Sufism on educating an Infant April 29, 2011

A highly insightful and interesting not only for parents read from Hazrat Inayat Khan.

It is never too soon in the life of a child for it to receive education. The soul of an infant is like a photographic plate which has never been exposed before, and whatever impression falls on that photographic plate covers it; no other impressions which come afterwards have the same effect. Therefore when the parents or guardians lose the opportunity of impressing an infant in its early childhood they lose the greatest opportunity.
In educating the child the first rule that must be remembered is that one person must educate it, not everybody in the family. It is a great mistake when everyone in the family tries to train the infant or to take care of it, because that keeps an infant from forming a character. Each one has his own influence and each influence is different from the other. But most often what happens is that the parents never think of education at all in infancy. They think that is the age when the child is a doll, a toy; that everyone can handle it and play with it. They do not think that it is the most important moment in the soul’s life; that never again will that opportunity come for a soul to develop.

Should the father or the mother educate the child? A man’s life demands all his attention in his work; the mother is born with the sense of duty towards her child, and therefore the mother has the first right to educate it. The mother can also quiet the child in the first days of its life, because the child is a part of the mother, and therefore the rhythm of the mother’s spirit is akin to the rhythm of the child’s spirit. The soul that has come from above is received and is reared and taken care of by the mother; and therefore the mother is its best friend. If there is anything that the father can do, it is to help the mother or the guardian to educate the child. If the child in its infancy were given entirely into the hand of the father, there would be little hope that it would come out right; because a man is a child all his life, and the help that is needed in the life of an infant is that of the mother. Nevertheless, later in the life of a child there comes a time when the father’s influence is equally needed; but that time is not in infancy. As the Brahmin says, the first Guru is the mother, the second Guru is the father, and the third Guru is the teacher.

There are five different subjects in which an infant must be trained in the first year: discipline, balance, concentration, ethics, and relaxation.

What does Jesus Christ mean to you? April 25, 2011

 

I grew up as an atheist and considered any church building to be merely an object of architecture. I must admit that seeing Christ’s images on icons never arose any feeling in me (and actually who said that he really looked like that?). Neither was I impressed by the story of him. I tried to read the Bible at 18 and could not make more than 10 pages, found it too boring and wired.

Obviously I felt no connection and saw no importance of the amazing figure of Christ… untill I took to Sahaja Meditation. When my Kundalini was awakened, I learned on my central nervous system how the whole  Spirituality is reflected within and what the impact of every spiritual leader/founder of a religion has on my own subtle body.

When I take the name of Christ or say his prayer “Our Father” the tension removes from my head and I can feel how the Kundalini pierces through the Agnia chakra (on my forehead). One of the most powerful Christ’s messages was Forgiveness and same effect I feel when I just say “I forgive”.

This is how I know what Jesus really means to me. I know it not from books or preachings, but simply from my own spiritual experience. His message and subtle work seems to have installed some precious qualities in our collective body and it works in each and everyone either we are aware of that or not.

Jesus in the Qur’an April 22, 2011

 It seems that not many (especially Christians) are aware of the place of Jesus in Islam. I find it interesting to see how and why Christ is respected in Islam.

In Islam Jesus (Isa in Qur’an) is considered to be one of the great prophets and his name (Isa) has been repeated, respectfully, 25 times in different Surah’s in Qur’an.

• It states that Jesus was born to Mary (Arabic: Maryam) as the result of virginal conception, a miraculous event which occurred by the decree of God (Arabic: Allah).
• To aid in his ministry to the Jewish people, Jesus was given the ability to perform miracles, all by the permission of God rather than of his own power.
• According to the Qur’an, Jesus was not crucified. There are, however, differing views over the current state of Jesus though all views deny his crucifixion.
• Jesus will return to earth near the day of judgment to restore justice and to defeat Masih ad-Dajjal (“the false messiah”, also known as the Antichrist).
• Like all prophets in Islam, Jesus is considered to have been a Muslim (i.e., one who submits to the will of God), as he preached that his followers should adopt the “straight path” as commanded by God.
• Islam rejects the Christian view that Jesus was God incarnate or the son of God, that he was ever crucified or resurrected, or that he ever atoned for the sins of mankind.
• The Qur’an says that Jesus himself never claimed any of these things, and it furthermore indicates that Jesus will deny having ever claimed divinity at the Last Judgment, and God will vindicate him.
• The Qur’an emphasizes that Jesus was a mortal human being who, like all other prophets, had been divinely chosen to spread God’s message. Islamic texts forbid the association of partners with God (shirk), emphasizing a strict notion of monotheism (tawhīd).

Below please find some interesting quotations.

What will you do in the perfect world? April 20, 2011

image by axinia

We all dream of a prefect world, don’t we? And even if everyone understands something a bit different under it, I guess that generally the idea of the perfect world is the same with everybody. Is it the archetypical “golden age” that is hidden in our subconsciousness? Or is it the reality of the future?

Whatever it is, I am asking myself: being desperate about the perfect world, do we actually know what we would do with that? What would be the main activity of humans? The sense of it?

I wonder what my readers think about it, and especially what everyone personally would like to do in the world when it  becomes a better place (let’s hope it will one day!).

Thanks for sharing in advance,

LOVE; axinia

Roses for Rumi April 16, 2011

Get some bliss and peace from here

Life is about breaking concepts April 14, 2011

Our life is extremely conditioned, either we are aware of that or not.  It is conditioned and packed into concepts – things we read, hear, see…things we are being taught…things we are made to belive…Even those who try to avoud overall brainwashing, are getting conditioned by their own expeirences…

It looks like our life is full of concepts!

Now the best thing about it is that there seems to be a life game going on: as soon as we adopt any idea as the main principle/concept, the life shows us something different and makes us to break it down. Have you also noticed that?

__a manager inspired after a management course faces the flaws of the new concept when applying to reality of his work.

__a “super”-husband fighting for marriage institution find himself after decades of the “perfect” married life running away with a young girl.

__parents selecting a certain upbringing model meet enormous difficulties with accomplishing this noble intention, because life proves that no concept works in its pure form.

__a girl claiming that “she has learned from the experience and will never fall for the same type of man” will still fall for the same because even the experienced based concept may not be able to withstand the attractive illusion of life.

etc., etc., etc.

I am sure we all know the examples very well.

An interesting astrological insight into current world development April 10, 2011

image by axinia

A friend of mine, a talented and experienced astrologist has sent me some lines about the current world development and the future which today born children will create and live in. 

“At this period Pluto  is in Capricorn ( the sign of the authoritative father ) and it’s in a challenging aspect with Uranus in Aries. These represent the difficulties world wide which the new generation were born into and will be forced to confront, it will be very unsettled, but also very magical.

This combination occurs when wars emerge out of the unbalanced collective mentality.

Lawlessness. False laws..kicking against establishment and dictatorial behavior. Breakdown of dharma and maryadas. Need to establish new (spiritual) laws.

It’s also connected to natural disasters…..as we can already comprehend.”

Interesting, isn’t it? We can see how everywhere in the world especially people of establishment and people in power get questioned and actually dismissed in numbers. Since last year this tendency is growing everywhere.

As the Chinese proverb goes: “May you live in intresting times”…

LOVE; axinia

What hit songs tell us about society’s psyche? April 5, 2011

Popular music is doing more than entertaining society, it’s giving a University of Kentucky researcher a window into how society is changing and apparently becoming more self-loving.

 The current research “Tuning in to psychological change: Linguistic markers of psychological traits and emotions over time in popular U.S. song lyrics” by DeWall, C. Nathan; Pond, Richard S., Jr.; Campbell, W. Keith; Twenge, Jean M. tested the hypothesis that one cultural product—word use in popular song lyrics—changes over time in harmony with cultural changes in individualistic traits.

Linguistic analyses of the most popular songs from 1980–2007 demonstrated changes in word use that mirror psychological change. Over time, use of words related to self-focus and antisocial behavior increased, whereas words related to other-focus, social interactions, and positive emotion decreased.

Using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program, which “counts the percentage of words in a body of text that correspond to various categories,” they analyzed the content of the lyrics in several related ways.

The researchers found the use of first-person plural pronouns (we, us, our) declined over the years, while the use of first-person singular pronouns (I, me, mine) increased. Words reflecting anger or antisocial behavior (hate, kill, damn) became more prevalent over the 28-year period.

Conversely, terms depicting social interactions (talking, sharing) became less common, as did the use of words conveying positive emotions (love, nice, sweet). These findings mirror “recent evidence showing increases in U.S. loneliness and psychopathology over time,” the researchers write.

This is troubling in the light of other recent research that found songs conveying antisocial messages tend to promote aggressive thoughts and hostile feelings, while those with lyrics promoting peace and love can increase empathy and encourage selflessness.

DeWall said the finding that narcissism in society is increasing, along with anxiety, is widely known in many psychological studies. He said liking yourself and being confident is one thing, but loving yourself to the point of not being able to take criticism is something totally different.

“People don’t understand why this is a problem. Promoting this type of overconfidence where criticism is the enemy is unhealthy.  The question is: where does this end? Movies, sitcoms, TV — a lot of this is self-focused. What does this say about us?”

World Battleground, 1000 years of war in 5 minutes April 2, 2011

A very impressive animation about the human history of wars… This animation shows all important battles that took place over the last ten centuries. The sizes of the explosions and labels are proportional to the number of casualties. The music is “Ride Of The Valkyries” by Richard Wagner ( in my opinion, rather a bad choice here, sounds too optimistic). The data come from the wikipedia article, List of Battles.

One general once said that if people who start wars would know what a war really is, they would never do it.

And my husband says a war is just another form of kannibalism.