US starts the “war of ideas” on Russian Internet October 30, 2008

 image by katisommer

…And now they are focusing on Russia. After the terror-suspected Arabic, Persian, and Urdu-speaking nations, US Department of State has officially launched the „war of ideas” on Russian Internet.

I have been always fascinated by the cleverness of the American propaganda techniques, in that very case I find it amazing that they actually announce it.

The Department of State directly engages participants in online discussion forums and blogs on the Internet through the Digital Outreach Team. It was created in the summer of 2007 as a result of Karen Hughes’s U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication as a non-BBG media activity that could help counteract negative propaganda about the U.S.

Under Secretary of State James Glassman explained that there are three elements to the teams’ work. They explain American policy, encourage cultural exchange and engage in a “war of ideas.” The war of ideas has received particular emphasis in recent months. It is, according to Glassman, the use words to combat violent extremism.

How does it exactly work? The members of the Digital Outreach Team enter into digital conversations online either on other people’s blogs or other websites. 

Crème de la crème of this blog (30 out of 300 posts) October 29, 2008

My passionate reader, Sahaja has suggested me to make a list of my favourite  1000petals reads. I have a widget listing the most popular posts by my readers, but they are not necesserily the ones that I love the most 🙂

My favourite posts give a short and clear impression of the core values of this blog.  If you like the first abstract, just click on the title to read the whole post.

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GENERATION S

They live almost the same life as others. You will not check them out of the crowd by their funny dress – they look quite ordinary. They behave as normal, nice people – you will not notice anything special at first sight. However a little more attentive look will identify this new generation.

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Positive thinking? No, thank you!

I am probably one of the most positive people you have ever met (even being able to claim that is a sign, isn’t it). In fact I think positive all the time and it is difficult for me to see a problem somewhere where most of the people see it. But since I heard about the concept of positive thinking several years ago I keep opposing that theory, trying to explain the unnatural character of it. Here are some quite strong arguments.

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I do not believe in God.

I do not belive in God. And I never did.

I grew up in the Soviet Union with my both parents being convinced atheists. However my grand-grandparents who were born and grew up in Czar Times, were very religious. One grand-grandmother was known to be a holy person in her village; another one could heal with praying.

 Once, when I was 8 years old, I bet with my grand-grandma Nura (who was a deeply religious Christian-orthodox) that God did not exist. I said: “I will spit now in the sky. If there is God he will punish me immediately!” – Nothing happened afterwards; I won the bet and was even more convinced in my atheism.

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Freedom is Ego

Freedom is the favorite mantra of the western society. It is the magical word people use left and right to explain their most odd interests and ideas. Freedom is on top of the value system. But how can anybody be free and make choices based on so called freedom when he does not know himself??

We feel that we are free to make our choices: the choice between toast or sandwich or maybe the choice between pizza or pasta. Fine.

Now the clothing: how can we be free persons if we are actually forced to buy the things that are right now in, otherwise we just don’t get anything else in the shops.

No need to mention so called political freedom when every President selections our poor brains are being manipulated to such extend that God save us from knowing it in details!

You foollish mind

                           

Oh! You foolish mind, why can’t you see the obvious,

that everyting that you think is yours

does not belong to you.

The pure knowledge, the brains to grasp it,

the talents, the beauty, whatever that’s truly precious,

comes from one ultimate source,

and there it has got to return,

set free by the free will,

the only thing that we can dare to call our own.

 

poem by Armaity H. Bhabha “Sahajmala”

The Ideal Yogi October 27, 2008

 image by axinia

This is a rather unknown quote by Mahatma Gandhi, one of my absolute favourites. The quote describes an ideal Yogi and, basically, it is what I am personally striving to become.

Some of these characteristics I already posses, many are still far to reach.

But any time I read these words, they put me into Absolute Silence….

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“Only that one is a true worshipper of God,

who is not jealous,

who is generous to everyone and without any egoism.

Who can bear heat and cold, happiness and harm equally,

who always forgives, is constantly satisfied,

whose decisions are firm and whose mind and soul is surrendered to God.

Who does not cause any evil, who is not afraid of others,

and who is as free of excitement as of worries and fears,

who is pure, efficient at work but yet not touched by it,

who gives up all the fruits of his acting, the good ones as well as the bad ones,

People with big ego undergo hard humiliation tests

 image by axinia

That is another observation from my life: people with big ego undergo hard humiliation tests.

In my life I am mostly surrounded by people who have great personalities – and that means not only being intelligent, brilliant, talented, charismatic but also also having a big portion of ego. Either this ego is the driving force to develop such a personality or one grows a big ego realising what a wonderful person she/he is. That is the part of the game, I guess, and probably the hardest of all 🙂

One interesting thing I noticed is that at a certain period of their life such people get in severe ego-tests undergoing a hard humiliation of their most precious values. Mostly it is in the realm of relationships, but can be in a friendship or at work. What kind of tests?

The game goes like that: one finds himself in a desirable situation, but can not get the ultimate of it. Because something is missing. This “something” is however the crucial point here and the person suffers. Example: a charming and adorable girl is in love relationship with a man who does not want to marry her although he loves her. The marriage would mean a full acceptance and appreciation for her, but she can not get it from him. Another beauty leaves her husband for the “better man” and faces constant humiliation in her wound point. Interestingly, everyone around can clearly see the absurdity of such relationship but a person stays “blind”.

The only important thing in life… October 25, 2008

The only important thing in live are the traces of love we leave behind when we go.

Albert Schweizer

 

P.S: many thanks to Wortman for sharing this amazing quote with me.

LOVE; axinia

Pouring love down is so… exciting! October 23, 2008

image by axinia

How often do we feel love? True love, pure love, unconditional love? Someone said that Love is something what multiplies when you share it. And how very true it is!

I have noticed that to increase the amount of love in my life has become so easy since I… pour it down around myself. The Love grows like a snowball and creates a kind of a buffer around me, and whatever happens  – many negative things just can not pierce through! Feeling love, giving love, accepting love becomes such an exiting occupation. Can it be THE RULE of the game of life that we all trying to find out?

Pouring love down means to me:

–saying “I love you” every time I feel love – and that, to everyone from my boss to a newly met person.

–saying “I love you” to people who are close to me at least 20? 50? 100? times a day (never counted that exactly thought) 🙂 And showing my affection to them!

–saying “I love” to something I really enjoy – any kind of activity, food, objects, whatever makes me happy. Not the mere “I like”!

–giving flowers spontaneously – to my best girlfriend when she is sad or to a nice waitress in my favourite cafe (mind that I am girl myself :))

Pushkin is Mozart October 21, 2008

 …in my perception 🙂

Seriously, when I listen to Mozart, I get the same state and same type of vibrations like when I read or recite Pushkin. Absolutely the same!

 Mozart         Pushkin

You surely know Mozart, that most popular musician ever. But who is Pushkin and why can I feel it this way?

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was Russian 19th century country’s greatest poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin (1799-1837) blended Old Slavonic with vernacular Russian into a rich, melodic language. In fact, he created the language Russians speak today and defined the literary baseline for all great Russian writers, among them Turgenev, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.  

The book that changed the world October 19, 2008

 

The booksellers all over the world report the recent increase of sellings of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital/Capital. Apparently it is the young people who are looking for that treatise on political economy – trying to understand the current economical crisis.

So what is there is that 2000 page work, which is being second widely spread book after the Bible?

Though Marx is very concerned with the social aspects of commerce, his book is not an ethical treatise, but an attempt to explain the objective “laws of motion” of the capitalist system as a whole, its origins and future. He aims to reveal the causes and dynamics of the accumulation of capital, the growth of wage labour, the transformation of the workplace, the concentration of capital, competition, the banking and credit system, the tendency of the rate of profit to decline, land-rents and many other things.

Let me introduce you – An Everlasting Smile Blog

Smile…..an everlasting smile…..

As mentioned in the “I am a blog-mama”post I love to support people who want to start blogging. Since I started two years ago the number of my blog-trainings keeps increasing. Normally I meet up with a person for that. Later we discuss the development over telephone.

But the case with Sahaja was very different. She was a blog-reader, and then felt like starting her own blog and asked me for the guidance. I never met her and actually never seen even a photo of her before that… But her innocent comments and very sincere way of communication touched me so much that, despite of my very limited time I wanted to help her to start blogging (over email and chat).

And now, I am proud to introduce you her wonderful, very personal and very special blog   – “Smile…An everlasting smile…”. I love her honest sharing of experiences and feelings about her life as a young Indian immigrant in UK. I love ther distinctive style with exclamation marks and pure emotions…

Apart from her brilliant writings, Sahaja has also started a photoblog Miriad Colours of Life, which is so lovely and sweet.

Good job, girl! keep it up!

🙂

LOVE; axinia