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#2163 - Friday, June 3, 2005 - Editor: michael
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Dear Friends,
I did finally make it to Taos, New Mexico, US of A. Alas, upon arrival, the promised job had evaporated! Such is life. Thanks to the aid of very dear friends I do have a place to sleep and a little money in my pocket. Bless you! I am on the hunt for employment and more permanent digs. T
hroughout my life (yours as well, I'm sure) there have always been ups and downs. Times of prosperity alternating with times of poverty. Times of great joys and times of great sorrows. Times of miserable loneliness and times of wonderful companionship. Times of hate and times of love.
Like a piece of driftwood on the tide, I was always carried along with and by the shifting of these tides. I felt these circumstances and stories were me. They were, in the sense that I was immersed in the drama as it unfolded. Because I clung to the drama, I gave it its depth, its reality.
Now, I see that the stories and dramas are just that. Stories and dramas. Certainly the tides still flow in and out. But now, I am not the driftwood. I am like a seagull riding on the driftwood. Enjoying the view. Willingly participating, for a time, in whatever comes my way.
From time to time, I spread wings and fly, so to speak. As will do we all. Or, we may dive off into the depths just to see what there is too see. Our lives! What miracles they are!
Life, the eternal, the wondrous, the mysterious!
Thoughts, tides, emotions, even the weather - so changeable!
IT all springs from love.
be well, dear friends, be well michael
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A favorite author:
Kim Stanley Robinson
I've just finished reading "The Years of Rice and Salt". It is an epic novel set in an Earth where the black plague wiped out 99% of Europe thus ending Christianity and the European colonial period never happens. Instead, the Muslim faith rules a large part of the known world.
China discovers the 'new' world and India is the home of the industrial revolution. The characters move from lifetime to lifetime striving to do better. To bring justice and freedom to the world's masses.
Like all good literature, the novel deals with core issues that we all struggle with in our day to day lives. If there is a God, a merciful and compassionate Being, then why is there so much strife and misery? Is God a father figure, a good shepherd? Or, are we all God, every one of us an indivisible facet of that great being? The author delves into the depths of Islam, Sufism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Native American wisdom, geopolitics and power. He takes a close look at women's' rights, slavery, the balance of wealth and the struggle for clear thinking in a world dominated by dogma and superstition.
As the characters move from physical life to the realm of the Bardo and back again, we see people who willingly throw themselves into the struggle to make a difference. To make things at least a little better each time around. While it may not be everyone's cup of tea and, at over 600 pages it is not at all in the mass market venue, I found it to be a page turner that I had to force myself to put down just before midnight and grabbed up to jump back into at sunrise.
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And now: a bit of
humor... http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GuruRatings/message/56907
FWD: god.com>I
keep trying out new religions on you guys but it's
frustrating how you keep not getting it!
Religions are supposed to be FUN.
Kind of like playing music. Different songs are for different
melodies of our many moods. Please stop taking it all so
seriously!
Jared, my boy, you are the right track. Enbrightenment sounds
like a
blast.
Y'all are me and I'm y'all!
Keep on Rockin'!
GOD
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GuruRatings/message/56811
>From: Shar
.
>Was wondering if there is such a thing as a Guru's Union?
>Every strike someone goes on- says- it's never about the
money.>>
It's never about the money. It's all about maintaining the guru
in the life-style he has come to enjoy, so that he can better
serve "suffering humanity." Truly, we ingrates, have NO
idea what the guru is doing for us inwardly, what sacrifices he
makes on our behalf, even though we don't deserve it. The very
LEAST we could do, is turn over our trust funds, cash in our
401ks, and turn over our lives in general to the loving guidance
of the guru, who is in fact, our own TRUE self.
There won't be a guru union any time soon, however, since each
guru thinks that he's the REAL Avatar of the Age and that the
other guys in the fancy outfits are mere pretenders. There's no
democracy in Gurudom. None of that "sharing and caring"
shit, that's for sure.
However, if the disciples of the various "overseers of
planetary evolution", "World Teachers",
"Avatars of the Age", etc. etc. were to unite, they
might be able to throw their weight around a little bit:
No more disciple sweat shops! Selfless service shall constitute
no more than 8 hours per day, and lunch shall be included, if the
work involves heavy manual labor. The office workers will be
given a low-carb snack pack.
No more sex on demand! If the guru wants the disciple to come
over at 3 AM for "prana exchange," the guru must
arrange said liaison through the Disciple Union's local
representative.
No more than 3 "prana exchanges" per month per
disciple.
Limited Love Offerings! The Love Offering shall constitute no
more than 75% of the disciple's total gross earnings for the
month. No more "100% Club"!
Let's start to put an end to disciple exploitation. I know it's
not much but we have to start somewhere.
No more forced eating of prasad! If the prasad the guru is
handing out is either unhealthy, fattening, or both, the disciple
has the right to refuse the prasad outright, or request a half
portion.
No negative karma will accrue to the disciple's karmic balance
sheet, unless the disciple refuses the prasad b/c of the flimsy
excuse of not being particularly hungry, or not liking the
"look and feel" of the prasad in question.
"Disciples of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but
your chains."
Gary
Disciples' Advocacy Services (DAS)
Durham, NC
"Power to the Sychophants"
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[note: the following links may generate popups]
For the Mark Twain fans:
by Mark Twain
http://www.classicreader.com/booktoc.php/sid.1/bookid.1930/
Prologue
The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before him rose the black night of Space, like a wall. His mighty bulk towered rugged and mountain-like into the zenith, and His divine head blazed there like a distant sun. At His feet stood three colossal figures, diminished to extinction, almost, by contrast -- archangels -- their heads level with His ankle-bone.
When the Creator had finished thinking, He said, "I have thought. Behold!"
He lifted His hand, and from it burst a fountain-spray of fire, a million stupendous suns, which clove the blackness and soared, away and away and away, diminishing in magnitude and intensity as they pierced the far frontiers of Space, until at last they were but as diamond nailheads sparkling under the domed vast roof of the universe.
At the end of an hour the Grand Council was dismissed.
They left the Presence impressed and thoughtful, and retired to a private place, where they might talk with freedom. None of the three seemed to want to begin, though all wanted somebody to do it. Each was burning to discuss the great event, but would prefer not to commit himself till he should know how the others regarded it. So there was some aimless and halting conversation about matters of no consequence, and this dragged tediously along, arriving nowhere, until at last the archangel Satan gathered his courage together -- of which he had a very good supply -- and broke ground. He said: "We know what we are here to talk about, my lords, and we may as well put pretense aside, and begin. If this is the opinion of the Council -- "
"It is, it is!" said Gabriel and Michael, gratefully interrupting.
"Very well, then, let us proceed. We have witnessed a wonderful thing; as to that, we are necessarily agreed. As to the value of it -- if it has any -- that is a matter which does not personally concern us. We can have as many opinions about it as we like, and that is our limit. We have no vote. I think Space was well enough, just as it was, and useful, too. Cold and dark -- a restful place, now and then, after a season of the overdelicate climate and trying splendors of heaven. But these are details of no considerable moment; the new feature, the immense feature, is -- what, gentlemen?"
"The invention and introduction of automatic, unsupervised, self-regulating law for the government of those myriads of whirling and racing suns and worlds!"
"That is it!" said Satan. "You perceive that it is a stupendous idea. Nothing approaching it has been evolved from the Master Intellect before. Law -- Automatic Law -- exact and unvarying Law -- requiring no watching, no correcting, no readjusting while the eternities endure! He said those countless vast bodies would plunge through the wastes of Space ages and ages, at unimaginable speed, around stupendous orbits, yet never collide, and never lengthen nor shorten their orbital periods by so much as the hundredth part of a second in two thousand years! That is the new miracle, and the greatest of all -- Automatic Law! And He gave it a name -- the LAW OF NATURE -- and said Natural Law is the LAW OF GOD -- interchangeable names for one and the same thing."
"Yes," said Michael, "and He said He would establish Natural Law -- the Law of God -- throughout His dominions, and its authority should be supreme and inviolable."
"Also," said Gabriel, "He said He would by and by create animals, and place them, likewise, under the authority of that Law."
"Yes," said Satan, "I heard Him, but did not understand. What is animals, Gabriel?"
"Ah, how should I know? How should any of us know? It is a new word."
[Interval of three centuries, celestial time -- the equivalent of a hundred million years, earthly time. Enter a Messenger-Angel.]
"My lords, He is making animals. Will it please you to come and see?"
They went, they saw, and were perplexed. Deeply perplexed -- and the Creator noticed it, and said, "Ask. I will answer."
"Divine One," said Satan, making obeisance, "what are they for?"
"They are an experiment in Morals and Conduct. Observe them, and be instructed."
There were thousands of them. They were full of activities. Busy, all busy -- mainly in persecuting each other. Satan remarked -- after examining one of them through a powerful microscope: "This large beast is killing weaker animals, Divine One."
"The tiger -- yes. The law of his nature is ferocity. The law of his nature is the Law of God. He cannot disobey it."
"Then in obeying it he commits no offense, Divine One?"
"No, he is blameless."
"This other creature, here, is timid, Divine One, and suffers death without resisting."
"The rabbit -- yes. He is without courage. It is the law of his nature -- the Law of God. He must obey it."
"Then he cannot honorably be required to go counter to his nature and resist, Divine One?"
"No. No creature can be honorably required to go counter to the law of his nature -- the Law of God."
After a long time and many questions, Satan said, "The spider kills the fly, and eats it; the bird kills the spider and eats it; the wildcat kills the goose; the -- well, they all kill each other. It is murder all along the line. Here are countless multitudes of creatures, and they all kill, kill, kill, they are all murderers. And they are not to blame, Divine One?"
"They are not to blame. It is the law of their nature. And always the law of nature is the Law of God. Now -- observe -- behold! A new creature -- and the masterpiece -- Man!"
Men, women, children, they came swarming in flocks, in droves, in millions.
"What shall you do with them, Divine One?"
"Put into each individual, in differing shades and degrees, all the various Moral Qualities, in mass, that have been distributed, a single distinguishing characteristic at a time, among the nonspeaking animal world -- courage, cowardice, ferocity, gentleness, fairness, justice, cunning, treachery, magnanimity, cruelty, malice, malignity, lust, mercy, pity, purity, selfishness, sweetness, honor, love, hate, baseness, nobility, loyalty, falsity, veracity, untruthfulness -- each human being shall have all of these in him, and they will constitute his nature. In some, there will be high and fine characteristics which will submerge the evil ones, and those will be called good men; in others the evil characteristics will have dominion, and those will be called bad men. Observe -- behold -- they vanish!"
"Whither are they gone, Divine One?"
"To the earth -- they and all their fellow animals."
"What is the earth?"
"A small globe I made, a time, two times and a half ago. You saw it, but did not notice it in the explosion of worlds and suns that sprayed from my hand. Man is an experiment, the other animals are another experiment. Time will show whether they were worth the trouble. The exhibition is over; you may take your leave, my lords."
Several days passed by.
This stands for a long stretch of (our) time, since in heaven a day is as a thousand years.
Satan had been making admiring remarks about certain of the Creator's sparkling industries -- remarks which, being read between the lines, were sarcasms. He had made them confidentially to his safe friends the other archangels, but they had been overheard by some ordinary angels and reported at Headquarters.
He was ordered into banishment for a day -- the celestial day. It was a punishment he was used to, on account of his too flexible tongue. Formerly he had been deported into Space, there being nowhither else to send him, and had flapped tediously around there in the eternal night and the Arctic chill; but now it occurred to him to push on and hunt up the earth and see how the Human-Race experiment was coming along.
By and by he wrote home -- very privately -- to St. Michael and St. Gabriel about it.