God does indeed work in a very mysterious way. I suppose I should know that better than most after having a spontaneous "religious experience" in a psychiatric ward! Some of the most sacred people I have met are walking around with the label "psychotic" on them. Interesting word "sacred" - just take the word "scared" and re-arrange it slightly!
Yes, some of the most beautiful and profound statements I have ever heard spoken have come out of the mouths of people in psychiatric institutions. What is that telling me?
Include a link to Allan Pinches article on "Spirituality & Mental health" - Allan Pinches website
I wrote a poem a few weeks ago while Mowing the Lawn. Some of the forum people might find it interesting or uplifting.
Last night re-read a few passages form Conversations with God. Curiously they were along the recent themes of non-judgement and the "shoulds" & "shouldn'ts" we all engage in habitually -
Therefore bless every person and condition, and give thanks. Thus you affirm the perfection of God's creation - and show your faith in it. For nothing happens by accident in God's world, and there is no such thing as coincidence. Nor is the world buffeted by random choice, or something you call fate.
If a snowflake is utterly perfect in its design, do you not think the same could be said about something as magnificent as your life?
... There is perfection in the process - all life arises out of choice. It is not appropriate to interfere with choice, nor to question it. It is particularly inappropriate to condemn it.
What is appropriate is to observe it, and then to do whatever might be done to assist the soul in seeking and making a higher choice. Be watchful, therefore, of the choices of others, but not judgmental. Know that their choice is perfect for them in this moment now - yet stand ready to assist them should the moment come when they seek a newer choice, a different choice - a higher choice.
Move into communion with the souls of others, and their purpose, their intention will become clear to you. This is what Jesus did with those he healed - and with all those whose lives he touched. He did not perform a random healing. To do so would have been to violate a Sacred Law of the Universe:
Allow each soul to walk its path.
Yes, it remains THE book which resonates most profoundly with me. At this point in time. I regularly get goosebumps reading it. I may transcribe a few more sections later ...
That idea about eliminating the word "should" from your vocabulary. I remember precisely the moment that thought "just popped" into my head. It was during one of our creative writing groups and all the suggested exercises contained the word "should". I just spontaneously said "I'm trying to eliminate that woord from my vocabulary." It turned out to be a fascinating and amusing session as people would pause mid-sentence as the dreaded word was on the tip of their tongues. Another example of a very simple idea having some profound impact. I am reminded of the Bible which says, "Do unto others" and in my imagination I like to picture how the world would be if we all held that one simple gem in our thoughts as we go about our daily activities. That alone would transform the world.
Reading the madonna song lyrics reminds me of an article I put in one of our past newsletters where I composed an essay basically from my favourite song titles/lyrics. Should see if I can dredge that up out of the archives some day. Speaking of song lyrics, I have been listening to Leonard Cohen a bit lately. That Stranger Song can be mesmerising if you're in the right mood for it - "Please understand I never had a secret chart to get me to the heart of this or any other matter". Some of his poetry is wonderful too - in an offbeat kind of way. I also like the lyrics of
Affirmation by Savage Garden. Get goosebumps when listeneing to that also.
A few more thoughts on the "horrors of schizophrenia" - That is one of the reasons I stay involved in the psycho-social rehab program I am in at present. I keep telling people these programs didn't even exist when I was first told "You have schizophrenia. We don't really know what it is or why it happens and the only cure we can offer you is these little magic pills which can have some nast side-effects." I do whatever I can to offer a more positive spin on things than the "system" generally presents people with. I suppose my own case shows that things can improve dramatically and unexpectedly. There has been a lot of discussion on how to improve the system and it is nice to see people like Allan and others articulating an alternative point of view to the existing paradigm.
Watched that video of the Oprah show from Christmas Eve 1999. I have to get a hold of that book of poetry by the six-year-old that they featured. His name was Marshall Ball or something like that and the title was Kiss of God. Talk about truth being far sstranger than any fiction - he is a supposedly "profoundly disabled" boy unable to speak or move very much but he writes such things as:
"To judge another is to judge God."
God is good & merciful,
THAT is no ordinary six-year-old! He says he listens only to God and to good and so his thoughts are only of god and of good. One viewer wrote in and said after seeing the story on Marshall she will never complain again a day in her life. She has lived with the effects of polio since a young age. If that doesn't move something inside you ... nothing will ... I myself felt the same "shame" for ever complaining about my supposed troubles even though that is also "part of the journey" ...
Yes, wasn't it
Kahlil Gibran
who said your children are here to TEACH you not to learn from you because they have more recently come from that place of pure love. (Or words to that effect)
http://www.rumi.net/ - poems of Rumi. One thing is sure, my efforts to capture ideas/experiences/possibilities in words has given me a profound appreciation of all the inspired literature thru history.
One of the Forum posts was about the power & meaning of words. Yes, having worked with words for over 16 years, I have a profound appreciation of the power of the written language. It can take you INSIDE another person's mind, even a person who died centuries ago. It can give you a window on another's soul, even if many appear to be "tortured" souls. Words can literally transport you to an alternative reality. Shakespeare is popular to this day because he wrote in inspired fashion about universal human themes and experiences. I have found that reading some books is a sublime, effortless experience. "Emissary of Light" was one such book. I couldn't believe it sometimes when i looked at the page numbers and found I had read maybe 50 pages in what seemed only moments.
A curious thought popped into my head on the bus this morning. Yes, it would be nice if someone could express "the ultimat truth' in a nice, simple formula such as E=mc2. This formula would be so simple and moving and powerful that everyone who read it would have their consciousness instantly expanded and be filled with unconditional, universal L-O-V-E ... in the meantime, we have many guides and teachers and many ways and means of delivering the "message". Human beings are infinitely varied and what resonates with one may seem like pure nonsense to someon else. I'm not quite sure where I was going with that but there is a good idea in there somewhere. Trust me.
Yes, words have whatever meaning we BRING to them. Our reaction reflects "where we are" at that given instant.
I have been meditating on the variuos paradoxes of human nature recently. I suppose one of the biggest is that on some level (even if it is just subcinsciously) we KNOW we are eternal, timeless beings. yet, we rarely experince this aspect of ourslves in our day-to-day living. In the HERE and NOW. It is a delicious paradox even if it has driven me around the bend form time to time. Much of the work of Deepak and others is to re-mind us of this and bring us more in contact with it.
Oh yes, getting back to that word "should" once again. It reminds me of the concept of "doublethink" from 1984 by George Orwell. One of my all-time favourite books even if it is the description of a totalitarian future where individual freedom and expression are ruthlessly crushed. I should dig up the exact quote I am thinking of. Anyway, it refers to a kind of "infinite loop". The very act of thinking "I should eliminate the word 'should' from my vocabulary" invokes the word itself. Also reminds me of an old conundrum "Try NOT to think of a Polar Bear." The instruction itself invokes the image it sets out to avoid.
Ah, here it is -
"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."
George Orwell (190350), British author. Nineteen Eighty-Four, (1949), extract from Goldstein's book.
I also like the quote from "1984" that "The best books are those which tell you what you already know".
To top off a huge day, they are re-screening "
The Big Questions" on SBS. Tonight's episode was "Does God play dice?" - all about the profound mysteries which physicists like Paul Davies face when they investigate the sub-atomic world and encounter Quantum Mechanics and the Uncertainty Principle. Then later in the evening I found myself watching "Liar, Liar". I have never been a huge fan of Jim Carrey but I was just in the right mood for this movie. It is a fascinating prospect to imagine and toss around in your head. What if you were unable to lie for 24 hours and yet your job depended on you routinely bending the truth? I thouhgt the plot was excellent and Carrey for the most part was rivetting and captivating. Or was it just the mood I was in? Sometimes I'd find someone reciting "Mary had a little lamb" to be a transcendental experience.
In the end, he became so accustomed to telling the truth he decided to keep on doing it. One thing is for sure, if you are going to go around telling everyone the entire truth about what you are thinking and feeling all the time then you better make sure you are thinking and feeling some wonderful things. It is a powerful incentive.
Strangely enough that reminds me of an article at the near-death website where an "athiest" tells of his NDE and how at the "spirit level" there are NO secrets. Everyone know exactly what you have thought and felt at every moment since you were born. Could be a scary prospect for some people! Again, a powerful incentive to "think nice". Here's the
link to that story.
Back to that theme of words & language ... as wonderful and as powerful as words and language can be ... they remain a description or respresntation of reality. In my most sublime experinces my mental activity transcends words and language. Naturally, this is hard to "describe" - though many have made valiant attempts to describe the indescribable. This can make conversations rather difficult which is why I wrote those two pieces
Just another conversation
and Fragments of a conversation
I may add more to this page - like some quotes from Jack Schwarz and bits of the Bob Monroe interview. Plus a bit more on "doublethink". Plus some material from www.starbuilders.org - about "Illusion & reality" & much more food-for-thought ...
So come back again. If you feel like it, that is. No pressure.
A few more links to include -
Metta sutra - excellent for re-focusing on the "good stuff"
A couple more quotes that I've unearthed recently:
"If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses,
believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane
compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances
of the inspired madman" - Socrates
That quote from JFK
eulogy
- "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."
(or something along those lines) It was used as a background to that song "
Desiderata" if that's the correct name - "You are a child of the universe ..." or am i barking up th wrong tree ...
Ah, it was George Bernard Shaw who originated that
quote used by Robert Kennedy. Wonderful thing, this internet it is like an instant library at your finger tips. Makes you wonder how the human race ever surviveed without it!
"All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand."
George Orwell (190350), British author. "Why I Write" (1947; repr. in Collected Essays, 1961).
"We are bemused and crazed creatures, strangers to our true selves, to one another, and to the spiritual and material world mad, even, from an ideal standpoint we can glimpse but not adopt."
R. D. Laing (192789), British psychiatrist. The Politics of Experience, Introduction (1967).
"If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia."
Thomas Szasz (b. 1920), U.S. psychiatrist. The Second Sin, "Schizophrenia" (1973).
"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds; it is something one creates."
Thomas Szasz (b. 1920), U.S. psychiatrist. The Second Sin, "Personal Conduct" (1973).
"There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium was the only solution to the strangulation that life had prepared for him."
Antonin Artaud (18961948), French theater producer, actor, theorist. Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society (1947; repr. in Selected Writings, pt. 33, ed. by Susan Sontag, 1976).
"And what is an authentic madman? It is a man who preferred to become mad, in the socially accepted sense of the word, rather than forfeit a certain superior idea of human honor. So society has strangled in its asylums all those it wanted to get rid of or protect itself from, because they refused to become its accomplices in certain great nastinesses. For a madman is also a man whom society did not want to hear and whom it wanted to prevent from uttering certain intolerable truths."
Antonin Artaud (18961948), French theater producer, actor, theorist. Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society, (1947; repr. in Selected Writings, pt. 33, ed. by Susan Sontag, 1976).
Here's an excerpt from the script of the movie "Network" with Peter Finch. I'd like to get the book I'm not sure who wroted it.
.. "I'm imbued with some special spirit. It's not a religious feeling at all. It's a shocking eruption of great electrical energy. I feel vivid and flashing as if suddenly I've been plugged into some great electromagnetic field. I feel connected to all living things to flowers, birds
all the animals of the world. I'm linked to some great unseen living force what I think the Hindus call Prana. But it's not a breakdown. I've never felt more orderly in my life. It is a shattering and beautiful sensation. It is the exulted flow of the space-time continuum, save that it is spaceless and timeless and of such loveliness
I feel on the verge of some great ultimate truth
."
Schizophrenia
This article submitted by John Landau.
Email: drmarcial@aol.com
Literally, the fractal mind. A logos that affirms multiplicity and the occupation of all possible points. The schizophrenic is like the electron : if we predict the position, we cannot predict the velocity ; if we predict the velocity, we cannot predict the position. Like a nomad travelling through smooth space, the schizophrenic, like the electron in an electron cloud, may appear anywhere within the field, occupying all positions while singularly fluctuating between positions aleatorily. Schizophrenia is a Cageian simultaneity of happenings: the nose runs, the mouth babbles, the hands fiddle, the eyes roll, the feet shuffle, the diaphragm laughs or hiccups, the Eucalyptus adds its scent to the moment, the moon at that angle in the sky ... Schizophrenia is a process of compiling lists and letting go of syntax. Social schizophrenia is a simultaneity of spontaneities, a flux of ad-hoc organizings of activity, a surrealist engagement of "collective self-management" as the transtruction [ construction - deconstruction process] of dissipative structures. All of this is distinguished from clinical schizophrenia, which is alienated, repressed schizophrenia isolated from desiring-production and collective creativity. Liberated schizophrenia is schizophrenia that has come into its own as an Escherian, topological celebration of fractal generativity!
This article submitted by John Landau on 10/11/97.
Email: drmarcial@aol.com
A singularity is a virtual potentiality existing at the zero point which begins to actualize, upsetting the habit patterns of momentum which struggle to keep time as a linear progression, a stable identity where moment begets moment. Yet time is a discontinuity. Each moment dies and is reborn at the zero point, the Schrodinger space. All possibilities compress at this dense intensity. A singularity is a
possibility that escapes compression into actualization. It is a sign of difference-in-itself. Since A is never equal to A, since a thing both is and is not what it is, identity never captures being and self-sameness is impossible b self-similarity generates nano-variations that become amplified in time. Molar identity attempts to scan and surgically remove such nano-variations b becoming involves creatively amplifying them. Because singularities demonstrate that identity is only and always approximate, the State has an ill will towards them.
Your potential is unlimited in all that you've chosen to do. Do not assume that a soul which has incarnated in a body which you call "limited" has not reached its full potential, for you do not know what that soul was trying to do. You do not understand its agenda. You are unclear as to its intent.
"Even though my individuality finds secret knowing perfection, I listen for the answers to wishes from above."
(From a poem called My harmony prevails to free)
Because he is also bright and intelligent,
Seeing, feeling all that is true,
Clearly he feels and listens
Touched with fire - excellent website put together by another "consumer" of the Mental Health System.
National geographic article "
Unveiling the Universe"
Mavericks of the mind
Many more in online journal and links pages at my site -
Links
More Links
Singularity
Mate - ask YOURSELF what your motives are-
* To learn
* To offer help (IF YOU CAN)
* To parade your ego/enlightenment
{"Look at me - aren't I clever."}
* other/unspecified
A few more items in peggy.htm - I did wonder when i first joined the Chopra forum how "flexible" if any guidelines were in place ... I mean in theory a large chunk of the posts, including mine, are NOT a direct "discussion" of Deepak's work. Yet, Deepak himslef gives the excellent advice that you can learn from literally everyone you encounter. Like the dalai lama and all the other joy-filled souls in this world which can seem a trifle joy-less at times. anyway, enuf of my rambling nonsense for one day ...
Replies to latest posts happened while still online ... synchronicity?
I am not saying any of this is easy at all - It can be a very tricky matter esp round people who make "snap" judgements - without sounding "preachy" it can be a very thin line to walk (but I generaly have good balance) and I try to maintain a sense of humour about it all and often question my own way of viewing things
Nice quote about jesus - shows even MAsters have their moments of doubt
Scizophrenics & pain - Yes! I do want to reach inside people as my first reaction - i went thru a period where i really wanted to be Jesus and heal people's pain because i knew how bad that pain felt - many times I had desperately wanted someone to reach inside me and remove the pain.
There was more ... mate - quote from Wizard about we're all on the path to universal love ... and Merlin & Arthur & stars! - off "Way of the Wizard" tape.
More poems?? tribute to Blake ...
yes, i have days where i doubt - major doubt - I think HOW can I look at the chaos around me and TRULY believe in the "Perfection of the process" and that ALL of this is CHOICE (even if subconscious). Yeah, I use to think what a brilliant hypothesis - the subconscious - by DEFINITION you are not aware of it so you can ascribe any motive or intent to it! Can never be "disproven"!
Peg - Oh, don't get me wrong. I am the last person on earth who'd say anyone "should" practise non-judgement. Everyone makes the choice which is perfect for them at each moment. At this moment, it seems a good choice for me to make to see things in this manner. It has given me a glimpse, an approximation of the way God must see us and the world and it is so exquisite and wonderful it makes me weep. It is a beautiful and shattering experience. All questions dissolve. All doubts vanish. I see God in everything & everyone. One glimpse and you are hooked for life! Naturally, there are many days and many situations where I struggle to even remember what this feeling is like let alone recapture it. Years ago, I used to read about the experinces of mystics and I was very jealous and could never imagine I'd EVER experience anything remotely resembling what they described (especially being an athiest!). Yet, the lesson of every Master that ever walked on this earth is "What I do, you will also do. And more." Deepak talks of wizards and that is the grandest "magic trick" of them all. To turn fear and anger and hatred into love.
Just occured to me - (again a LOT of this is like an inner voice dictating it to me, possibly many voices and they do sem to contradict each other at times. Maybe that's no accident either) ... anyway ... Yes, until we all become Ascended Masters there will be that element of struggle and paradox. Even now, part of me accepts these ideas without hesitation. Then the rational, everyday aspect of me pops in and says "Are you crazy? HOW can you believe this stuff. Better keep ya mouth closed or people will think you've lost it!"
Oh plus schizophrenia & creativity - we may be going online soon with our Newsletter. The problem is our program is woefully underfunded (oops! that's a judgement! :) Anyway we have a whole bunch of gifted writers, poets & artists at present so i really hope we get online soon ... I should include a link to
I gotta stop writing so much - then again why not ...
And it has been my experience that it's all a very non-linear process. this takes some getting used to and i'm still learning. I can make sudden quantum leaps forward then just as many leaps backwards. Although, again, even labeling things as "forwards" or "backwards" is misleading and an act of judgement. Oh, give it a rest ...
In fact! even some of my most recent writing contains what could be called "judgements" if you take the most expansive definition of that concept. I tend to be a LOT more prone to doing it if i'm having an "off' day! :)
Just as well i didn't post all this at the Forum JUST yet ... it's becoming a real hive of activity and I am currently one of the most active drones. I do wonder if I really enjoy being the focus of attention at times ... or wwhether it is really what is best for me at this point ...
After that post to forum about "4 AM" -
Yes, I flicked thru a bit more of CWG ... page 98 blew me away slightly - I had forgotten reading that seciotn about NOWHERE versus NOW HERE ... should transcribe some of it plus Neale's reaction and frustration that "everyone keeps saying that" but we do NOT experience it as REAL ... *** Transcribe the passage here ***** (I'll probly forget)
"In a very unusual way" - get song lyrics?
Anyhow, i wrote this at 4 AM -
I had been contemplating the word for a few days and realised its pervasive use:
1. "I only got 2 hours sleep, I should be tired (and irritable) - becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
2. "You shouldn't be the way you are. You should be the way I think you should be." - becomes the source of aggravation and conflict. (Then again, as Bob Monroe said, you CAN learn a LOT from conflict and CONTRAST)
3. "The world shouldn't be like this. It should be the way i think it should be." - Yes, I was in THIS place for a VERRY long time! Makes it a trifle tough to believe in a God let alone love God.