Johann Sebastian Bach St Matthew Passion BWV 244
Mache dich, mein Herze, rein,
Make yourself pure, my heart
Ich will Jesum selbst begraben,
I want to bury Jesus himself within me,
Denn er soll nunmehr in mir
For he now within me
Für und für
Forever
Seine süße Ruhe haben.
Shall have his sweet rest.
Welt, geh aus, lass Jesum ein!
World, depart from my heart, let Jesus enter!
What will it take for our world to recognise the dangers that nuclear scientists and even Albert Einstein were warning about at the “dawn” of the nuclear age?
Amy Goodman reminds us of the prophetic statement by Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett who tried to find words to describe the horror he was seeing in Hiroshima in 1945 after the bomb fell.
“It looks as if a monster steamroller had passed over it and squashed it out of existence. I write these facts as a warning to the world.”
The world heard his warning, but seems to have ignored it. In fact, what followed has been decades of nuclear proliferation, the spread of nuclear power plants and the escalation of the arms race with new higher tech weaponry.
As Hiroshima becomes yesterday’s distant memory and Fukishima the current threat, the full extent of the casualties and body count are not yet in, partly because the Japanese government and the power companies do not want to alarm the public.
Jackson Pollock: "Eyes in the Heat" (1946) Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
Looking around me, all I can see are lies being pushed to the surface.
There is the outer world and everything that is happening right now. The financial meltdown, the banking and debt-crisis, the political crisis and breaking up of systems, the environmental disasters, the food crisis, the struggle for freedom, the paralysis of fear and the denial of what is unfolding here – a global meltdown of a network illusions, symbolized by a nuclear accident in Japan.
And I look at it and keep thinking – this is precisely what is happening inside of me as well. This inner turmoil of losing old core- beliefs, identities, conditionings and strongholds. An internal melt-down of my own center and all egoic thoughts that held it together – a safeguard against the erroneous belief that dying is the end. Nothing I ever thought was stable does hold up anymore. In an awesome synchronistical movement, it is simply dissolving and all that remains is based on stillness. Indeed, nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal remains…
End-times are new beginnings and I am watching myself creating my own world.
Matthäus Passion BWV 244 (Helmuth Rilling)
Geduld!
Patience!
Wenn mich falsche Zungen stechen.
Even if false tongues stab me.
Leid ich wider meine Schuld
If I should suffer contrary to my guilt
Schimpf und Spott,
Abuse and mockery
Ei, so mag der liebe Gott
oh then may dear God
Meines Herzens Unschuld rächen.
avenge the innocence of my heart.
The shadows of rhizomes creep
Across the border of the self….
Influence on the reaching choices
Wrung from the presentable known.
This tableau of the creative tilting
Toward a balancing weight,
Of limb and root, of earth and sky,
A divine comedy taken in seriousness.
A descent into the heaven of hell
To rescue the doomed Orpheus.
It is our quest to save the beloved:
The choice
I feel, we feel, the deception lurking
At the borders of known shadow
And the envisioning light.
With the thaw comes the blossoms,
Beneath the melting covering veil of cold,
Growth monitored by cycles.
From where the sudden burst into life?
Right choice presents its burden….
To question the real, discern the shadow,
Search the light for the deceptively simple.
Truth follows the rhizome of choice.
Did I really sign up for all that ?
I love Adyashanti’s clarity in terms of explaining what enlightenment really is about. The part of losing the center is confusingly awesome and as far as I am concerned, I much rather know what is happening, walking into the unknown. I would love to hear everyone’s experience getting out of the driver’s seat.
Adyashanti: Expressions of the Infinite
Verse 33
Knowing others is intelligence:
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power .If you realize you have enough,
you are truly rich.
if you stay in the center
and embrace death with your whole heart,
you will endure forever.
Observing the enormous forces of change sweeping across our little blue planet, I cannot help but marvel at the profound truth and direct applicability of verse 33 from the Tao Te Ching. At a time of massive and overwhelming disruption to the world order, as we have come to rely on, one cannot lose focus by looking at the outside and trying to grasp what is happening by the appearance of chaos and destruction. It has become impossible to plan, project or predict. Nothing we have learned or previously experienced previously can help us now to keep a sense of control. Uncertainty and unpredictability can be felt everywhere, as a global crisis unfolds, and this is when we understand that truly, being rooted in stillness is the only safe place to weather the gathering storm.
Practicing to stay at the centre, is our first priority now.
HH the Dalai Lama on Buddhist science, Buddhist view and Buddhist philosophy and the difficulty and confusion of bridging tradition, religion and faith.
Question and Answer Session in Dharamsala, Mar 19th 2011:
“You might say, “I know I am an immortal spirit,” or “I am tired of this mad world, and peace is all I want” until the phone rings. Bad news: The stock market has collapsed; the deal may fall through; the car has been stolen; your motherinlaw has arrived; the trip is cancelled, the contract has been broken; your partner has left you; they demand more money; they say it’s your fault. Suddenly there is a surge of anger, of anxiety. A harshness comes into your voice; “I can’t take any more of this.” You accuse and blame, attack, defend, or justify yourself, and it’s all happening on autopilot. Something is obviously much more important to you now than the inner peace that a moment ago you said was all you wanted, and you’re not an immortal spirit anymore either. The deal, the money, the contract, the loss or threat of loss are more important. To whom? To the immortal spirit that you said you are? No, to me. The small me that seeks security for fulfillment in things that are transient and gets anxious or angry because it fails to find it. Well, at least now you know who you really think you are.”
The Living Room 