Do we also need such a tradition in the West? August 29, 2010

On the occasion of the recent Raksha-bandan celebration in India I want to repost here my earlier post from another blog telling about an amazing tradition of brother-sister relationship which seem to be missing a lot in the West. I wonder what my beloved readership will tell about this highly interesting topic?

 

Does male-female friendship exist?

That is one of the questions that preoccupied the pretty heads of the western society in the last centuries: can men and women be simply good friends, or is there always some potential “love story”, or trivial sexual interest behind? The opinion seems to be rather clear: such friendship does not exist! –  desperate women moan , magazines cry  and hypnotizing TV whispers to us . It seems they have no idea that the majority of the world population, i.e. the entire Asia and Arab countries know and respect this phenomenon as „brother-sister relationship”.

Eternal bound

In the eastern part of the world the role of the woman has always been somewhat larger and more meaningful than in the West: the beauty and the importance of a “sister” is one of the society’s building elements. From times immemorial there is a special tradition of the Raksha-Bandan ceremony in India: the tying of a rakhi, or holy thread by the sister on the wrist of her brother. The brother in return offers a gift to his sister and vows to look after her in this life.

It is not necessary that the rakhi can be given only to a brother by birth; any male can be “adopted” as a brother by tying a rakhi on the person, whether they are cousins or good friends. Indian history is replete with women asking for protection, through rakhi, from men who were neither their brothers, nor Hindus themselves.  Since the rakhi-realtionship symbolizes purity, it excludes a love-affair or romantic feelings of erotic kind. Modern women in India often use it as indications, if they want to keep up a friendship, but want to avoid any romance. But what do the men gain out of it? Why should they want to exclude such a chance for a love-affair or flirting? The more Rakhi sisters a man has, the stronger he is, because the sisters support him thereby with their Shakti powers.

It is not about getting as many as possible girls for the “bed collection”, but about getting the nourishing love from sisters/Shaktis.

In India men are very proud of having Rakhi-sisters, and love to mention them now and then. If you are giving a rakhi to somebody in India, immediately dozens of strangers fall over you asking for one as well! They know for sure what it power it has… 

On my birthday my greatest wish is… August 26, 2010

blessings

On a birthday day I always have a huge desire to give presents, not to get ones.

Today is my birthday and I am happy to use this opportunity to wish all my precious readers all the blessings for their lives…

If I start counting my blessings the list will be truly never-ending. I am so thankful to have a wonderful loving family, fantastic friends, to live in a dream place and to have a dream job… And above all, to be blessed to have found what I have been searching for many lives together, namely my spiritual fullfillment.

Having all that, my only desire is that all people could enjoy the same, if they are not doing it yet.

Thus let me wish everyone of you, my dearest and beloved readers, a beautiful live full of material and spiritual blessings, filled with JOY, BLISS and LOVE.

axinia

My body is flooded August 22, 2010

My body is flooded
With the flame of Love.
My soul lives in
A furnace of bliss.

Love’s fragrance
Fills my mouth,
And fans through all things
With each outbreath.
———

poem by Kabir (1440-1518)

A basic income guarantee – a dream or a future reality? August 18, 2010

The idea of a basic income guarantee is getting popular. In case you have not heard about it yet, a basic income guarantee (or basic income) is a proposed system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that allows the receiver to participate in society with human dignity. In contrast to income redistribution between nations themselves, the phrase basic income defines payments to individuals rather than households, groups, or nations, in order to provide for individual basic human needs. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional.

In Germany they speak about 500 or even 1000 € monthly unconditional income for everyone.

 What are the arguments?

One of the arguments for a basic income was articulated by the French Economist and Philosopher André Gorz:

The connection between more and better has been broken; our needs for many products and services are already more than adequately met, and many of our as-yet-unsatisfied needs will be met not by producing more, but by producing differently, producing other things, or even producing less. This is especially true as regards our needs for air, water, space, silence, beauty, time and human contact…

From the point where it takes only 1,000 hours per year or 20,000 to 30,000 hours per lifetime to create an amount of wealth equal to or greater than the amount we create at the present time in 1,600 hours per year or 40,000 to 50,000 hours in a working life, we must all be able to obtain a real income equal to or higher than our current salaries in exchange for a greatly reduced quantity of work…

Neither is it true any longer that the more each individual works, the better off everyone will be. The present crisis has stimulated technological change of an unprecedented scale and speed: ‘the micro-chip revolution’. The object and indeed the effect of this revolution has been to make rapidly increasing savings in labour, in the industrial, administrative and service sectors. Increasing production is secured in these sectors by decreasing amounts of labour. As a result, the social process of production no longer needs everyone to work in it on a full-time basis.

What’s the music of your life? August 13, 2010

Each individual composes the music of his own life. If he injures another, he brings disharmony.

When his sphere is disturbed, he is disturbed himself, and there is a discord in the melody of his life. I

If he can quicken the feeling of another to joy or to gratitude, by that much he adds to his own life; he becomes himself by that much more alive.

Whether conscious of it or not, his thought is affected for the better by the joy or gratitude of another, and his power and vitality increase thereby, and the music of his life grows more in harmony.

The way we all will be farming after 2012? August 10, 2010

Now when half of Russia is burning with heat and wildfires, Pakistan is drowning in the worst floods in its  history and the sun’s activity is frighteningly  increasing, more and more people start believing that something dramatic can really happen to the Earth by the end of 2012. Scientists warn us we should be prepared for many more natural disasters to come, even in the areas when by now nothing serious has ever happened…

It becomes obvious that all our plans, especially connected with money and property can vanish in one day, and nothing material will really survive when a true natural disaster hits our homes. Hopefully not. But what if yes?

Well, how can we get prepared for that? Apart from the spiritual level, which definitely helps one to survive: I remember one interesting work on Nazi concentration camps saying  that people who had been better spiritually off survived easier, and the ones who had the best health but were materialistic broke down the first. A lot has been already said and posted about the need of personal spiritual transformation…will not repeat here.

Supposing many of us will really lose “everything” but save lives, what shall we do? Obviously we would have to get “back to the roots” and start with handwork, primitive building construction and farming.

Some time ago I posted about my dream house which – by accident, of cause! 🙂  – is exactly the one can easily built with own hands (see here). My family is panning to start a training pretty soon.

But a house is not enough, we have to eat something. How to grow food if none of us has ever done it before? (I guess that’s the case with most of modern people). Here comes another handy concept which works wonders in Austria.

Sepp Holzer is an oustanding modern farmer who created a fabulous wonderland of abundance and beauty on the family farm in the Austrian alps, at elevations where things should not grow, but he has always trusted only his own knowledge and experience from working with nature, so things grew.

At one time he thought to go to Agriculture school and learn from the experts. He applied the professional training on his farm, and most everything died! He says “we complicate everything, we make things so complicated they don’t work anymore.” He observed that commercial agriculture makes plants dependent on humans as they become addicted to the growth chemicals and pesticides. So basically that carrot and apple you ate grew up in a drug addicted home! “It’s not life supporting nutrition, it just fills your belly… nutrition should be your medicine.”

For each landscape, in every climatic zone, says Sepp Holzer, whether in a fertile river valley or in a moderate climate, whether in the Tundra or in the desert, there is always the possibility to cooperate with nature, to guide her and to cultivate something that suits the land and its inhabitants. In this context Holzer’s Permaculture is not a method which offers the same procedure for every situation. On the contrary, its core lies in the observation of nature, in putting ourselves in the place of other living beings and through this understanding from within, realizing which are the healing measures that make sense in the given situation. Sepp Holzer: “The book of nature always tells the truth; we just have to learn to read it.”

Holzer calls his approach PREMACULTURE. Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies. The intent is that, by training individuals in a core set of design principles, those individuals can design their own environments and build increasingly self-sufficient human settlements — ones that reduce society’s reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution that is identified as fundamentally and systematically destroying Earth’s ecosystems.

See how your thoughts vanish… August 9, 2010

Just watch the picture:

How a true Spiritual Guide be recognized August 7, 2010

While describing how a true Spiritual Guide be recognized, Sufi Master Abu Said ibn Abul Khayr said, at least ten characteristics if found in a guide, is proof of his authenticity. The Guru:

 1. must have become a Goal, to be able to have a disciple.
2. must have traveled the mystic path himself, to be able to show the way.
3. must have become refined and educated, to be able to be an educator (murabbi).
4. must be generous and devoid of self-importance, so that he can sacrifice wealth on behalf of the disciple.
5. must have no hand in the disciple’s wealth, so that he is not tempted to use it for himself.
6.whenever he can give advice through a sign (parables, metaphors, mithals), he will not use direct expression.
7. whenever he can educate through kindness, he will not use violence and harshness.
8.whatever he orders, he has first accomplished himself.
9.whatever he forbids the disciple, he has abstained for himself.
10.he will not abandon for the world’s sake the disciple whom he accepts for God’s sake.

Then there arises the question of how to find the real guru. Very often people are in doubt, they do not know whether the guru they see is a true or false guru. Frequently a person comes in contact with a false guru in a world where there is so much falsehood. But at the same time a real seeker, one who is not false to himself, will always meet with the truth, with the real, because it is his own real faith, his own sincerity in earnest seeking that will become his torch. The real teacher is within, the lover of reality is one’s own sincere self, and if one is really seeking truth, sooner or later one will certainly find a true teacher.
– Pir O Murshid Inayat Khan

a re-post from my beloved friend Mystic Saint.

It is love?… August 6, 2010

When you see someone is making mistakes, making trouble for you and your loved ones, and still…

you feel so much compassion that you just keep supporting and helping out, helping out…

quite silly because nothing really helps. So far.

 

Life is interesting in every phase August 4, 2010

Life is interesting in every phase… Every moment of life has its particular experience, one better than the other, one more valuable than another. In short, life may be said to be full of interest.

Sorrow is interesting as well as joy; there is beauty in every phase, if only one can learn to appreciate it. What dies? It is death that dies, not life.

What then, is the soul? The soul is life, it never touches death. Death is its illusion, its impression; death comes to something which the soul holds, not to the soul itself. The soul becomes accustomed to identify itself with the body it adopts, with the environment which surrounds it, with the names by which it is known; with its rank and possessions which are only the outward signs that belong to the world of illusion.

The soul, absorbed in its child-like fancies, in things that it values and to which it gives importance, and in the beings to which it attaches itself, blinds itself by the veils of its enthusiasm.