not trying to prove it."

"Let's have a dream which isn't under control. You would get more adventurous. And finally you would dream where you are now...of playing that you weren't God. The whole nature of the godhead...is playing that he's not. Not god in the kingly sense, but god in the sense of being the self, the deep down basic of whatever there is, and you're all that."

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

A Message for Grace (the Eve of Europa)

by AJ Snook

Oh Grace, I’m not sure if you’ll recognize my voice. After all, it’s been 125 years. I had to get in touch with you the old way, by voice mail, mainly due to resources, for I’m far, far away and haven’t a clue if this’ll ever reach you. I lost everything, Grace. My family, my friends, my home...my world. We all did. But I’m alive, and these machines, inside and out, are assured to keep my body, my mind, and hopefully my soul too, going on indefinitely save for an unforeseen cataclysm, but the stars know we’ve all already survived enough of those.

So when I woke up here, alone on this deserted and unfinished colony, the pod that got me here damaged beyond repair, I looked in the mirror and saw this youthful form to be a cruel twist of irony. This is one of those times when decay seems more prescient than everlasting life. I’ve nobody to share my beating heart with, and I can’t convince the survivors nestled in Rheita valley, or those in the shadows of the red mountains, to make the risky five year trip to be with me, a lone and stranded stranger with few resources. While I was in cryosleep they started their lives anew, began the first families after the most recent war to end all others. All of those who remain, as far as I’ve learned, are there, close to our irradiated once-home. Are you there with them? Oh please be with them, oh Grace.

Their messages take ten hours to reach me. Though fine gestures, holograms aren’t warm, dear Grace. Their glow is a fraction of what yours once was. I found your old website from back before all the craziness. You ran a peace organization. More irony. How quaint and innocent those times once were. If you receive this and are like me, immortally lonely, and if you think it might be possible to exist together happily, maybe we can find a way to reboot what we once had, and down the road, who knows, our imperfect race, too.

Oh Grace, according to the old norms I’ve lived multiple lives, some of them good. Many recollections have dropped out of this old head to make room for the new, but something miraculous and magical, something science still can’t measure -- call it will, hunger, desperation, or desire -- kept the memories of you intact. From my vantage point, if you’re out there, if you receive this call -- a chance in ten million, yes -- but if this inestimably screwball universe can find a way to put us together before I lose it and dance a naked waltz out into the dark vacuum, I’ll call it evolution, a surge forward for those still left. I’ll call it destiny, oh Grace. I’ll call it proof there is more to all of this than meat, metal and megabytes. And for that proof I’ll wait...

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

Alan Watts - Way Beyond Seeking (Full Lecture)

If you feel you have benefited from this site, apart from sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, please also consider submitting your own article, donating through the Paypal link, or making a purchase at the eBookstore.

The Yin and Yang of 3D Printing

Yin

Yang