POLL: What to do with elderly people? November 27, 2009

The world population, at leat in the West, is growing old. And it is not only an economical problem of paying rents in some future, but also a problem of attitude towards the elderly (under this term I mean people over 70, in developed countries). Since my father is 60 now I can see he is far too healthy and dynamic to call him elderly, so I think it is 70 when a person is getting weak and needs more support. The age may vary from country to country though.

Since ages the elderly had been respected and taken care of. That was one of the basic laws of live. Presently I can see a huge shift in the attitude of a younger generation.

1. Due to the new technologies which young people are so good at, there is a huge gap between those who use them and those who are not. It is like living on another planet, literally. Any knowledge/information is so easily accessible that we don’t need many years to learn things. Often a short Internet check gives loads of information and a good insight into a subject. Basically there is an illusive  feeling they can’t lean anything from the elderly and there is no interest in communication on the side of younger generations. As for human relations, some aging people are indeed become wiser, and some grow into frustrated, moaning persons who are not inspiring to take after…

2. Taking care of old parents/relatives is being shifted towards some services and home for elderly. It is not any more common (at least in Europe) to nurse them at home till their last breath. For many people it seems to be a good solution to pay somebody else for taking care of their weak parents. In fact, that shocked me when I first learned about this new trend, coming from Russia to Austria 12 years back. That is how they depict it in a US source: “Few people gleefully anticipate the task of caring for an aging parent—but plenty seem to deny that it’s coming. Sooner or later, avoidance can thrust adult children into the caregiver role with a shotgun start. A parent’s slip in the bathroom or a collision caused by a mistake in the driver’s seat can precipitate a deluge of anguished decisions and rapid changes you’re not ready to handle. Suddenly, you could be scrambling to locate account numbers to pay Mom’s bills while she’s in the hospital, tangling with her insurance company to figure out why coverage for an X-ray was denied, and consulting with your brother—who lives three states away—about getting Mom into an assisted-living facility. You grapple with guilt because your mother never wanted to move out of her home, but now her condition leaves little choice. As the drama plays out, you’re also trying to stay afloat at work and look after your other dependents, the kids.”

I don’t really know any solution for this problem, especially on a global level. I feel it would be good if the elderly (whose who are not too weak to stay inside) would be more integrated into the modern life. I wonder what you think of it?

10 quotes to dissolve your thoughts November 19, 2009

Sincerity is the jewel that forms in the shell of the heart.

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Life is an opportunity given to satisfy the hunger and thirst of the soul.

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There are many paths, and each man considers his own the best and wisest. Let each one choose that which belongs to his own temperament.

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All earthly knowledge is as a cloud covering the sun.

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Life is a misery for the man absorbed in himself.

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Happy is he who does good to others; miserable is he who expects good from others.

The Rose of the World – my review November 17, 2009

The Rose of the World by Daniel Andreev is a unique and poetic cosmological treatise passionately written out of personal experience. It offers a prophetic call for the spiritual reunification of all people and an open and harmonious relationship among the great world religions. For Daniel Andreev, whose mystic revelations are often compared with those of Dante and William Blake, the Rose of the World is a spiritual flower whose roots are in heaven: each petal is a unique image of the great world religions and cultures, and the whole flower is their joint co-creation with God.

Roza Mira (full title in Russian: Роза Мира. Метафилософия истории, literally The Rose of the World. The Metaphilosophy of History), that was written in the fifties of the 20th century gives a unique and fresh view on the history and future of mankind. The uniqueness of this perspective its intellectual brilliance combined with a deeply spiritual insight…

According to Roza Mira, there are no contradictions between different religions, because they tell about different aspects of spiritual reality, or about the same things in different words. Daniil Andreev compares different major religions to different paths leading to one and the same mountain peak (which is God). Andreev names five world religions, he believes in the Trinity of God, but the third hypostasis, instead of being the Holy Spirit, is claimed to be the Eternal Femininity. (which is by the way, one and the same thing to me personally).

Beautiful vision, isn’t it? The more so, Andreev also tired to give a solution how exactly this could work out!  However I can’t say I was delighted about the book. Why?

This book is  the most contradictory of all books I have read in the last 10 years. The contradiction for me lies  in the fact that one and the same book has some highly vibrational pieces and some that can block one’s mental level completely. When I read some pages I feel the author was a true saint of a rare caliber. However at some points his visions not only lack vibrations, but I would not recommend to read them at all…The reason for that “quality variety” may lay in the different methods by which Andreev obtained his knowledge and visions. Some of them were probably from the supraconsious site. Whatever it is, I would like to share with you my impressions.

Extraordinary experience of ONENESS November 4, 2009

These days I am reading a truly unique book , a bit later I will post my review. However now I cannot hold myself back from posting a true gem of it, a beautiful experience of the author, Daniel Andreev - a Russian poet and religious thinker of the middle of the XX century. The book itself  is called ”Roza Mira” (“The Rose of the World”, “Роза Мира”), it was written mostly in prison at Stalin’s time, and is about religion in the modern world.

The extraordinary experience I am quoting here reminds me a lot of the Enlightenment of the main character Herman Hesse in his famous novel Siddhartha. This is the unique experience of ONENESS, of feeling oneself being not only the part and parcel of the whole, but actually being this WHOLE…

Enjoy:

“In my life such an experience took place on the moonlit night of July 29, 1931, on the banks of the Nerussa, a small river in the Bryansk Forest. I usually try to be alone when in Nature, but that time it so happened that I had taken part in a camping trip with a small group.
We reached the banks of the river at the close of a hot, cloudless day. We took a leisurely dip, then gathered brush, and, building a fire two meters from the quietly flowing river under the canopy of three old willows, prepared a simple meal. The sky darkened. A low July full moon glided out from behind the oaks. Little by little the conversations and stories died down; one by one my companions fell asleep around the crackling wood. I was left awake at the fire, lazily waving a branch to ward off the mosquitoes.
When the moon, noiselessly moving behind the finely patterned, leafy branches of the willow, entered the range of my vision, those hours that come close to being the most wonderful of my entire life began. Breathing softly, having laid back on a handful of hay, I heard the Nerussa flowing not behind me, a few paces back, but as if through my own soul. That was the first unusual thing I noticed.

7 basic questions Science cannot answer November 2, 2009

Only 7 questions that seem to be essential for the understanding of how humanity lives and operates, and no answers…

1. Does the Source, the Creator, God exist? Unknown
2. Does such a thing as a soul exist? If so, is it immortal? Science does not know the answer.
3. What is time, space, matter, energy? Opinions are sharply divided.
4. Is our world eternal and endless or, on the contrary, is it limited within time and space? Science does not possess the necessary data to give a definite answer.
5. Why should I do good and not evil, if evil appeals to me and I can be sure of escaping punishment? The answers are totally unintelligible.
6. How can science be used to avert the possibility of wars and tyranny? Silence.
7. How can social harmony be attained with the least human cost? Mutually exclusive proposals are put forward that resemble each other only in that they are all equally unrelated to pure science.

Never jobless: my “Whiskers, Paws and Tail” strategy October 28, 2009

This post is an outcome of my over 10 years work experience. The funny thing about it is that none of my employers have ever looked at my CV. And yet I was getting very good positions. The even funnier thing is that I ended up working as a Human Resources Manger myself. All that gives me the right to claim that there is a certain strategy that makes it work, and work successfully.

I call it “Whiskers,  Paws and Tail”  strategy. There is a popular Russian cartoon “Prostokvashino” with a cute cat Matroskin who, being asked about his documents replies: “Whiskers, paws and tail are my documents!”. And that is what I mean under no need of a CV presentation: you yourself at any moment of life should be the best CV to your personality, both inside and outside. Let me list some ideas on how I see it.

1. Reliability is the most precious and important quality for an employer, no matter in which sphere -  creative, business or industrial. You should not only look reliable but actually be that. Reliable people with determined attention emit this quality naturally, and this leads to trust which is so valuable for anyone.

2. Inner and Outer Beauty: It starts with the  inner work on oneself – the perpetual unfolding of your character is essential. Not getting “better” from day by day, no. You are already perfect. It is about discovering the true beauty of your personality. The most speedy method for it I found in my meditation practice. There are many other ways as well, but this one gives the fastest results. As soon as your true perfect being will be increasingly shining through, this will make you a desirable person. Many people will want to be with you, will seek your company for any thinkable reason. Among these people there will be also some potential job-givers!

3. Be The Best Product Yourself Having this full package of precious inner Qualities + their Manifestation + Reliability you become a  kind of a PRODUCT, a highly desirable  trade mark. How will you know it works? When any decision-maker/boss/HR Manager will want you to work for him/her after a couple of minutes you have talked. And  this is not a dream!

It`s fascianting to have same experience as saints did! October 22, 2009

We live in fascinating times. Unbelievable but fact – being an ordinary householder, one can still  have extraordinary spiritual experiences like the saints of all times did.

I came across a stunning quote of a great South Indian saint Ramana Maharshi, (1879-1950) who describes his spiritual experiences exactly the way I have been experiencing it thanks to my meditation practice:

“…the samadhi I speak to you about is different. It is sahaja samadhi. In this state you remain calm and composed during activity. You realise that you are moved by the deeper self within and are unaffected by what you do or say or think. You have no worries, anxieties or cares, for you realise that there is nothing that belongs to you as ego and that everything is being done by something with which you are conscious union.”

Or this one: ” Your own Self-Realisation is the greatest service you can render the world”.  How true is this, incredible!

And that one is reflecting my own daily experience:  ”Nearly all mankind is more or less unhappy because nearly all do not know the true Self. Real happiness abides in Self-knowledge alone. All else is fleeting. To know one’s Self is to be blissful always.”

 This beautiful saint is only one example. Reading of or about saintly people of all times I realise that they all had basically same experiences.

Imagination as such does not exist October 20, 2009

When someone starts picturing something unusual we say ”oh, what an imagination”. Imagination is what is commonly known as creation of images or ideas that have not existed before. 

In my personal opinion there is no such a thing as imagination: I belive that everything already exists somehow somewhere…I can back up this idea either with Socrates’s Allegory of The Cave  or with the modern string theory -no matter what I take, it is obvious to me that there is noting in the world that has not been existing somewhere yet.

Let’s take horror films,  all these dreadful images are nothing else than already existing beings. They definitely exist in our collective subconscious (the prove is that in many different cultures these images are similar), and the collective subconscious is a reality. This reality hunts us in our dreams or drunkard/under drugs state. And this is not imagination, this is pretty real. A good example – Hieronymus Bosch. or just any horror film

The futuristic images are also real – they pop up from our collective supraconsious, which is another interesting realm.

The soul speaking with nature October 19, 2009

TANAS
(Tana:  The soul speaking with nature.)

Little dandelions, what are you doing here?
–We reflect on earth the stars in the heavens.

Little pool, why is your water so muddy?
–Because of my narrow mind and depthless heart.

Coal, what makes you so black?
–I am the evil of the ages accumulated in the heart of the earth.
What is your penalty?
–I must pass through a trial by fire.
What becomes of you in the end?
–I turn into a diamond.

Earth, to the clouds:–Why did you come back after once you had deserted me?
–The heavens would not have us before we had reconciled ourselves with you.

The poem to give to your mom October 17, 2009

God created mother coz

He can’t be present everywhere…

But I feel god made mother coz,

He can’t fill that place…

 

never have I learnt anything

than in her cradle

 

never I felt any love,

than in her cuddle…

 

the stairway to heaven in her mothers lap

the doorway of love is in her eyes