on loan

from a Neil Diamond song

Injustice affects the world

Trayvon Martin's Mother

It is when we read such as this that we can know the absolute marvellousness and lovingness of the human spirit.

Sybrina Fulton talking to Rabbi Schmuley Boteach full article here

" I have no time for anger. I do not want to grant it a place in my heart"

The problem of me

I am not more gifted than the average human being. If you know anything about history, you would know that is so--what hard times I had in studying and the fact that I do not have a memory like some other people do… I am just more curious than the average person and I will not give up on a problem until I have found the proper solution. This is one of my greatest satisfactions in life--solving problems--and the harder they are, the more satisfaction do I get out of them. Maybe you could consider me a bit more patient in continuing with my problem than is the average human being.

Now, if you understand what I have just told you, you see that it is not a matter of being more gifted but a matter of being more curious and maybe more patient until you solve a problem.

~ Albert Einstein

tides of awareness

Most times a tide of awareness will be disruptive, shattering the stillness of our pre-conceived ideas, sparkling with the radiance of it's truth

the language of beauty

we remember

The increasing awareness of One-ness

via

the thinnest of lines

"Some documents that have been exposed in recent weeks have also shown what appear to be moves to scupper efforts by Italy’s interim technocratic government under Mario Monti to get the church to pay property taxes. The Vatican owns an estimated 20 percent of all real estate in Italy, and its tax bill is estimated to be about $100 million annually. Property owned by the Catholic Church is exempt from property taxes as long as the properties serve a religious function. That means hotels, schools, and other church property need only contain a chapel to be exempt from taxes".

Simply because a law says it is legal does not in and of itself make actions moral, ethical or conducive to higher spiritual values

mandatory obligations……?

We all feel angry at times; it’s a natural response to threats and attacks, injustice and disappointment. Anger is a powerful emotion and releasing the pressure that builds inside you can be essential to deal with problems and move on. But if anger isn’t dealt with in a healthy way, it can have a significant effect on your daily life, relationships, achievements and mental well-being.

It is also a 'mandatory religious obligation' to LOVE.

So what did he write, this young tweeter?

Well, essentially he said that he would behave towards the Prophet as though he were a friend, he would not pray to the Prophet – rather,he implies, he would speak to him as a close friend.As though they were brothers,which,in faith, they are!

"Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks" 2:256

Oh, beautiful Islam, with what swords of hate they scar your truth.

Memories are beautiful

stay away

self-discipline….re-run

What we can achieve when we care enough to work together……

resting in one's self

whispers of lovingness

click for bigger picture

never growing up…

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

Plato

ermm…did someone mention ONENESS?

Happy New Year

The audacity of memory

and the treasures of nostalgia

 

“Lost friend, lost child, lost parent, sister, brother, husband, wife, we will not so discard you!” he wrote. “You shall hold your cherished places in our Christmas hearts, and by our Christmas fires; and in the season of immortal hope, and on the birthday of immortal mercy, we will shut out Nothing!”

Charles Dickens

Merry Christmas 2011

Them Us It

No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent.

William Ellery Channing

In Memoriam – Christopher Hitchens

to which should generally be added…."and do participate in private", or so it would seem from many 'religious leaders/concepts'.

Hence, for example, a woman in the Middle East can be 'gang-raped' in the name of religion – and then punished for it by being imprisoned and suffering 100 lashes.

In the 'hypocrisy Shoddy Globe Award' we should also not forget to dishonour the Catholic Church and the Vatican for it's en-darkened attitudes to children and truth..

Another shortlisted for the 'Shoddy Globe Award' is, of course, the State of Israel, which has managed to turn a magnificent faith into an apartheid look-a-like.

The Garden of the mind

Apartheid Israel?

via

enlightenment……..'seasy

 

http://youtu.be/8CRYmcun3tc

Kahlil Gibran – on children

 

sad lillies

Sins committed in the name of a higher good, Zmirak wrote, can “smell and look like lilies. But they flank a coffin. Lying dead and stiff inside that box is natural Justice ... what each of us owes the other in an unconditional debt.”

No higher cause can trump that obligation — not a church, and certainly not a football program. And not even a lifetime of heroism can make up for leaving a single child alone, abandoned to evil, weeping in the dark.

 

 

John Zmirak/Ross Douthat 

The progression of identity….

irony

 

 

via http://www.artige.no/bilde/15335

Life requires video

Such a lovely man – the Dalai Lama

essential unconditional love

glowing heart

Flower Power-002

"In all the world is no place hidden from the glory shed by hundreds of myriad rays from the heart of every flower of Paradise"

Shinran Shonin, the 10th century Japanese monk /Buddhist Psalms, by S. Yamabe and L. Adams Beck, [1921], at sacred-texts.com

Flower Power

the powerful self

Shining, shining, shining

 

Joseph CAMPBELL: "That is the way it feels, but this is it, this is Eden. When you see the kingdom spread upon the earth, the old way of living in the world is annihilated. That is the end of the world, The end of the world is not an event to come, it is an event of psychological transformation, of visionary transformation. You see not the world of solid things but a world of radiance".

 

via

Something happens

image from Incomedia. Text  gg

the mould of experience

Salvador Dale 'The persistence of memory'

Experience is a 'time frame scenario'. The ability to extrapolate meaningful data from such a 'time frame scenario' is not dependent upon age, but upon flexibility, open-mindedness and the willingness to look as objectively as possible at 'experience'.

gg

Sheltering wings

mighty oaks from little acorns grow

 

colour prejudice……

http://lo-velifemus-ic.tumblr.com/

Steve Jobs quote

"[Y]ou can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
-- Stanford University commencement address, June 2005.

A remarkable man.A remarkable people.

"Kindness is our greatest asset".

An excerpt from the speech given by Prime Minister of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg, at the Norwegian National Remembrance Day ceremony 21st August 2011 – in loving memory of all who died on 22nd July 2011

you can read his full speech, in English, here

Freedom….01010101

The voice of true life

"It was better that I died trying than that I did not attempt to save her"

Eirik Høie Mortensen (16) who swam in the cold waters off Utoya island holding up two other young people, one of which had been shot whom he held for 65 minutes and the other cramped and near drowning whom he also held for 20 minutes. All three survived. Eirik does not consider himself a hero but only feels he did what was right to do.

I wonder what kind of world we could have if we could only have some of this young man's sacrificial and determined compassion.

 

Full story in Norwegian here:

http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/08/01/nyheter/utoya/terror/innenriks/terrorisme/17519239/

22711

Bano Abobakar Rashid

                                                             Bano Abobakar Rashid

                                                                     In Memoriam

The mechanisms of the spirit-001

 

When we are able to look beyond the pain and grief of the tragedy at Utoya, to take a transcendental spiritual view, we see that all those at the island had some common motivation and inspiration.

They were there, in their compassionate lovingness, because they had the desire to improve Norway, improve the world. To use part or all of their life to make it a better place, create a greater sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, and felt that politics was a pathway to achieve this desire. They wanted to show us the value of every human being for that is what a desire to make the world better means.

When we look at the reactions in Norway and the world in these last 6 days, who amongst us is not left with the deep sense that they have changed Norway and the world?

As Ghandi, Mandella and many more have done with their lives.

As Islam Kardekov did in Beslan.

As Christ did.As the Buddha did. As Mohammed did.

"You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?" Kahlil Gibran

We do not know their soul's agenda. But we can know something of their lovingness that caused them to be in that place at that time.

gg

in deep sorrow

Nelson Mandela words