The Living Room

Just reminders

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Glerikud

I do not exist.

This can never be understood from a human’s perspective.

Posted in Glances | Leave a comment

Brave New Earth

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Michaela

As the battle for freedom on Cairo’s Tahrir square rages on, the world watches the wave of change taking momentum.

Street Battle Over the Arab Future

B.E., Before Egypt. A.E., After Egypt. by Thomas Friedmann

At the same time astronomers have identified some 54 new planets where conditions may be suitable for life.

NASA’s Kepler Spacecraft Discovers Extraordinary New Planetary System

Brave New Earth

Posted in The world we live in Now | Tagged New Earth, Synchronicity | Leave a comment

Paula’s (12) status on her Facebook, Feb 2nd, 2011
Original: Ich habe so eine schrecklich, rießige, wunderbare , kribbelnde,unglaubliche Freude heute in mir!!
Its funny, but she made a typo and huge actually reads “brittle”…

Posted in Darling, how was your day? | Leave a comment

The descent of the clouds…

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Michaela

A monster snow storm is hitting the US, about about the same time as the huge and catastrophic cyclone Yasi is bearing down on Queensland. Meanwhile the Kairo protests get more intense, Yemen preparing for another rally and the King of Jordan fires his government.

Does anyone still believe that these are not auspices of massive change ?

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The beauty of form

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Michaela

A colourful peacock mantis shrimp

This otherworldly creature, a mantis shrimp, was photographed in the waters of Indonesia’s Lembeh Strait. The shrimp feeds by smashing open its prey with a force that can break a pane of glass, and its darting bulbous eyes are thought to be the most complex in nature.

(From the National Geographic Photo Gallery)

Posted in Photographs | 1 Comment

The snow-world melts

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Michaela

Think of the phoenix coming up out of the ashes,
but not flying off.
For a moment we have form. We cannot see.
How can we be conscious and you be conscious
at the same time and desparate ?
Copper when an alchemist works on it
loses it’s copper qualities
Seeds in spring begin to be trees. No longer seed.
Brushwood put in the fire changes
The snow-world melts.
You step in my footprint, and it is gone.

It is not that I have done anything
to deserve this attention from you.
Predestination and freewill, we an cargue them,
but they are only ideas.
What is real is a presence, like Shams.

From: Rumi “Bawa Muhaiyadden”
Translated by Coleman Barks

What you see and hear…

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Michaela

Postcard by Catrin

Posted in Photographs, Quotes & Mantras | 3 Comments

The Martyr

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Michaela

Khaled Said, a young man from Alexandria, was beaten to death by local police this summer —well before rumblings of the country’s current unrest. But a Facebook page that bears his name has been one of the driving forces behind the upheaval that started last week. This facebook site in his name has been instrumental in organising the demontrations. The interesting thing is that nobody, not even the activists themselves, know who is behind the handle ” El Shaheed”, which means “the Martyr”.

“El Shaheed is a dead man who everyone is rallying around,” said a U.S.-based activist in close contact with Egypt’s protesters. “But who’s doing this? There is no gender. There is no name. There is no leader. It is purely about the thought.”

El Shaheed’s Facebook page, simply named “”We are all Khaled Said” began as a campaign against torture and police brutality. But this month, shortly after the Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was brought down following weeks of grassroots protests inspired by Bouazizi’s self-immolation, a post appeared on the Facebook page, announcing a day of protest in Egypt—Tuesday, Jan. 25.

Continue reading →

Posted in The world we live in Now | Tagged Egypt, Empowerment, Facebook | 1 Comment

Letting go of taking things personally (3)

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Michaela

A practical course in 5 parts

“Letting go of taking things personally” is an experiment based on an idea from Eileen. Taking things personally is something that we all do, and at times it really clouds our sense of peace, our relations to others and everyone’s quality of life. ” Letting go of taking things personally” is a practical course in 5 parts, looking at the most important elements of taking things personally, with some exercises to put in practice.

Part 3

Let us quickly review what we have covered so far.

In the first part we looked at the mechanism of ego-formation, which is a process designed to protect the interest of the ego in terms of keeping us alive and well. What is an inherent capability of any sentient being to foster survival, has been bit by bit co-opted by the egoic mind, in terms of building and protecting an image of ourselves, that is based on erroneous thoughts. These thoughts have their root in early experiences and are inevitably a variation of ” I am not enough”.

In the second part we looked in detail at the cognitive process of judging. A judgement is an evaluation of evidence based on knowledge. So that means, we are always referencing and comparing to something we know, have learned, or are identified with. Wile judging itself is not a problem ( in fact, we need it to navigate safely through life), it does not pay us good service, when used to protect our “imaginary self”. This construct is based on a variety of inherited and learned beliefs, identities we have assumed growing up and being influenced by a particular cultural, religious and social value system. On top of it, we add on those beliefs that we form about ourselves, based on our experiences. Real or perceived traumatic experiences at an early age, have a tendency to form a belief system regarding our own personality. We may believe we are not good enough, at fault or somehow inadequate – and develop compensatory reactions and thoughts based on this. We can say, this is the baggage we receive to walk through this life and we use our judgement to protect what we believe is ours to carry around in this world.

Continue reading →

Posted in Seeing myself in you | Tagged Belief, egoic conditioning, emotion, fear, Interpersonal relationship, Judgement, Seeing myself in you | 3 Comments

Sincerity

Posted on January 30, 2011 by Michaela

Start to face it. Start to see it. In the simple willingness to see yourself, in the simple sincerity, the truth starts to reveal itself to itself. It is not necessarily a technique oriented endeavor here. The technique is sincerity; we need to really want the truth even more than we want to experience the truth. This sincerity isn’t something we can impose; it’s inherent within reality itself.

This type of radical sincerity may be hard to uncover for some people. It can come as quite a surprise that we can have an amazing glimpse of the true nature of things, and then come back into the gravitational field of duality and find the body and mind still horrendously conflicted. This can be very surprising, not only for the people it’s happening within, but for those around them. One minute, such a person could be extraordinarily wise, and the next minute he or she might be extraordinarily deluded. This isn’t only confusing to the person; it’s confusing to everybody around him or her.

In fact, it causes some people to doubt the nature of awakening itself. Somebody has a great awakening experience but is still sort of a jerk. Who cares about awakening, then ? While understandable, that conclusion can only be made by someone who does not fully understand the process of awakening. The fact is, we can have a very deep seing of the true nature of things, while remaining, on the human level, very conflicted and deluded in certain areas of our lives. We need the sincerity to stop shying away from that, to actually turn, look, and face any place where we perceive something less than awakenedness, something less than unity. When we perceive divisiveness in ourselves, we must face it.