Who is a true friend? The quote which says it all. February 2, 2012

Friendship is a popular topic, a lot has been said about it. I found a quote which seems to express it short and best:

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.

All we need is… a grandmother revolution! September 21, 2010

For those who have seen the film “Patch Adams”, starring Robin Williams, the interview below would be an added value to this amazing film. And the value of the film itself is high indeed, especially because it’s based on a real-life story.

Today I came across one interview with the film protagonist. The real person turned out to be even more fascinating than the film character (often it’s just vice versa).

Hunter Doherty “Patch” Adams, M.D. (born May 28, 1945 in Washington, D.C.) is an American physician, social activist, citizen diplomat and author. He founded the Gesundheit! Institute in 1971. Each year he organizes a group of volunteers from around the world to travel to various countries where they dress as clowns in an effort to bring humor to orphans, patients, and other people. Adams is currently based in Arlington, Virginia. In collaboration with the institute, he promotes a different health care model (i.e. one not funded by insurance policies).

In his interview to one Italian financial newspaper Patch Adams gives a genius in its simplicity answer of how to change the world to a place, full of love and compassion:

and enjoy the second part, that’s brilliant!

Children stop being communists at the age of 11, study says June 1, 2010

Many people from different countries and background told me that when they were children it was difficult for them to understand the idea of money and goods distribution. I always thought it is a good proof for my idea that capitalism as  such is a very unnatural institution.

The new study from Norway shows some interesting evidence in support of my supposition. As children progress to adolescence, their sense of fairness changes from pure equality to proportionality based on merit, study says.

The study was conducted at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH) by the research team consisting of Associate Professor Ingvild Almås, Professor Alexander W. Cappelen, Associate Professor Erik Ø. Sørensen, and Professor Bertil Tungodden.

One of the most fundamental questions in the social sciences is how morality and fairness considerations affect human behavior. Previous research has shown that adults differ greatly both in the extent to which they care about fairness considerations and in what they perceive as fair.

“This is, however, the first economic study to show how some of these differences are shaped in adolescence. In doing so, the study also sheds light on how our perceptions of fairness are affected both by the social environment and biological factors,” explains Professor Bertil Tungodden from NHH in Norway.

What is a fair inequality?
Most adults find some inequalities fair. Hence, in contrast, to young children, they do not always think of strict equality as the fair solution to a distributive problem. What explains this and how does this acceptance of inequality develop? These were motivating questions for the present study of the distributive behavior of 500 Norwegian school children 11-19 years old.

“By comparing the behavior for different age groups, we were able to established clear developmental patterns. In particular, the study shows that as children grow older, they increasingly find inequalities reflecting differences in individual achievements fair,” continues Professor Tungodden.

Just luck?
In the experiment, the children worked on a task for 45 minutes. At the end of the work session, some were lucky and received a high price on their production; others were unlucky and received a low price. Thus, there were inequalities in earnings that reflected differences in both individual production and luck.

Each participant then had to decide how to distribute the total earnings between themselves and one other participant. Hence, they had to decide which inequalities they found fair.
“Here we observed a very interesting pattern,” adds Professor Tungodden.

“While almost none of the younger children made a distinction between luck and individual production, a substantial share of the older children did so. They accepted inequalities reflecting differences in individual production, but not inequalities reflecting just luck.”

The Greatest Guru September 8, 2009

The greatest guru that we have is Love… It is the guru within us which teaches us, which somehow or other leads us.
 
We are led into that great line of understanding, for which we don’t have to go to any college, to any school for education. It is something so much within that it works and expresses itself, expresses like a light. 
Such people we can make out because they are fully enlightened. They have light and through that light they see the whole world, which is very innocent and simple for them. 

This love, which cannot be described in words, has to be felt within… If you have this love, you enjoy. You enjoy yourself and enjoy everybody else because it is sahaj. You don’t have to make any efforts, don’t have to try anything. Just it is there and it works.

How many Indigo Children do you know? August 31, 2009

 

I was asking myself if I should post about Indigo Children or not…Finally I decided to do so, for I believe this information might help some of my readers to understand their own nature and behaviour better.

Indigo children is a New Age concept developed by Nancy Anne Tappe describing children who are alleged to possess special traits or abilities. The concept was initially developed in the 1970s, gaining popular interest with the publication of a series of books in the late 1990s and the release of several films in the following decade. Beliefs about indigo children range from their being the next stage in human evolution, possessing paranormal abilities, to the belief that they are simply more empathetic and creative than their non-indigo peers. There is no science or studies that give credibility to the existence or traits of indigo children. Many children labeled “indigo” are diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

When I first came across this theory a year ago (too late!) I realised that it explains absolutely everything in my behaviour, especially in my childhood.

What is an indigo Child?

• They come into the world with a feeling of royalty (and often act like it)
• They have a feeling of “deserving to be here,” and are surprised when others don’t share that.
• Self-worth is not a big issue. They often tell the parents “who they are.”
• They have difficulty with absolute authority (authority without explanation or choice).
• They simply will not do certain things; for example, waiting in line is difficult for them.
• They get frustrated with systems that are ritually oriented and don’t require creative thought.
• They often see better ways of doing things, both at home and in school, which makes them seem like “system busters” (nonconforming to any system).
• They seem antisocial unless they are with their own kind. If there are no others of like consciousness around them, they often turn inward, feeling like no other human understands them. School is often extremely difficult for them socially.
• They will not respond to “guilt” discipline (“Wait till your father gets home and finds out what you did”).
• They often posses some “paranormal” abilities.
• They are aware of their mission of saving the world and they are sometimes too serious about it.

These children are often the older new children. They are rebellious, and want things done their way. They have new ideas and are here to bring down the old systems of thinking and doing on this planet. It is their mission. They are also here to make the planet safe for the more sensitive Crystal children to come in. They are often considered to have “warrior spirits”. They have unique gifts, high intelligence, remarkable spirituality, strong intuition, and intense willpower. As for physical characteristics, they have what are often called “old soul” eyes. They have deep eyes that are “grown-up” and full of wisdom. Indigo’s are commonly misdiagnosed as having ADD. This does not mean that every child with ADD is an Indigo child.

When I’ve read some sites on it (unfortunately often too esoteric), I just realised that is about me!

Agriculture enlightened: a modern Japanese sage brings “do-nothing farming” July 25, 2009

Another beautiful encounter with an enlightened soul of modern times: Masanobu Fukuoka (1914-2008) was a Japanese farmer who developed what many consider a revolutionary method of sustainable agriculture. The fascination about this method is that it is not only practical and efficient, but also very spiritual.

Fukuoka started as a microbiologist and worked for the Japanese customs until his transformation following an illness and an ecstatic illuminating self-realisation experience. His central insight was: “There is nothing, really nothing at all whether this be the mundane world or God’s world.” After that he gave up science and come back to his father’s farm where he developed his unusual method. In 1975, distressed by the effects of Japan’s post-war modernization, Fukuoka wrote The One-Straw Revolution. In his later years, Fukuoka was involved with several projects to reduce desertification throughout the world. He remained an active farmer until well into his eighties, and continued to give lectures until only a few years before his death at the age of ninety-five.

Today I’ve read The One-straw Revolution  -an extraordinary book that distills the deepest of philosophical and spiritual truths into a practical approach to farming that was called natural or do-nothing farming. Since its publication in 1978 in English, the book has shot up to cult status, mandatory reading among advocates of alternative living. I literally “swallowed ” the book, as it was so fresh and meditative…ultimately, it is about quieting our cleverness in a way that allows us to see how we really can do more with less.

I especially enjoyed the way Fukouka came to his conclusions on farming:

“The usual way to go about developing a method is to ask “How about trying this?” or “How about trying that?” bringing in a variety of techniques one upon the other. This is modern agriculture and it only results in making the farmer busier.

My way was opposite. I was aiming at a pleasant, natural way of farming [Farming as simply as possible within and in cooperation with the natural environment, rather than the modern approach of applying increasingly complex techniques to remake nature entirely for the benefit of human beings] which results in making the work easier instead of harder. “How about not doing this? How about not doing that?”- that was my way of thinking. I ultimately reached the conclusion that there was no need to plow, no need to apply fertilizer, no need to make compost, no need to use insecticide. When you get right down to it, there are few agricultural practices that are really necessary.”

(I wonder if this could be the brilliant hint for a modern man in general, in other spheres of of life? 🙂

So what is that special about his natural farming? What makes it that revolutionary?

I should have everything that is good, genuine and beautiful! June 23, 2009

“I should have everything that is good, genuine and beautiful!”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Those who are familiar with Mozart life story and character will immediately recognize him in these words. He was not only a genius but something much more… The vibrations of his death place are tremendous like of a swaymbhu… Very special! Apparently they say that his horoscope at the death point was even more impressive than of the birthday. That may mean that he could not only fulfill his life mission but had given us something much more…the eternal character of the music.

I would claim that of all western classical composers Mozart is the only one whose music does not awaken emotions and does not make one think (normally the Western classical music is conceptual, full of thoughts and emotions).

I believe his music has almost the same impact as the classical Indian music – it awakens the happy spirit, washes thoughts away and makes one feel light and joyful.

But that is not all! You must have heard of “Mozart effect” :

The concept of the “Mozart effect” was described by French researcher, Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis in his 1991 book Pourquoi Mozart?. He used the music of Mozart in his efforts to “retrain” the ear, and believed that listening to the music presented at differing frequencies helped the ear, and promoted healing and the development of the brain.

Even if you are an angel… June 18, 2009

 

Even if you are an Angel, there will always be someone who doesn’t like the sound of your wings rustling….

I don’t know whose sentence is it (found on Russian Internet), but the phrase stroke me with its beauty and truth.

May be because some people prefer the darker side of life, sometimes they are irritated by too much of light and goodness. Sometimes  I have to experience it -seldom but still. Every time a surprise!

LOVE, axinia

(image by me)

Russian beauties June 16, 2009

Russians are proud of their beautiful women (read more about it here).

This time on my trip to Moscow I thought of making a post about typical Russian female faces and realised that … “Matröshkas” represent it the best!

Here is a small collection of images that reflect the beauty of the Russian female soul…

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