Simon's reflections

: Today’s Reflection is about a myth I recently read.

Just imagine a child asking you all kinds of deep and profound questions, like “Where did the world come from?” or “Why did God make the world?” or perhaps “Where was I before I was born?” Personally, I am very happy Tobi does not ask me such questions; if he did, I would probably reply with the following myth, which is how Alan Watts answers them.

:: "The range of what we think and do is limited by what
:: we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that
:: we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change,
:: until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts
:: and deeds" - anonymous

There was never a time when the world began, because it goes round and round like a circle, and there is no place on a circle where it begins. Just like on a wrist-watch, which tells the time; it goes round, and so the world repeats itself again and again. But just as the hour hand of the watch goes up and to 12 and down to 6, so, too, there is day and night, walking and sleeping, living and dying, summer and winter. You can’t have any one of these without the other, because you wouldn’t be able to know what black is unless you had seen it side-by-side with white, or white unless side-by-side with black.

In the same way, there are times when the world is, and times when it isn’t, for if the world went on and on without rest forever and ever, it would get horribly tired of itself. It comes and goes. Now you see it; now you don’t. So because it doesn’t get tired of itself, it always comes back again after it disappears. It’s like your breath: it goes in and out, in and out, and if you try to hold it in all the time you feel terrible. It’s also like the game of hide-and-seek, because it’s always fun to find new ways of hiding, and to seek for someone who doesn’t always hide in the same place.

God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside God, he has no one but himself to play with. But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, all the planets, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way he has strange and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad dreams, for when he wakes up they will disappear.

Now, when God plays hide and pretends that he is you and I, he does it so well that it takes him a long time to remember where and how he hid himself. But that’s the whole fun of it – just what he wanted to do. He doesn’t want to find himself too quickly, for that would spoil the game. That is why it is so difficult for you and me to find out that we are God in disguise, pretending not to be himself. But when the game has gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and remember that we are all one single Self – the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever and ever.

Of course, you must remember that God isn’t shaped like a person. People have skins and there is always something outside our skins. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t know the difference between what is inside and outside our bodies. But God has no skin and no shape because there isn’t any outside to him (much like in a Mobius Strip). The inside and outside of God are the same. And though the myth relates to God as a ‘he’ and not a ‘she,’ God is not a man or a woman. Still, saying ‘it’ doesn’t work either, because we use it for things that aren’t alive.

God is the Self of the world, but you can’t see God for the same reason that, without a mirror, you can’t see your own eyes, and you certainly can’t bite your own teeth or look inside your head. Your self is that cleverly hidden because it is God hiding.

You may ask why God sometimes hides in the form of horrible people, or pretends to be people who suffer great disease and pain. Remember, first, that he isn’t really doing this to anyone but himself. Remember, too, that in almost all the stories you enjoy, there have to be bad people as well as good people, for the thrill of the tale is to find out how the good people will get the better of the bad. It’s the same as when we play cards. At the beginning of the game we shuffle them all into a mess, which is like the bad things in the world, but the point of the game is to put the mess into good order, and the one who does it best is the winner. Then we shuffle the cards once more and play again, and so it goes with the world.

:: “There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its
:: hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.” - anonymous


A sunny week to you all, inside and out.


:: From The Four Corners
:: This is a new section of the newsletter, featuring news, ideas,
:: moments of inspiration of something someone somewhere is doing
:: that is making a difference in the world.

[This empty space is left as an exercise for the reader – to find something about someone, somewhere, doing something that makes a difference. Big or small.]


:: Simon’s Reflections newsletter is published on a
:: bi-weekly basis and contains writings that touch
:: the heart, provoke the mind, and inspire action.
:: And I do welcome your thoughts and comments.


Simon

Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SimonsReflectionsList
About Simon: http://www.SimonGoland.com


--
“Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world - empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.”

http://www.kiva.org/app.php

Another one of Simon's Reflections

: Today’s Reflection is about a poem. No, not mine.Recently, a poem crossed my ears, eyes, heart and soul, and so I thought I’d share it with you.A Real Revolutionaryby Michael Lee Seliga (aka RandoMike, of www.eatyouryard.com)Just because you wear a Che shirt, or Travel around Latin America, does not make you a revolutionary.Just because you have political bumper stickers on your Toyota Prius, or your Bio-Diesel truck, does not make you a revolutionary.Just because you read or write zines, or install the Linux operating system on your computer, does not make you a revolutionary.Just because You’re a vegetarian, shop at the Co-op and reuse cloth bags, does not make you a revolutionary.Just because you ride a bike, dumpster dive, or do political theater, does not make you a revolutionary.Just because you rock climb, do Kung Fu, smoke herb, or get a vasectomy, does not make you a revolutionary.Just because you live in a Collective House, compost food scraps, and make your own tofu, does not make you a revolutionary.Just because you write poetry, play capoeira, or work on an organic farm, does not make you a revolutionary.Just because you listen to folk music and wear flip-flops, or hip hop and sport shell tops, or punk rock and have a Mohawk, or Reggae and got dreadlocks, does not make you a revolutionary.Just because you “damn the man”, fuck the system, capitalism, Bush, or War, does not make you a revolutionary.Don’t-get-me-wrong. I consider the above good and support you doing them. However, what is revolutionary to me…is if your toes are like roots of a mobile tree, which provide you balance, strength and patience; you walk with a WIRY resilience , wily resistance, and kick up dust with non complacence.Revolutionary to me is if your spine is built with of peace cranes, and your hips and legs are constructed out of titanium slinkys.Revolutionary to me is if you use one set of fingers as sculpting tools to facilitate people’s negative comments into positive thoughts; and with the other you drop literal and metaphorical seeds so you propagate life wherever you flow.Revolutionary to me is if your rib cage is not locked so your heart is free to inspire humble speech, which your lungs bellow, in addition to harmony and thunder, the one depending on the situation.Revolutionary to me is if you use your arms to bridge chasms previously thought impassable… if you’re comfortable in your skin, as well as with other people’s melanin, and your chin is stuck up but your nose is not.Revolutionary to me is if you are fluent in three-year-old, if truth emanates from your mouth constantly curled up; if your lips are puckered to deliver quick kisses or so you can whistle your theme song when having fun in the struggle.The shape and size of your ears don’t matter. What matters is whether you resist judgments and assumptions; whether you listen from your soul as intensely as a hummingbird flaps it’s wings because you know in the scraps of syllables and sounds is where aural nectar can be found.Revolutionary to me is if you can see color and be color-blind simultaneously, and although you have X-ray vision and can see sickness around you, you can also enjoy the beauty that surrounds you. What helps you do this is that, tattooed on the inside of your eyelids, is “there is hope” so even on the days when it’s hard to see, you still have visionary dreams.Revolutionary to me is if the glass on the windows [Eyes] to your soul is clear so when people look in they see fire. If the lobes of your brain are divided into self-respect and focus, and if you move as though you’re a piece of art with divine purpose.I am not trying to claim anything here. The above are only criteria of what I hold to be revolutionary, and allow me to move towards an ideal.Because, yeah: I too want to be a real revolutionary.:: “What we call the beginning if often the end. And to make an end is:: to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” - T. S. EliotA sunny week to you all, inside and out.:: From The Four Corners:: This is a new section of the newsletter, featuring news, ideas,:: moments of inspiration of something someone somewhere is doing:: that is making a difference in the world.Everything Green in one place. If you are ever hungry for Green News, and have them all be in one place, where you can quickly browse the top 5 green news bits from pretty much every online news source, go no further than http://green.alltop.com/ .:: Simon’s Reflections newsletter is published on a:: bi-weekly basis and contains writings that touch:: the heart, provoke the mind, and inspire action.:: And I do welcome your thoughts and comments.SimonArchives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SimonsReflectionsListAbout Simon: http://www.simongoland.com/-- “Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world - empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.”http://www.kiva.org/app.php

Simons Reflextions

: Today’s Reflection is about all kinds of things, perhaps a random
: collection of quotes and thoughts, or perhaps something that does
: allow a theme or a pattern to emerge...

“All of the past is the beginning of the beginning; all that the human mind has accomplished is but the dream before the awakening.” - H.G. Wells

Notice that the natural tendency of creative tension is to resolve itself. It’s as if you stretched a rubber band between one hand, representing vision, and the other, representing current reality. Were you to do this, you would feel the tension between them. You would also be aware of the energy stored in the stretched rubber band––energy that tries to pull your hands together. In other words, the tension wants to resolve itself. In the same way, creative tension is a force that tries to bring your current reality into alignment with your vision. If we develop the discipline of focusing our attention on the results we most want while simultaneously telling the truth about current reality (without trying to quick fix it), then the natural tendency of this structure is to resolve by current reality changing over time to meet the vision. Cultivating and maintaining creative tension is the central discipline of the outcome-creating life stance. It is the engine that fuels sustained growth. Leaders become masterful at cultivating it because they have learned that this discrepancy is not the enemy, but a friendly and powerful force for change.
-------
Leadership development is long-term because systems do not change quickly–especially our systems of thinking. No matter how much we are addicted to the quick fix, all of the available evidence tells us that change is hard and long–whether we are changing our organization or our consciousness.
-----
“The profound healing power of Nature. This healing power comes directly and naturally, without any artifice or complicated treatments, prayers, rituals or ceremonies.

All that is required is a commitment to come alone to Nature’s heart, to relax into the silence, and to trust. In living closely and alone with Nature for the first time, most people’s initial experiences are of radical slowing down... and of silence. Both are powerful healers. Modern technocratic culture is characterized by ever-increasing pressures for speed, and by almost continuous noise - inner and outer. In our contemporary cultural frenzy to boost our economies, we produce increasingly processed products; we consume increasingly greater quantities of these goods and energy, hoping to fill the gnawing void within we fear to meet. As we feed this growing industrial/technocratic mesh, our natural world is systematically replaced by an artificial one. And in this artificial world, the values of silence and slow, organic rhythms are rarely encountered.

Consider how many millions of years it has taken for our current interconnected web of body, mind
and emotions to evolve. And consider what kind of environment supported this evolution, and coevolved with us. The environments were natural ones, where organic rhythms of day/night, moon cycle, solar cycle, constellation cycles were part of us; and we were part of them. Trees, flowers, streams, lakes, ocean shorelines, mountains, rocks, sky, clouds - all of these elements of Nature have been companions in our journey into our contemporary embodiment, and influenced our growth. Now, in a few generations, we have leapt into incredibly new processed environments. Plastics, millions of new chemical compounds, air-conditioned air, fluorescent lighting, artificial food, powerful drugs, glass/steel/plastic housing and transportation units, alien electromagnetic fields, intense performance stress, speed, environmental pollution of every imaginable kind, breakdown of community/extended family/core family/marriage/children and parent relationships - the list can go on and on. But it is characterized by one thing: the sudden shift from natural, organic, whole, mostly rural environments within which human beingness evolved - to highly artificial, speedy, noisy, crowded and polluted urban centers. No wonder the species is in trouble. When we drop all our artificial lifestyles, and move back into Nature with simple, open hearts, Nature heals us. Healing happens even if we can only return for a short while. And the healing comes naturally through simple reconnection with the countless ancient relationships our species has always had with all the other living things, with Mother Earth, and with the cyclical energies of the Heavens. Our minds, bodies and hearts move into their ancient harmonies. Time slows into the way the moon fills the night, the way the eagle circles in the sky.” - John Milton
-----
The Boatman (A Sufi Story from the Middle East )

A scholar asked a boatman to row him across the river. The journey was long and slow. The scholar was bored. “Boatman,” he called out, “Let’s have a conversation.” Suggesting a topic of special interest to himself, he asked, “Have you ever studied phonetics or grammar?”

“No,” said the boatman, “I’ve no use for those tools.”

“Too bad,” said the scholar, “You’ve wasted half your life. It’s useful to know the rules.”

Later, as the rickety boat crashed into a rock in the middle of the river, the boatman turned to the scholar and said, “Pardon my humble mind that to you must seem dim, but, wise man, tell me, have you ever learned to swim?”

“No,” said the scholar, “I’ve never learned. I’ve immersed myself in thinking.”

“In that case,” said the boatman, “you’ve wasted all your life. Alas, the boat is sinking.”
-----
A sunny week to you all, inside and out.

:: From The Four Corners
:: This is a new section of the newsletter, featuring news, ideas,
:: moments of inspiration of something someone somewhere is doing
:: that is making a difference in the world.

This spring, the B.C. government announced North America’s first “revenue neutral” carbon tax. In its first year it includes a $100 “Climate Action Dividend” cheque for every British Columbian, with extra for low-income families. That’s $440 million and the cheques are in the mail. The question remains, what will you do with your $100? This site is intended to showcase many B.C.-based climate action projects to which one can contribute.
http://contest.thetyee.ca/greenyourcampbellcash/

:: Simon’s Reflections newsletter is published on a
:: bi-weekly basis and contains writings that touch
:: the heart, provoke the mind, and inspire action.
:: And I do welcome your thoughts and comments.

Simon

Dragons

I like dragons here is one named Temple.

He is over 900 years old, he likes to eat meat, he plays with smaller living things and then eats them.

traveling

I love to travel to Asia

Traveling

I love to travel to Asia

Traveling

I love to travel to Asia