One of the most controversial, intelligent, original, free-thinking and courageous spiritual leaders that lived in the last century has been Shree Rajneesh, who later changed his name to simply Osho. The name Osho has been variously translated to mean a zero sum or empty which refers to the absence of ego or as they say in Zen, the state of no-mind, a perfect state of emptiness strived for in meditation practice. Rajneesh did not present himself up as someone who was holy or who was favored by God; not as someone to be paid reverence or as someone who was a religious leader. He was against all religions.
Rajneesh would agree that man’s ego, joined together with religious belief and fear, has been responsible for history’s most egregious crimes and atrocities most often committed in the name of God and one religious belief or another. The Christian crusades are a prime example. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is a continuation.
What kind of God approves of man’s inhumanity to man? How can anyone believe that God sanctions torture and war; that God rejoices as members of one faith attempt to annihilate members of another faith? What kind of God loves one nation but not another, loves some of his children but not all? Only a God that man has created as part of a fabricated religious belief.
Shree Rajneesh argues against blind religious faith and tells us that trust will set us free; that trust opens the door for truth and enlightenment and pushes fear aside.
Rajneesh says God’s gracious gift to mankind is trust. He says trust does not mean faith. Faith is phony; faith is blind. Faith is superstitious; you haven’t known, you have simply believed. And all religious belief is out of fear; man believes because he is afraid. He clings to religious beliefs so he can feel safe, secure.
Trust, Rajneesh says, is a totally different phenomenon, diametrically opposite to belief, to faith. Trust is an experience that can only happen with the help of God. You can’t create it. You can create belief; you can become a Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan, etc. There are 300 different religions on the earth. You can choose any of them but that will be your belief, and your belief is not going to help. Your belief will remain a prison for you. Your belief will be a sheer waste of your life, because the more you believe the less you enquire; and there is no truth without enquiry. Then how does trust happen?
Trust comes from God. All that is needed on your part is to be a welcoming heart, to be receptive, to be open. Belief makes you closed. So this looks paradoxical but this is how it is; the believing man never comes to know what trust is. Neither does the non-believer because belief and non-belief are cousin-brothers, they are not different. Non-belief is also a kind of belief. It is anti but a kind of belief; negative but a kind of belief. Trust comes to the mind that neither believes nor disbelieves; a mind that is simply open, that has no prejudice, a mind that says, “I am available, if truth comes I will welcome it.”
And when truth comes, it comes with certainty. And when it descends on you, it transforms you, but it is nothing of your own; it is from God, it is God’s gift.
Rajneesh advises you to be loving and open and one day you will be surprised that something has happened to you; a tremendous trust will arise in you – trust in existence, in life, in everything that is. That trust is the true foundation of a religious consciousness and spiritual peace.
He further states that trust and love are partners in the dissolution of the ego; that the greatest courage in life is to dissolve yourself in love; that there is no other bravery greater than that. Everyone is a coward where the death of the ego is concerned because the death of the ego is somehow perceived to be, appears to be, our own death. It is not, but there is no way to prove it unless you personally experience it, hence courage is needed to step into the unknown.
Love is the alchemy of dissolving your ego and once the ego is gone, God is. God is completely present only when the ego is gone and trust becomes complete.
So sayeth Osho.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
The Music Business - The Devil’s Garden
For your entertainment here is a video of what appears to be two staff bloggers filling in for the regular newscasters at WKRN Channel 2 in Nashville. Items of interest on the video are as follows.
Number one, apparently the guy in the video, because he is not a professional, must not be aware that you hold the microphone in your hand and don’t put it in your pocket – or wait! Maybe that’s not a microphone! Maybe he just gets off being on camera.
Number two, the May, 2006 report includes a segment concerning Hal Bynum, a Nashville songwriter who obviously has a green thumb when it comes to growing herbs.
I knew Hal from way back when he and Roger Bowling wrote the Kenny Rogers hit “Lucille”. I could tell stories that are better left untold.
Hal’s co-writer on Lucille, Roger Bowling, used to occasionally hang out at the same watering hole and was one of those guys who would get real melancholy when he got drunk. He often would be seen sitting at a table in a gloomy funk drinking alone. This was also back in the days where a lot of cocaine was available in Nashville music circles and I imagine Hal and Roger may have been partaking as well but Roger's demeanor doesn’t fit the description of cocaine highs that I’m aware of – maybe coming off cocaine, which is described as a miserable low.
Anyway, Roger, who I also knew casually, eventually moved back to Georgia I think it was. He ended up allegedly committing suicide on his couch in 1982. It was an overdose of sleeping pills as I recall – a sad end for someone once so creative and passionate for music – and young. Roger was only 39.
Not all the success stories in Nashville have rosy outcomes and many successes are short-lived. Many songwriters or artists riding high on the charts one year might be washing cars or painting houses a few years later.
I briefly knew a well-known, highly successful producer of an amazing number of hit artists who near the end of his life couldn't find employment and I saw driving an old Ford Escort. I’m not sure that he was destitute but he must have been down on his luck. He died still fairly young in 1997.
And then there's Gary Stewart who ended up taking his life, despondent over his wife's death and from being a bright star who fell off the charts years before. Drinking, drugs and his wild nature played a big part in destroying his career although many who shared his wild lifestyle have survived and are successful.
It seems the little guys are always the most rowdy and wild. That would include Stewart, George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Paycheck, Johnny Rodriguez and several others I can't think of at the moment.
As an artist or songwriter, the music business seems most often to either make you very wealthy or destroy you unless you plan for possible failure and have a backup means of support. I would stop short of recommending it to any young dreamer but still, although risky, it’s a romantic adventure, can be highly entertaining and makes for a lot of great memories.
Like one might imagine, the Devil’s garden is full of excitement, many temptations and lots of danger.
Number one, apparently the guy in the video, because he is not a professional, must not be aware that you hold the microphone in your hand and don’t put it in your pocket – or wait! Maybe that’s not a microphone! Maybe he just gets off being on camera.
Number two, the May, 2006 report includes a segment concerning Hal Bynum, a Nashville songwriter who obviously has a green thumb when it comes to growing herbs.
I knew Hal from way back when he and Roger Bowling wrote the Kenny Rogers hit “Lucille”. I could tell stories that are better left untold.
Hal’s co-writer on Lucille, Roger Bowling, used to occasionally hang out at the same watering hole and was one of those guys who would get real melancholy when he got drunk. He often would be seen sitting at a table in a gloomy funk drinking alone. This was also back in the days where a lot of cocaine was available in Nashville music circles and I imagine Hal and Roger may have been partaking as well but Roger's demeanor doesn’t fit the description of cocaine highs that I’m aware of – maybe coming off cocaine, which is described as a miserable low.
Anyway, Roger, who I also knew casually, eventually moved back to Georgia I think it was. He ended up allegedly committing suicide on his couch in 1982. It was an overdose of sleeping pills as I recall – a sad end for someone once so creative and passionate for music – and young. Roger was only 39.
Not all the success stories in Nashville have rosy outcomes and many successes are short-lived. Many songwriters or artists riding high on the charts one year might be washing cars or painting houses a few years later.
I briefly knew a well-known, highly successful producer of an amazing number of hit artists who near the end of his life couldn't find employment and I saw driving an old Ford Escort. I’m not sure that he was destitute but he must have been down on his luck. He died still fairly young in 1997.
And then there's Gary Stewart who ended up taking his life, despondent over his wife's death and from being a bright star who fell off the charts years before. Drinking, drugs and his wild nature played a big part in destroying his career although many who shared his wild lifestyle have survived and are successful.
It seems the little guys are always the most rowdy and wild. That would include Stewart, George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Paycheck, Johnny Rodriguez and several others I can't think of at the moment.
As an artist or songwriter, the music business seems most often to either make you very wealthy or destroy you unless you plan for possible failure and have a backup means of support. I would stop short of recommending it to any young dreamer but still, although risky, it’s a romantic adventure, can be highly entertaining and makes for a lot of great memories.
Like one might imagine, the Devil’s garden is full of excitement, many temptations and lots of danger.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
I Wish I Was Eighteen Again
A classmate sent me the song link below which many of us can relate to – George Burns singing I Wish I Was Eighteen Again.
I happen to know the guy who wrote this song, Sonny Throckmorton. As I recall he was somewhere around thirty-five or forty when he wrote it.
Sonny was a songwriter here in Nashville who also wrote Middle Aged Crazy (Jerry Lee Lewis) and The Last Cheaters Waltz (T G Shepard) among many other big hits. The Last Cheaters Waltz is one of my all-time favorite songs.
When I first moved here Sonny was writing for Tree Publishing. The song plugger, the person who Sonny brought his songs to at the publishing company, took Sonny’s tape of his latest efforts and threw it back across the desk to Sonny saying “Is this the best you can do? This is crap!”
Disappointed, Sonny left and went back to Texas to work in construction. About six months or so he got a call saying that one of his songs, Middle Aged Crazy I think, had been cut by Jerry Lee Lewis and was screaming up the charts. Sonny came back to Nashville and, based on that song’s success, artists were clamoring for whatever he had. He pulled out all his previously written stuff and within the year he had 20-30 of his songs cut.
Then some time after his first big success, Sonny watched as others took his songs and climbed the charts. He decided that if he was going to write songs for other people to become big stars - why not record them and become a recording star himself. So he wrote a whole album of good stuff, “A” material as it was called, then went in the studio, recorded and released it. The only problem was Sonny wasn’t all that good a singer. Other artists knew this and upon hearing of the impending release of his LP they licked their lips waiting for Sonny’s album to come out because once it did, the songs immediately became available for anyone to record. That’s the way it works. Other artists jumped all over it. For example, Sonny’s version of Last Cheaters Waltz went to 50 on the charts and died. TG Shepard recorded it and took it to number one a few months later.
The music business is tough. I recall that Nick Nixon, a country artist and friend who was super-big in the St Louis area back in the seventies, came to Nashville and cut a song called “She’s Just An Old Love Turned Memory”. It went to #23 on the Billboard charts and was Nick’s highest charting record and one of his last chances to become a hit artist. At the time Nick prophetically commented to me that if Charley Pride had cut it would have been a number one hit. Lo and behold, Charley Pride eventually did cut and release that song and guess what – it went to #1 on Billboard.
Poor Nick. I really think one of the things that hurt him as an artist is that he had this high paying regular gig at a club in St Louis called the Downspout which was near Lambert airport. He felt he couldn’t afford to go out on promotional tours and support his records because he would lose the weekly check from the Downspout gig. Who knows what could have happened if he had taken the other route.
Getting back to Sonny Throckmorton, I actually took Sonny in the studio to record a pilot radio program I created called Sixteenth Avenue back in the early eighties. The concept was to interview a different hit songwriter every week and give the listening audience an inside look into the people who wrote the songs and how they sounded when the creator played and sang them. Sonny was my first guest songwriter. The show never got off the ground because I didn’t know how to market it. I still have the pilot tapes.
I’ll never for get it. My host was the number one DJ in town at the time and Sonny had some really good wacky tobacco that we shared. Those were the good old days.
Anyhow, here is the link for the George Burns singing Throckmorton’s song, I Wish I Was Eighteen Again. Me too Kiddo!
Gary
I happen to know the guy who wrote this song, Sonny Throckmorton. As I recall he was somewhere around thirty-five or forty when he wrote it. Sonny was a songwriter here in Nashville who also wrote Middle Aged Crazy (Jerry Lee Lewis) and The Last Cheaters Waltz (T G Shepard) among many other big hits. The Last Cheaters Waltz is one of my all-time favorite songs.
When I first moved here Sonny was writing for Tree Publishing. The song plugger, the person who Sonny brought his songs to at the publishing company, took Sonny’s tape of his latest efforts and threw it back across the desk to Sonny saying “Is this the best you can do? This is crap!”
Disappointed, Sonny left and went back to Texas to work in construction. About six months or so he got a call saying that one of his songs, Middle Aged Crazy I think, had been cut by Jerry Lee Lewis and was screaming up the charts. Sonny came back to Nashville and, based on that song’s success, artists were clamoring for whatever he had. He pulled out all his previously written stuff and within the year he had 20-30 of his songs cut.
Then some time after his first big success, Sonny watched as others took his songs and climbed the charts. He decided that if he was going to write songs for other people to become big stars - why not record them and become a recording star himself. So he wrote a whole album of good stuff, “A” material as it was called, then went in the studio, recorded and released it. The only problem was Sonny wasn’t all that good a singer. Other artists knew this and upon hearing of the impending release of his LP they licked their lips waiting for Sonny’s album to come out because once it did, the songs immediately became available for anyone to record. That’s the way it works. Other artists jumped all over it. For example, Sonny’s version of Last Cheaters Waltz went to 50 on the charts and died. TG Shepard recorded it and took it to number one a few months later.
The music business is tough. I recall that Nick Nixon, a country artist and friend who was super-big in the St Louis area back in the seventies, came to Nashville and cut a song called “She’s Just An Old Love Turned Memory”. It went to #23 on the Billboard charts and was Nick’s highest charting record and one of his last chances to become a hit artist. At the time Nick prophetically commented to me that if Charley Pride had cut it would have been a number one hit. Lo and behold, Charley Pride eventually did cut and release that song and guess what – it went to #1 on Billboard.
Poor Nick. I really think one of the things that hurt him as an artist is that he had this high paying regular gig at a club in St Louis called the Downspout which was near Lambert airport. He felt he couldn’t afford to go out on promotional tours and support his records because he would lose the weekly check from the Downspout gig. Who knows what could have happened if he had taken the other route.
Getting back to Sonny Throckmorton, I actually took Sonny in the studio to record a pilot radio program I created called Sixteenth Avenue back in the early eighties. The concept was to interview a different hit songwriter every week and give the listening audience an inside look into the people who wrote the songs and how they sounded when the creator played and sang them. Sonny was my first guest songwriter. The show never got off the ground because I didn’t know how to market it. I still have the pilot tapes.
I’ll never for get it. My host was the number one DJ in town at the time and Sonny had some really good wacky tobacco that we shared. Those were the good old days.
Anyhow, here is the link for the George Burns singing Throckmorton’s song, I Wish I Was Eighteen Again. Me too Kiddo!
Gary
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Chocolate, Gore Vidal and Liars
Last night I ate chocolate – too much of it and too late in the evening. The sugar and caffeine wired me like a Christmas tree and I couldn’t go to sleep. So, propped up in bed in a choco-hyperstate, I watched a fascinating interview of Gore Vidal on NPT.
I haven’t read much Vidal since he mostly writes fiction and I’ve never been into popular fiction, however, I recognize his literary genius. I’ve always considered popular fiction, although entertaining, a waste of time except when it’s based on historical fact, which I understand much of Vidal’s work is, so I guess I should give Vidal a go. Especially his works like Lincoln, Julian, and a few others.
I think I’ll first start with his new memoir entitled, “Point to Point Navigation”. The title refers to his experience in the U.S. Navy attempting to navigate the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. He explained that at the time they didn’t have all the modern navigation equipment and the stars, sun, etc. were hidden by consistently foggy conditions or by clouded, overcast skies so they had to use Aleut Indian guides who knew how to navigate from point to point, one island to the next. Hence the title which I suppose refers to how Vidal navigated the waters of life.
The interviewer, Denis Wholey, remarked of the many references in Gore’s book to Michel de Montaigne, a philosopher I love and became acquainted with when I was just seventeen, in the Air Force and stationed in El Paso, Texas. When Wholey mentioned Vidal's frequent reference to Montaigne, Vidal attempted to quote a particular quote from Montaigne’s essay on lying which I am overly familiar with since it was the one Montaigne quote I memorized and have made a guidepost for my life ever since I first read it. Interesting that Vidal should choose that very quote.
Although there are several translations, the one I most recall goes like this: “Verily, lying is an ill and detestable vice. What holds us together as men if not our word? If we knew but the horror and the weight of it we would with fire and sword pursue the same and more justly than any other crime.” That’s paraphrased, and somewhat incorrect I imagine, but close enough. Vidal’s quote was also in the neighborhood, was his own version and, as I recall, not nearly as accurate as mine.
Parroting Montaigne, Vidal mentions that to not lie is the one thing we should teach our children from very early in life; the consequences of lying and that lying will not be tolerated. He remarked that once a child learns to lie and is allowed to develop the vile habit, it stays with them and corrupts their life from then on. They never escape from it. He got that from Montaigne also
Montaigne speaks much more eloquently than Vidal. "I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie”, writes Montaigne. “Only lying and stubbornness somewhat more, are the faults whose birth and progress I would have severely punished and cut off; for they grow and increase with them: and if the tongue have once gotten this ill-habit, good Lord how hard, nay how impossible it is to make her leave it.”
I concur.
Vidal’s reference to Montaigne cinched it for me. I have to get the book just to see how he uses Montaigne to support his views and what he has to say. He’d better not be lying.
After the program I thought about this, about lying and about authors, and about authors who lie, either intentionally or through carelessness and forgetfulness. It made me remember a story that I like to tell about an experience that connects Dr. Wayne Dyer, Robert Frost and Jalaluddin Rumi, the Persian (Iranian) poet from the 13th Century.
Many years ago I was listening to a speech by Wayne Dyer (one of my first spiritual gurus) who many of you may have seen and heard in recent years on PBS/NPT. Dyer, who today I know longer consider as spiritually honest as he once was, referred to a brief poem by Frost called “The Secret Sits”.
“We all dance around in a circle and suppose
While the secret sits in the middle and knows.”
What a cool poem I thought. Very mystical.
Since I had trouble falling to sleep that night I decided to read. I thought, “I’ll read some Montaigne”, but then for some strange reason got a notion to read Rumi instead and imagine my shock while reading the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi to run across the nearly identical couplet that was written by Rumi around 1250 CE.
Frost, a plagiarist? I’m afraid so, whether from flagrant intent or from a mistaken belief that he himself had created this when in fact he had only remembered it and was perhaps confused over its origin..
Most of us have heard of the whirling dervishes of the Middle East, the Sufi’s, whose religious practice includes dancing in circles, whirling around as they go while verbally spouting their love for God. How they ever keep from getting dizzy and falling down is a wonder.
Most of us wouldn’t know (or perhaps don’t care) that it was Jalaluddin Rumi who was the developer of the whirling dance. He would dance around for hours and while spinning about in a trance he would create poetry. His approach to the muse was particularly unique and his followers wrote the poems down as Rumi composed them. All in all he created thousands of beautiful poems dealing with his love for God and how one should approach God. This is the basis for the Sufi spiritual sect of Islam. Rumi was the guy who conceived it. The poem that Frost plagiarized was a concise reference to the Sufi dance by Rumi. "We all dance around in a circle and suppose" is what Rumi said, not sit as Frost wrote.
So, the next time you whirl around the dance floor think of Rumi and the secret that sits in the middle of all existence and knows all that there is to know.
And the next time you tell a lie think of Gore Vidal or of Montaigne and his admonishment about telling lies.
And the next time you read Frost or hear Dyer speak think about how we can't always believe or accept things we are told and about the effect an untruth has on our lives and on those who perpetrate lies.
Then vow that you will use care to always tell the truth as best you know it and not deceive anyone for profit or gain – or for any reason other than to protect someone from emotional suffering or evil intent by others. Only in those limited cases should the truth be compromised – but even then the lie will take its toll because each lie born has a life of its own and will cause others to wrongly accept it and act accordingly. It will necessitate other lies to keep the original lie alive and its originators from being discovered.
It has been said that the truth hurts. Maybe it does often sting, but most of the time it heals, nourishes understanding and grows trust. A lie on the other hand has a ripple effect, It lives on, causing unforeseen damage as one lie requires another to be told to cover for the first. It can snowball and precipitate wrongful actions and lasting injury to everyone who believes it or wields it for advantage and gain. And once discovered it causes more damage by breeding distrust and anger.
Reference the war in Iraq and the lies on top of lies told to Americans and Iraqis alike. How many deaths, crippling injuries, suffering and ruined lives? How many wasted billions of dollars that could have been spent aiding the same people it has destroyed as the lie has been told and retold, modified and added to? A fraction of the wealth gathered and stolen by war profiteers could have produced a ripple effect of life improvement and positive results to the same people it has caused to suffer, to become poisoned with hatred and left with a feeling of complete hopelessness for any semblance of a normal or happy life.
The entire amount of money already wasted on this wrongful war could have insured our social security system for a hundred years, guaranteed our national security, provided healthcare to all Americans, lowered costs and greatly improved our education system, reduced poverty and a caused a positive ripple effect that would be felt for decades to come.
A lie is negative and always produces negative results, harm and suffering. It saddles the fabricators as prisoners and victims of the lie for the life of the lie and beyond. As Montaigne so aptly observes, the liar often injures himself more than the person being lied to or lied about.
The truth by comparison is positive, it sets you free to live honestly and unfettered. It liberates rather than imprisons. It has no equal in its power to produce positive results, to repair and heal. As Al Gore has pointed out on the issue of global warming, the truth may seem inconvienient to those who would profit from a lie but telling the truth is always the right choice.
So all you new parents, like Montaigne and Gore Vidal advise, teach your children to tell the truth while you can.
David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young once pleaded – teach your children well.
You who are on the road
Must have a code
that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past
is just a good bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell
did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked,
the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why,
if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh
and know they love you.
And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears - that
your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth
before they can die.
Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell
will slowly go by,
And feed them
on your dreams
The one they picked,
the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why,
if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh
and know they love you
I haven’t read much Vidal since he mostly writes fiction and I’ve never been into popular fiction, however, I recognize his literary genius. I’ve always considered popular fiction, although entertaining, a waste of time except when it’s based on historical fact, which I understand much of Vidal’s work is, so I guess I should give Vidal a go. Especially his works like Lincoln, Julian, and a few others.
I think I’ll first start with his new memoir entitled, “Point to Point Navigation”. The title refers to his experience in the U.S. Navy attempting to navigate the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. He explained that at the time they didn’t have all the modern navigation equipment and the stars, sun, etc. were hidden by consistently foggy conditions or by clouded, overcast skies so they had to use Aleut Indian guides who knew how to navigate from point to point, one island to the next. Hence the title which I suppose refers to how Vidal navigated the waters of life.
The interviewer, Denis Wholey, remarked of the many references in Gore’s book to Michel de Montaigne, a philosopher I love and became acquainted with when I was just seventeen, in the Air Force and stationed in El Paso, Texas. When Wholey mentioned Vidal's frequent reference to Montaigne, Vidal attempted to quote a particular quote from Montaigne’s essay on lying which I am overly familiar with since it was the one Montaigne quote I memorized and have made a guidepost for my life ever since I first read it. Interesting that Vidal should choose that very quote.
Although there are several translations, the one I most recall goes like this: “Verily, lying is an ill and detestable vice. What holds us together as men if not our word? If we knew but the horror and the weight of it we would with fire and sword pursue the same and more justly than any other crime.” That’s paraphrased, and somewhat incorrect I imagine, but close enough. Vidal’s quote was also in the neighborhood, was his own version and, as I recall, not nearly as accurate as mine.
Parroting Montaigne, Vidal mentions that to not lie is the one thing we should teach our children from very early in life; the consequences of lying and that lying will not be tolerated. He remarked that once a child learns to lie and is allowed to develop the vile habit, it stays with them and corrupts their life from then on. They never escape from it. He got that from Montaigne also
Montaigne speaks much more eloquently than Vidal. "I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie”, writes Montaigne. “Only lying and stubbornness somewhat more, are the faults whose birth and progress I would have severely punished and cut off; for they grow and increase with them: and if the tongue have once gotten this ill-habit, good Lord how hard, nay how impossible it is to make her leave it.”I concur.
Vidal’s reference to Montaigne cinched it for me. I have to get the book just to see how he uses Montaigne to support his views and what he has to say. He’d better not be lying.
After the program I thought about this, about lying and about authors, and about authors who lie, either intentionally or through carelessness and forgetfulness. It made me remember a story that I like to tell about an experience that connects Dr. Wayne Dyer, Robert Frost and Jalaluddin Rumi, the Persian (Iranian) poet from the 13th Century.
Many years ago I was listening to a speech by Wayne Dyer (one of my first spiritual gurus) who many of you may have seen and heard in recent years on PBS/NPT. Dyer, who today I know longer consider as spiritually honest as he once was, referred to a brief poem by Frost called “The Secret Sits”.
“We all dance around in a circle and suppose
While the secret sits in the middle and knows.”
What a cool poem I thought. Very mystical.
Since I had trouble falling to sleep that night I decided to read. I thought, “I’ll read some Montaigne”, but then for some strange reason got a notion to read Rumi instead and imagine my shock while reading the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi to run across the nearly identical couplet that was written by Rumi around 1250 CE.
Frost, a plagiarist? I’m afraid so, whether from flagrant intent or from a mistaken belief that he himself had created this when in fact he had only remembered it and was perhaps confused over its origin..
Most of us have heard of the whirling dervishes of the Middle East, the Sufi’s, whose religious practice includes dancing in circles, whirling around as they go while verbally spouting their love for God. How they ever keep from getting dizzy and falling down is a wonder.
Most of us wouldn’t know (or perhaps don’t care) that it was Jalaluddin Rumi who was the developer of the whirling dance. He would dance around for hours and while spinning about in a trance he would create poetry. His approach to the muse was particularly unique and his followers wrote the poems down as Rumi composed them. All in all he created thousands of beautiful poems dealing with his love for God and how one should approach God. This is the basis for the Sufi spiritual sect of Islam. Rumi was the guy who conceived it. The poem that Frost plagiarized was a concise reference to the Sufi dance by Rumi. "We all dance around in a circle and suppose" is what Rumi said, not sit as Frost wrote.So, the next time you whirl around the dance floor think of Rumi and the secret that sits in the middle of all existence and knows all that there is to know.
And the next time you tell a lie think of Gore Vidal or of Montaigne and his admonishment about telling lies.
And the next time you read Frost or hear Dyer speak think about how we can't always believe or accept things we are told and about the effect an untruth has on our lives and on those who perpetrate lies.
Then vow that you will use care to always tell the truth as best you know it and not deceive anyone for profit or gain – or for any reason other than to protect someone from emotional suffering or evil intent by others. Only in those limited cases should the truth be compromised – but even then the lie will take its toll because each lie born has a life of its own and will cause others to wrongly accept it and act accordingly. It will necessitate other lies to keep the original lie alive and its originators from being discovered.
It has been said that the truth hurts. Maybe it does often sting, but most of the time it heals, nourishes understanding and grows trust. A lie on the other hand has a ripple effect, It lives on, causing unforeseen damage as one lie requires another to be told to cover for the first. It can snowball and precipitate wrongful actions and lasting injury to everyone who believes it or wields it for advantage and gain. And once discovered it causes more damage by breeding distrust and anger.
Reference the war in Iraq and the lies on top of lies told to Americans and Iraqis alike. How many deaths, crippling injuries, suffering and ruined lives? How many wasted billions of dollars that could have been spent aiding the same people it has destroyed as the lie has been told and retold, modified and added to? A fraction of the wealth gathered and stolen by war profiteers could have produced a ripple effect of life improvement and positive results to the same people it has caused to suffer, to become poisoned with hatred and left with a feeling of complete hopelessness for any semblance of a normal or happy life.
The entire amount of money already wasted on this wrongful war could have insured our social security system for a hundred years, guaranteed our national security, provided healthcare to all Americans, lowered costs and greatly improved our education system, reduced poverty and a caused a positive ripple effect that would be felt for decades to come.
A lie is negative and always produces negative results, harm and suffering. It saddles the fabricators as prisoners and victims of the lie for the life of the lie and beyond. As Montaigne so aptly observes, the liar often injures himself more than the person being lied to or lied about.
The truth by comparison is positive, it sets you free to live honestly and unfettered. It liberates rather than imprisons. It has no equal in its power to produce positive results, to repair and heal. As Al Gore has pointed out on the issue of global warming, the truth may seem inconvienient to those who would profit from a lie but telling the truth is always the right choice.
So all you new parents, like Montaigne and Gore Vidal advise, teach your children to tell the truth while you can.
David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young once pleaded – teach your children well.
You who are on the road
Must have a code
that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past
is just a good bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell
did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked,
the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why,
if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh
and know they love you.
And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears - that
your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth
before they can die.
Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell
will slowly go by,
And feed them
on your dreams
The one they picked,
the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why,
if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh
and know they love you
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Rare Vintage Concert & Radio Music on your Computer
Go to Concert Vault for an amazing number of vintage live concert audio and radio, etc. Just listened to Bonnie Bramlett at Bottom Line in NYC 1978.
List includes rock, country, jazz etc. Many are Fillmore concerts.
Listening now to a full set of The Byrds, late show at Fillmore West 1970, with Clarence White on guitar. Clarence was the great country blues influence that changed the Byrds forever. I saw The Byrds in St Louis in late sixties when the local country rock group Spur opened for them. I got to go backstage at rehearsal the afternoon of the concert. I didn’t get to meet them although they were right there but Clarence looked me in the face and nodded. “This Wheels On Fire”. I was very impressionable and star struck at that age.
Clarence was killed years ago. “You don’t miss your water ‘til the well’s gone dry”.
Next up Merle Haggard, Bob Marley, John Anderson, BB King.
You must register to access, name and email address only.
Add this to your favorites. Good stuff! Enjoy!
Gary
List includes rock, country, jazz etc. Many are Fillmore concerts.
Listening now to a full set of The Byrds, late show at Fillmore West 1970, with Clarence White on guitar. Clarence was the great country blues influence that changed the Byrds forever. I saw The Byrds in St Louis in late sixties when the local country rock group Spur opened for them. I got to go backstage at rehearsal the afternoon of the concert. I didn’t get to meet them although they were right there but Clarence looked me in the face and nodded. “This Wheels On Fire”. I was very impressionable and star struck at that age.
Clarence was killed years ago. “You don’t miss your water ‘til the well’s gone dry”.
Next up Merle Haggard, Bob Marley, John Anderson, BB King.
You must register to access, name and email address only.
Add this to your favorites. Good stuff! Enjoy!
Gary
Monday, October 02, 2006
Bonnie Bramlett - Movie Star!
I just talked to Bonnie Bramlett regarding her part in the new Kevin Costner movie, The Guardian, which was just released. Bonnie plays a blues club owner named Maggie and got rave revues.
“There are lots of peripheral roles, and all the actors are quite engaging. Bonnie Bramlett is phenomenal as the crusty owner of a blues bar where the guys hang out; the role gives us several chances to hear her glorious singing. (Baby boomers may remember Bramlett as the co-leader of Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, an R&B band that included Eric Clapton.)”. ~ Marty Clear, St Petersburg Times
It’s a small speaking role but reportedly Bonnie does a great job pulling off a southern accent – and she gets to sing!
Bonnie asked that all her fans and friends go see the movie and let her know what you think. Email me and I’ll pass your comments along. I’m to report back next Monday.
Bonnie plans to concentrate on acting for the near future and also will be touring some to support her new CD, Roots, Blues and Jazz. I have a copy and it’s great.
Previously Bonnie appeared as a bartender in the 1991 movie “The Doors” the story of Jim Morrison and also was a regular on the Roseanne show playing the part of “Bonnie”, Roseanne’s best friend and fellow waitress at the diner. So, she played a bartender and then a waitress and now is a club owner. Look’s like she’s making progress in the acting world. I predict a co-star role in the future.
A few days ago her daughter Bekka Bramlett, pictured here with her mama,Bonnie, appeared on MSNBC’s Imus In The Morning with Sam Moore of Sam and Dave fame and blew everyone away with her vocal trades with Sam. Imus was obviously impressed. Bekka looks so much like her mom did at that age it’s scary. When those two perform together it’s a real treat to see and hear them trading vocal riffs on handclapping, gutsy blues numbers. Bekka should be a major recording star. Can’t imagine why she isn’t.
Bonnie’s mother Ruth Nizinski, originally of Granite City but for the last six or more years a resident of Nashville, passed away in February of this year, she was 85. Ruth worked in the insurance industry there in St.Louis until she retired. Ruth lived with Bonnie here in Nashville and Bonnie says she misses her terribly.
Bonnie sends her regards to all her old friends back in Illinois that used to catch her act when she sang at the Whirlaway, Radisons, and with Billy Peak and Ike Turner at Gaslight Square and other local clubs.
Gary
For more info about the movie and Bonnie, her career and music go to her website www.bonniebramlett.com
“There are lots of peripheral roles, and all the actors are quite engaging. Bonnie Bramlett is phenomenal as the crusty owner of a blues bar where the guys hang out; the role gives us several chances to hear her glorious singing. (Baby boomers may remember Bramlett as the co-leader of Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, an R&B band that included Eric Clapton.)”. ~ Marty Clear, St Petersburg Times
It’s a small speaking role but reportedly Bonnie does a great job pulling off a southern accent – and she gets to sing!
Bonnie asked that all her fans and friends go see the movie and let her know what you think. Email me and I’ll pass your comments along. I’m to report back next Monday.
Bonnie plans to concentrate on acting for the near future and also will be touring some to support her new CD, Roots, Blues and Jazz. I have a copy and it’s great.
Previously Bonnie appeared as a bartender in the 1991 movie “The Doors” the story of Jim Morrison and also was a regular on the Roseanne show playing the part of “Bonnie”, Roseanne’s best friend and fellow waitress at the diner. So, she played a bartender and then a waitress and now is a club owner. Look’s like she’s making progress in the acting world. I predict a co-star role in the future.
A few days ago her daughter Bekka Bramlett, pictured here with her mama,Bonnie, appeared on MSNBC’s Imus In The Morning with Sam Moore of Sam and Dave fame and blew everyone away with her vocal trades with Sam. Imus was obviously impressed. Bekka looks so much like her mom did at that age it’s scary. When those two perform together it’s a real treat to see and hear them trading vocal riffs on handclapping, gutsy blues numbers. Bekka should be a major recording star. Can’t imagine why she isn’t. Bonnie’s mother Ruth Nizinski, originally of Granite City but for the last six or more years a resident of Nashville, passed away in February of this year, she was 85. Ruth worked in the insurance industry there in St.Louis until she retired. Ruth lived with Bonnie here in Nashville and Bonnie says she misses her terribly.
Bonnie sends her regards to all her old friends back in Illinois that used to catch her act when she sang at the Whirlaway, Radisons, and with Billy Peak and Ike Turner at Gaslight Square and other local clubs.
Gary
For more info about the movie and Bonnie, her career and music go to her website www.bonniebramlett.com
Monday, September 11, 2006
A Case for Immortality
In the New Testament, Saint John describes the Logos as God, the Creative Word, which has a holy existence and power over all existence. Even giving spiritual power to the utterance of the word God itself. Therefore, most people regard the Greek word Logos to mean exclusively “Word”, but they are mistaken.
“- as any philosophically educated Greek of the time knew, "Logos" doesn't just mean "word" in a literal or even in a lively metaphorical sense. It's more along the lines of "the rational principle of the universe." It's the underlying pattern of the cosmic fabric, the warp and weft by which all things hang together. It's why things make sense--the reason cause follows effect--the law of non-contradiction -- the creative mind that accounts for why there is something rather than nothing. Because the Logos is, everything else is too. Above change, beyond time, outside of space: prepositions break down in the face of the Logos. It's the first and final cause of the whole created world.”
The 6th-century BC Greek philosopher Heraclitus was the first to use the term Logos in a metaphysical sense. He asserted that the world is governed by a fire-like Logos, a divine force that produces the order and pattern discernible in the flux of nature.
Lao Tzu and those who followed him understood this as well but referred to this “cosmic fabric, the warp and weft by which all things hang together”, and this, “divine force that produces the order and pattern discernible in the flux of nature”, as the Tao. Others use the word ”God” to describe this never ending, ubiquitous, all-permeating power, energy, or whatever you wish to call it, as the source of all existence, the creator, the father or the mother if you prefer.
Conversely, it becomes fairly easy when considering God, the Tao, the life-giving force, the vastness and mystery of the universe and the interconnectedness of all things to consider the soul immortal, especially when you consider that no thing actually dies or disappears, they only take on new forms; are dispersed and absorbed into one another.
Because of our mind and its processing of sensory information provided by our only sensing apparatus (the five physical senses) we are locked into this sphere of a limited conceptual thought allowing that once a living thing enters the stage of what we refer to as death, the loss of spirit and the decay of physical properties, life ends. But all evidence is to the contrary.
While we accept that life begins from the interaction of living microscopic cells, we have difficulty accepting that in death it reverts back to living microscopic cells. When the form of a rock, tree, animal or any “living” form “dies”, the molecules that make up that form do not die or disappear, they just disassemble and move on to interact with and become reassembled as a part of a new form or substance. The body, the plant, the organic cellular structure, breaks down into miniscule parts that are still alive but no longer a part of the larger organism. They enter the earth the air, the water and are picked up and reassembled as part of many other living organisms. They become metabolic energy and are gathered up and incorporated into new life – they continue to live. So it’s a given that the physical elements that make up our bodies do not die.
So, what about the other part of life forms, the one that seems to live in us as the observer, the spiritual being that occupies this life form we call a body? It’s easy to conceive that whatever constitutes “the soul” of all living organisms is part of the “Tao”, or “God”, etc. and that this “soul” or the “spirit”, just like the physical components, does not die and moves on to inhabit and become the living expression of another life form.
In the Phaedo, Socrates’ great discourse on the immortality of the soul, Socrates asserts (while slowly dying of poison), "I cannot imagine anything more self-evident than the fact that absolute beauty and goodness and all the rest ... exist in the fullest possible sense." In the same dialogue, Socrates wonders, "Is there any certainty in human sight and hearing, or is it true, as the poets are always dinning into our ears, that we neither hear nor see anything accurately?" Philosophers have argued ever since whether sensory input aids or arrests the quest for knowledge.
Socrates has no doubts about what puts the distance between him and the pure knowledge of pure being for which he longs. It's his body. His soul is always being led astray in its search for truth, because his body attracts distractions. Socrates lists them: "diseases which attack and hinder us in our quest for reality.... The body fills us with loves and desires and tears and all sorts of fancies and a great deal of nonsense.... Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires."
Socrates fully believed in an afterlife of the spirit and like Jesus and so many other great spiritual masters he authored no written work and lived a life of simplicity. He held “- that to need nothing is divine, and the less a man needs the nearer does he approach divinity.”
At the root of the charges that led to his death sentence was the fact that Socrates was corrupting the youth but the truth was he publicly criticized many of those in power showing their judgments and decisions to be flawed, lacking intelligence and good reason. Regarding the issue Socrates suggested that he had made many abiding enemies by personally approaching people who had reputations for wisdom only to reveal through questionings that their wisdom was specious. Others had been alienated by young persons who had witnessed Socrates' methods of questioning similarly revealing yet other people's pretensions to wisdom to be baseless. Socrates made the case that his questions had tended to vindicate the utterance of the Oracle at Delphi that “no one was wiser than Socrates” by showing that he, Socrates, did indeed have a particular claim to wisdom in that he at least fully recognized his own ignorance.
Socrates was also accused of being an atheist and neglecting the Gods. Those charges and the death sentence that was delivered underscores that right-wing religious fundamentalists have always had a penchant for violence and murder.
Perhaps as a mockery, the last words Socrates spoke were to remind his friend Crito they owed a chicken sacrifice to Aesculapius the Greek God of Medicine for the Hemlock he had drank to end his life. “Crito, we owe a cock to Aesculapius; please pay it and don't let it pass.”
Gary
“- as any philosophically educated Greek of the time knew, "Logos" doesn't just mean "word" in a literal or even in a lively metaphorical sense. It's more along the lines of "the rational principle of the universe." It's the underlying pattern of the cosmic fabric, the warp and weft by which all things hang together. It's why things make sense--the reason cause follows effect--the law of non-contradiction -- the creative mind that accounts for why there is something rather than nothing. Because the Logos is, everything else is too. Above change, beyond time, outside of space: prepositions break down in the face of the Logos. It's the first and final cause of the whole created world.”
The 6th-century BC Greek philosopher Heraclitus was the first to use the term Logos in a metaphysical sense. He asserted that the world is governed by a fire-like Logos, a divine force that produces the order and pattern discernible in the flux of nature.
Lao Tzu and those who followed him understood this as well but referred to this “cosmic fabric, the warp and weft by which all things hang together”, and this, “divine force that produces the order and pattern discernible in the flux of nature”, as the Tao. Others use the word ”God” to describe this never ending, ubiquitous, all-permeating power, energy, or whatever you wish to call it, as the source of all existence, the creator, the father or the mother if you prefer. Conversely, it becomes fairly easy when considering God, the Tao, the life-giving force, the vastness and mystery of the universe and the interconnectedness of all things to consider the soul immortal, especially when you consider that no thing actually dies or disappears, they only take on new forms; are dispersed and absorbed into one another.
Because of our mind and its processing of sensory information provided by our only sensing apparatus (the five physical senses) we are locked into this sphere of a limited conceptual thought allowing that once a living thing enters the stage of what we refer to as death, the loss of spirit and the decay of physical properties, life ends. But all evidence is to the contrary.
While we accept that life begins from the interaction of living microscopic cells, we have difficulty accepting that in death it reverts back to living microscopic cells. When the form of a rock, tree, animal or any “living” form “dies”, the molecules that make up that form do not die or disappear, they just disassemble and move on to interact with and become reassembled as a part of a new form or substance. The body, the plant, the organic cellular structure, breaks down into miniscule parts that are still alive but no longer a part of the larger organism. They enter the earth the air, the water and are picked up and reassembled as part of many other living organisms. They become metabolic energy and are gathered up and incorporated into new life – they continue to live. So it’s a given that the physical elements that make up our bodies do not die.
So, what about the other part of life forms, the one that seems to live in us as the observer, the spiritual being that occupies this life form we call a body? It’s easy to conceive that whatever constitutes “the soul” of all living organisms is part of the “Tao”, or “God”, etc. and that this “soul” or the “spirit”, just like the physical components, does not die and moves on to inhabit and become the living expression of another life form.
In the Phaedo, Socrates’ great discourse on the immortality of the soul, Socrates asserts (while slowly dying of poison), "I cannot imagine anything more self-evident than the fact that absolute beauty and goodness and all the rest ... exist in the fullest possible sense." In the same dialogue, Socrates wonders, "Is there any certainty in human sight and hearing, or is it true, as the poets are always dinning into our ears, that we neither hear nor see anything accurately?" Philosophers have argued ever since whether sensory input aids or arrests the quest for knowledge.Socrates has no doubts about what puts the distance between him and the pure knowledge of pure being for which he longs. It's his body. His soul is always being led astray in its search for truth, because his body attracts distractions. Socrates lists them: "diseases which attack and hinder us in our quest for reality.... The body fills us with loves and desires and tears and all sorts of fancies and a great deal of nonsense.... Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires."
Socrates fully believed in an afterlife of the spirit and like Jesus and so many other great spiritual masters he authored no written work and lived a life of simplicity. He held “- that to need nothing is divine, and the less a man needs the nearer does he approach divinity.”
At the root of the charges that led to his death sentence was the fact that Socrates was corrupting the youth but the truth was he publicly criticized many of those in power showing their judgments and decisions to be flawed, lacking intelligence and good reason. Regarding the issue Socrates suggested that he had made many abiding enemies by personally approaching people who had reputations for wisdom only to reveal through questionings that their wisdom was specious. Others had been alienated by young persons who had witnessed Socrates' methods of questioning similarly revealing yet other people's pretensions to wisdom to be baseless. Socrates made the case that his questions had tended to vindicate the utterance of the Oracle at Delphi that “no one was wiser than Socrates” by showing that he, Socrates, did indeed have a particular claim to wisdom in that he at least fully recognized his own ignorance.
Socrates was also accused of being an atheist and neglecting the Gods. Those charges and the death sentence that was delivered underscores that right-wing religious fundamentalists have always had a penchant for violence and murder.
Perhaps as a mockery, the last words Socrates spoke were to remind his friend Crito they owed a chicken sacrifice to Aesculapius the Greek God of Medicine for the Hemlock he had drank to end his life. “Crito, we owe a cock to Aesculapius; please pay it and don't let it pass.”
Gary
Friday, September 08, 2006
Religion and Politics Don’t Mix
I believe people of good virtue should enter politics. The fact we don’t have enough virtuous people in politics has become painfully obvious in these times. But I don’t think elected representatives should bring their strict religious beliefs to the party. They should be checked at the door to the capitol building and the door to the White House.
I agree with Shree Rajneesh when he said as long as religion is allowed to become the mainspring of politics we will continue to be a world in turmoil because politics means sectarianism. And religion should have absolutely nothing to do with sectarianism. Religion is an individual commitment to spirituality he says and should not become sectarian. Politics are totally sectarian, and there is no relationship to spirituality. “Politics survives on sectarianism, sectarianism survives on hatred, and hatred survives on blood – and the mischief goes on “, Rajneesh says.
During the era in which I grew up, politics, divisive as they are, were left outside the church sanctuary. Once inside all who entered were brothers and sisters in the spirit of the church, a sanctuary to practice individual spiritual commitment.
The word sanctuary means a place of asylum, of immunity, a refuge from the world of political sectarianism. Throughout history churches and temples gave refuge to fugitives who were immune from arrest by civil authorities while they were in the church or temple sanctuary.
Those who bring political sectarianism into the church are destroying the church as a sanctuary for those who seek spirituality and a refuge from the troubles of the secular world.
Gary
I agree with Shree Rajneesh when he said as long as religion is allowed to become the mainspring of politics we will continue to be a world in turmoil because politics means sectarianism. And religion should have absolutely nothing to do with sectarianism. Religion is an individual commitment to spirituality he says and should not become sectarian. Politics are totally sectarian, and there is no relationship to spirituality. “Politics survives on sectarianism, sectarianism survives on hatred, and hatred survives on blood – and the mischief goes on “, Rajneesh says.
During the era in which I grew up, politics, divisive as they are, were left outside the church sanctuary. Once inside all who entered were brothers and sisters in the spirit of the church, a sanctuary to practice individual spiritual commitment.
The word sanctuary means a place of asylum, of immunity, a refuge from the world of political sectarianism. Throughout history churches and temples gave refuge to fugitives who were immune from arrest by civil authorities while they were in the church or temple sanctuary.
Those who bring political sectarianism into the church are destroying the church as a sanctuary for those who seek spirituality and a refuge from the troubles of the secular world.
Gary
Monday, August 21, 2006
Now and Zen
The reason I chose Now and Zen to title these remarks is that in Zen philosophy there is no “then” – there is only “now”. If you are waiting for things to get better or waiting to reach some milepost before you act, or for a miracle to happen that will make your life bearable, you’re going to miss out on life.
Life is now! Right at this very moment, and that is the only point in your existence that you can experience. Right this second. Now!
The illusion of the future is always melting into or “becoming” the moment of existence - a fleet sensation - the “now” of your life. What once was the immediate future envisioned in your mind a moment ago has just become this very nanosecond you are now experiencing. This “present moment” then quickly becomes the unalterable past. It may be a disappointment, a missed opportunity, but only if you let it.
The “wish I had done it” doesn’t matter anymore if you didn’t do it. The promise “I’ll do it next time - or next week” is not something you can guarantee or predict. Do what you feel is the right thing to do “now”, drop the past and drop the future.
The future is unknown and along with what you might reasonably anticipate, it also brings the unexpected. The only control you have is over this very moment - where the rubber meets the road to use a popular analogy – and how you process it. This moment is the point of action, the only point of reference to life you have. Even if you use your memory or the thoughts and ideas of recorded history to mold it – this moment is your experience of the life you live - moment to moment. This is your moment of being. It’s your writing on the page of life, your footprint in the sand. It’s your creation, the energy of your existence interacting with the energy of the universe. And it’s your experience, the shaping of your soul. This is your only chance to experience the sensory sensations you are blessed with. Right now at this moment.
Life has the illusion of flowing like a river but does it really? Is it just a series of moments like the individual still frames of a movie film that creates the illusion of continuity, linearity and time? Or like the alternating currents of AC electrical power does it ebb and flow as a sine wave? Is the wave peak the life experience and the trough the non-living opposite, the push pull which together gives life to all living things and to all existence?
Or does it even matter that we understand except for the fact that the here and now is the only life worth living?
If you live in the past you are avoiding the present, obsessing over what could or should have been (we’re all guilty), and if you live in an imaginary future you are putting life off and avoiding the present. Experiencing each of life’s moments to the maximum is an acquired ability that few ever succeed in achieving – the so called “enlightened beings” among us. There are degrees of ability of course, but anyone can become enlightened in a general sense.
How do you live in the moment? By just “being” completely in the moment and not somewhere else is one explanation but the ability of “just being” has many facets and challenges. Drop the self they say. Get rid of the ego. Quit filtering nature through an intellectual sieve (like what I’m doing at this moment).
Here’s an exercise or two to allow you to experience what it means to be fully in the moment.
Find a quiet place where you won’t be distracted or interrupted, a place to meditate so to speak. Now, take either hand and concentrate on it. Look at your hand carefully as you slowly move your fingers as if to grip something in the claw made by your fingers. Look carefully at how the hand operates, the beauty of it, and the intricacy. Focus on only your hand.
Think of how much like a bird of prey’s claw your hand is, how much like other animals your hand functions. Exclude all thought other than your hand and the miracle that causes it to move the way it does almost instinctively without your command. Think about how you, using your mind, can make your fingers work individually, and the wrist to turn just so and how robotic and machine-like it seems. Think about the chemicals and neuron transmitters that cause the various ligaments and muscles to interact and perform whatever it is you would like the hand to do. As you focus, become your hand, but detach yourself from it at the same time.
If you concentrate long enough you will begin to marvel at this creation that is so critical to your existence. The hand almost looks as if it has life and powers of its own. Then drop all intellectual analysis. Allow your mind to view it as a separate living entity but realize your oneness with it. If you allow yourself to be completely absorbed with your hand and its miraculous abilities you will experience to some degree what it means to meditate, to be an observer and to live completely in the moment - being totally aware.
You can do this with any activity at any time.
Living in the moment means having full sensory awareness at the deepest level of what you are experiencing.
If you are washing your face, devote your attention to it. Become an observer by becoming fully aware of washing your face, the feel of the water temperature, the feel of the soap’s lather and its fragrance, the movement of your hands. Act with intent – not robotically. Make graceful movements, smooth, not rough and vigorous. Take responsibility but let go at the same time. Totally absorb the experience. See and feel the difference.
When you walk, be mindful of (observe) how you walk and walk with intention but also walk with mindfulness of balance and grace. When you move your arms and hands to accomplish a task be mindful of and observe their movement, move with balance and grace like a dancer, whether you’re peeling potatoes, turning a wrench or lifting a box. Whether you’re writing a letter or driving a car. Be mindful of the experience, be totally alert and into the moment. It takes practice but if you pay attention you can do it – and then it will eventually become second nature.
Concentrate on smooth, graceful actions, as those who practice Tai Chi, not herky-jerky, overly quick, coarse and reckless movements subject to mistake and accident. But you should be able to do this without losing yourself to what is going on around you. You can walk, or drive, or operate machinery with increased awareness, with grace and with mindfulness and attention yet with detachment, and you can still remain aware of all the dangers and hazards of life. You can be the observer and still be in control.
Many of those who excel in sports have incorporated being here and now into their game. Watch Scott Rolen, third baseman for the St Louis Cardinals. Rolen is ever mindful and graceful. Even when acting quickly with snap judgment he’s graceful in his motions. In baseball parlance they say he has “smooth” hands. Watch him and you’ll see he stays completely in the game, ever attentive and “in the moment”. Being “in the zone” is another description. Unfortunately for the Cardinals their pitching staff has not learned how to stay “in the moment”. It’s also true of most of the other players when at the plate batting.
For most of us “being in the moment” has to become intentional before it can become natural. You have to be mindful to become unmindful and natural. In Zen they refer to the enlightened person as an observer, someone who observes there own behavior and actions, detached from but mindful of every action and emotional response.
Sometimes living in the here and now happens without intent – as it should and as it happened when you were an infant. All babies and little children live in the here and now. They experience life in the moment without the encumbrance and baggage of knowledge, training and conditioning that eventually kills our ability to experience life fully and at its best. Few adults have retained the ability to observe and stay focused like a small child in its first years of life.
When you view a beautiful sunset or majestic view and you become captured by the moment, that’s being totally in the moment. As you become slack-jawed, entranced and are absorbed by the experience, that’s experiencing life as it was intended by God. By keeping your attention on being in the moment - completely, here and now - you will become more awakened to the richness of life and will enter the territory of what it means to be “one” with existence.
Who can have more? Who can be richer than that?
Life is now! Right at this very moment, and that is the only point in your existence that you can experience. Right this second. Now!
The illusion of the future is always melting into or “becoming” the moment of existence - a fleet sensation - the “now” of your life. What once was the immediate future envisioned in your mind a moment ago has just become this very nanosecond you are now experiencing. This “present moment” then quickly becomes the unalterable past. It may be a disappointment, a missed opportunity, but only if you let it.
The “wish I had done it” doesn’t matter anymore if you didn’t do it. The promise “I’ll do it next time - or next week” is not something you can guarantee or predict. Do what you feel is the right thing to do “now”, drop the past and drop the future.
The future is unknown and along with what you might reasonably anticipate, it also brings the unexpected. The only control you have is over this very moment - where the rubber meets the road to use a popular analogy – and how you process it. This moment is the point of action, the only point of reference to life you have. Even if you use your memory or the thoughts and ideas of recorded history to mold it – this moment is your experience of the life you live - moment to moment. This is your moment of being. It’s your writing on the page of life, your footprint in the sand. It’s your creation, the energy of your existence interacting with the energy of the universe. And it’s your experience, the shaping of your soul. This is your only chance to experience the sensory sensations you are blessed with. Right now at this moment.
Life has the illusion of flowing like a river but does it really? Is it just a series of moments like the individual still frames of a movie film that creates the illusion of continuity, linearity and time? Or like the alternating currents of AC electrical power does it ebb and flow as a sine wave? Is the wave peak the life experience and the trough the non-living opposite, the push pull which together gives life to all living things and to all existence?
Or does it even matter that we understand except for the fact that the here and now is the only life worth living?
If you live in the past you are avoiding the present, obsessing over what could or should have been (we’re all guilty), and if you live in an imaginary future you are putting life off and avoiding the present. Experiencing each of life’s moments to the maximum is an acquired ability that few ever succeed in achieving – the so called “enlightened beings” among us. There are degrees of ability of course, but anyone can become enlightened in a general sense.
How do you live in the moment? By just “being” completely in the moment and not somewhere else is one explanation but the ability of “just being” has many facets and challenges. Drop the self they say. Get rid of the ego. Quit filtering nature through an intellectual sieve (like what I’m doing at this moment).
Here’s an exercise or two to allow you to experience what it means to be fully in the moment.
Find a quiet place where you won’t be distracted or interrupted, a place to meditate so to speak. Now, take either hand and concentrate on it. Look at your hand carefully as you slowly move your fingers as if to grip something in the claw made by your fingers. Look carefully at how the hand operates, the beauty of it, and the intricacy. Focus on only your hand.
Think of how much like a bird of prey’s claw your hand is, how much like other animals your hand functions. Exclude all thought other than your hand and the miracle that causes it to move the way it does almost instinctively without your command. Think about how you, using your mind, can make your fingers work individually, and the wrist to turn just so and how robotic and machine-like it seems. Think about the chemicals and neuron transmitters that cause the various ligaments and muscles to interact and perform whatever it is you would like the hand to do. As you focus, become your hand, but detach yourself from it at the same time.
If you concentrate long enough you will begin to marvel at this creation that is so critical to your existence. The hand almost looks as if it has life and powers of its own. Then drop all intellectual analysis. Allow your mind to view it as a separate living entity but realize your oneness with it. If you allow yourself to be completely absorbed with your hand and its miraculous abilities you will experience to some degree what it means to meditate, to be an observer and to live completely in the moment - being totally aware.
You can do this with any activity at any time.
Living in the moment means having full sensory awareness at the deepest level of what you are experiencing.
If you are washing your face, devote your attention to it. Become an observer by becoming fully aware of washing your face, the feel of the water temperature, the feel of the soap’s lather and its fragrance, the movement of your hands. Act with intent – not robotically. Make graceful movements, smooth, not rough and vigorous. Take responsibility but let go at the same time. Totally absorb the experience. See and feel the difference.
When you walk, be mindful of (observe) how you walk and walk with intention but also walk with mindfulness of balance and grace. When you move your arms and hands to accomplish a task be mindful of and observe their movement, move with balance and grace like a dancer, whether you’re peeling potatoes, turning a wrench or lifting a box. Whether you’re writing a letter or driving a car. Be mindful of the experience, be totally alert and into the moment. It takes practice but if you pay attention you can do it – and then it will eventually become second nature.
Concentrate on smooth, graceful actions, as those who practice Tai Chi, not herky-jerky, overly quick, coarse and reckless movements subject to mistake and accident. But you should be able to do this without losing yourself to what is going on around you. You can walk, or drive, or operate machinery with increased awareness, with grace and with mindfulness and attention yet with detachment, and you can still remain aware of all the dangers and hazards of life. You can be the observer and still be in control.
Many of those who excel in sports have incorporated being here and now into their game. Watch Scott Rolen, third baseman for the St Louis Cardinals. Rolen is ever mindful and graceful. Even when acting quickly with snap judgment he’s graceful in his motions. In baseball parlance they say he has “smooth” hands. Watch him and you’ll see he stays completely in the game, ever attentive and “in the moment”. Being “in the zone” is another description. Unfortunately for the Cardinals their pitching staff has not learned how to stay “in the moment”. It’s also true of most of the other players when at the plate batting.
For most of us “being in the moment” has to become intentional before it can become natural. You have to be mindful to become unmindful and natural. In Zen they refer to the enlightened person as an observer, someone who observes there own behavior and actions, detached from but mindful of every action and emotional response.
Sometimes living in the here and now happens without intent – as it should and as it happened when you were an infant. All babies and little children live in the here and now. They experience life in the moment without the encumbrance and baggage of knowledge, training and conditioning that eventually kills our ability to experience life fully and at its best. Few adults have retained the ability to observe and stay focused like a small child in its first years of life.
When you view a beautiful sunset or majestic view and you become captured by the moment, that’s being totally in the moment. As you become slack-jawed, entranced and are absorbed by the experience, that’s experiencing life as it was intended by God. By keeping your attention on being in the moment - completely, here and now - you will become more awakened to the richness of life and will enter the territory of what it means to be “one” with existence.
Who can have more? Who can be richer than that?
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