Are you a Rider on a Galloping Horse? March 30, 2007

 Our normal condition is a bit like a rider looking at a landscape on a galloping horse through a smoke screen. 

The galloping horse is the brain which races from one feeling to the next.  

The fumes of ego in our thoughts, and those of our superego in our emotions constitute the smokescreen.  The smoke we produce is the fruit of our reactivity, which prevents us seeing clearly the landscape through which we pursue our journey.  

We react with the ego: perhaps with a sense of hurt pride or the desire to be “center stage”.  We react too, with the superego: fear of loneliness, or of not being loved, attachments, sexual attraction etc.  

 If the horse could somehow slow down and the smokescreen clear out, then the “I” could just see the landscape as it is and understand what is happening there.

A woman with fatherly love March 29, 2007

 photo Amery Carlson

I came across one funny test based on destiny cards (These cards represent personality archetypes, symbols of our personal expression that reflect what the important elements of our life will be like). I normally never take these things seriously. Same with this stuff. But one thing appeared to be absolutely crucial to me!  

After I logged in my birthday dates the system showed me that my card is the CARD OF A LOVING FATHER, the King of Hearts. I failed to recognize myself much in the description, however the core idea stroke me and inspired to write this post. 

  

I suddenly realized that I am truly more of a father type than a mother.

My love – which is very much there for everyone! – is not of that compassionate type of a mother.

My love is not passive, it is active and it awaits action.

I love to do things for people. I love to elevate! To bring the best of the best to the heart of everyone… But I love to see people grow, blossom out with all the colors and petals, deepening their roots into the spiritual dimension…

Take off the shoes of your brain!

 

   We walk in our shoes, rarely touching the earth with our naked feet.

Yet sometimes we have the urge to take our shoes off and feel, with delight,

the dew on the grass refreshing our toes or the fullness of the sand on the beach warming our feet.     

 

Would it not be nice if we could do the same with our brain,

take off it`s shoes,

that is, it`s  projections and concepts,

and just see, just know.

 

 

Gregoire de Klabermatten, “The third Advent”

(image by bokehren)

The colors of India March 26, 2007

 photo chandkipari

       

        I go to India only in winter time. Still very hot for me, but bearable.

        At that time the nature can not boast its splendors vegetation is rather poor and the rare pink-orange flowers are the only    splashes of joy.

The nature is seems to have handed all its beauty and intensity over to the people: the wide range of all possible colors and tints is reflected in the man-made surroundings.

That is basically what strikes the western eye the most: colors, colors and colors…

Indians have a good feeling for colors and basically a good taste:

amazingly even the poorest of the poor wear well combined sari-dresses! – it comes to me that people there have much better taste than the posh westerners.

Coming from the pale (so called elegant and sophisticated!) Europe one gets almost intoxicated by this astonishing and joyful spectacle!

After my third visit to India I finally got it: I rebel against the lifeless stupidity of the western clothing!

I call it nothing else than the dead-wear! Black, grey, brown. Beige, washed-out blue, dirty red. HOW LONG???

How long are they going to be killing the joy of life?

INDIA – my big love… March 23, 2007

   photo axinia

        

    Every day I dream of going to India.

Actually I was there two months ago. But I want more! That country is like a magnet, no way to forget about it…  People say either you love India or you can not stand it, no middle state is known. 

I am idealistic enough to deify India, it is true. But being someone very practical on the other hand I find 1000 and one reasons to benefit from getting to India as often as possible. 

So what is it about? Why is India so attractive to me?

• It feels like being in a fairy tale: not only those scents, colors, sounds… It is all magic and very different from my European reality.

• The people are so incredibly sweet: their gestures, the way they speak and move their head approving something – it seems to me the best way to show the enjoyment! Immediately I get under the spell of Indian charm and start doing it myself: the sweetness flows into my being like a divine nectar… It feels so comfortable! – but unfortunately does not work for me when I am in Europe.

who makes a difference? March 20, 2007

 photo idogu

BORN-REALIZED CHILDREN  

They call this “loveliness-uniter” (samya dvama), for all lovely things come together under unto it. All lovely things come together unto him who knows this. Chandohya Upanishad 4.15.2 

One way to have fun is to laugh at our problems. To recognize this illusion is to gain freedom and what really matters is our relationship with what is real.  This is how, without changing the whole thing changes.    

There is something crisp about born realized people, something fresh, and it has the taste of a blessed simplicity.   So much love flows in and between such people and it gives to the person in the vicinity of such beings a feeling they do not remember ever having before.  What kids can be like this, loving each other, helping each other, children growing into adults without losing their inner beauty?  

 

This is more than just saying, “I believe in God”.  We are drawn to people like that for every moment is alive and beautiful.  

Each person is so intensely caring and gracious, so fair and so aware.   It is a beautiful thing to realize that this is what spirituality really is, not the talk of priests or rabbis but the qualities within us that manifest outside and make us happy just to be.  

 

 

Many people wish for the experience of enlightenment but do not always realize that the flowers and fruits on this path are completely connected to our daily lives and indeed to our families.

 

 

Born realized children are handsome, kind and mostly successful in school but they are not pretentious. Such children just praise God by being, for they reflect exquisite qualities and other people recognize and want some of what they have…

Gregoire de Klabermatten, “The third Advent”

WHO ARE YOU? March 19, 2007

 photo by a4gpa

“And who are you?”  – I bet you have heard this question innumerous times. And your answer must have been different according to situation.  

 Who are you? – is probably the most difficult question to reply.   Try to make a list of identifications: a human being, woman, man, wife, manager, student, sister, friend…

Whatever you list, the answer will be never complete for these are only the petals on the flower of your personality. 

An Indian philosopher and saint Adi Shankaracharya (788-820 CE) went the other way round – he wrote TAD NISKALA “what I am not” – what  an amazing realization! 

There are various ways to find out the answer, I have found mine through meditation in a thoughtless awareness state.

And you? Do you know who you are?

LOVE, axinia

what do you want? March 17, 2007

 photo slight clutter

The best test-question I know. The question that goes straight into the core of the person.

What do you want?

Some can not give any answer. Some start listing their desires. But try to answer with one word!

What do you want?

As simple as that. As genius as that.

I asked many people. I got different answers. The one which I loved the most was “I want Moksha”… What deepness!

This question stroke me in the American science fiction TV series Babylon 5  – the Shadows ask the question of “What do you want?” centring towards desire. As negative characters they try to find out about the desires of a person they want to overpower. They go on asking this question till the person gives an answer. And then they manipulate the poor thing if the desire is not pure…

But desire is the motor of evolution! Even a spiritual journey of a person can not go forward without a desire. First you awaken your desire, and then go into action. 

So WHAT DO YOU WANT?

When you have your answer, I have another even simpler and easier question for you next time…

LOVE, axinia

The Child-Angel March 16, 2007

  photo iawildflwr

They clamour and fight, they doubt and despair, they know no end to their wrangling. Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my child, unflickering and pure, and delight them into silence. They are cruel in their greed and their envy, their words are like hidden knives thirsting for blood.

Go and stand amidst their scowling hearts, my child, and let your gentle eyes fall upon them like the forgiving peace of the evening over the strife of the day. Let them see your face, my child, and thus know the meaning of all things;

let them love you and thus love each other. Come and take your seat in the bosom of the limitless, my child.

At sunrise open and raise your heart like a blossoming flower, and at sunset bend your head and in silence complete the worship of the day. 

poem by Rabindranath Tagore

 

 

 

The confusing easiness of English Language

“English is such an easy language to learn, you will manage it in a short time!” – goes a common advice of those who have learned English.

Nothing doing!  It may seem easy but only for beginners.  English attracts with a seeming lack of complexity and simple forms: only 2 cases, two articles, simple sentences…

What a great delusion! Being one of the richest languages with about 1 Million words English has a complex structure when it comes to an advanced level.  

The mastery of speaking English lays in saying 20 words in a sentence of 10.  It does not mean you should say 3 words in a sentence. You should be able to say a lot saying little – actually the highest art of communication!

For the native speakers of Russian, German, French or others it is almost an impossible task. The secret lays in a syntactic structure of English.

That resembles a pyramid: the shorter the sentence the better! Linguists call English analytic language. Analytic languages have stricter and more elaborate syntactic rules.

 

Languages like German, Russian, Italian, French having quite a similar grammatical structure are called synthetic.  Synthetic languages are longing for wide, solemn sentences with playful arrangements. Even a glance at any translation will give you an immediate idea of it: any Russian translation of an English text has got the double size! It resembles a pyramid upside down.

 

I remember the tough classes on Russian-English translation when we had to make a short sentence out of a long one. And it was possible!

One has to know some tricks and have a certain language sensitivity. I have not mastered it yet though…

There is obviously much more behind the mystery of the English language, but when you get this crucial point of its analytical structure you will enjoy the true beauty of English!

 

LOVE, axinia