Thandie on the Self

Thandie Newton shows that she's more than a gorgeous face, an interesting TED talk about Self and Otherness.

Doing a Total Restoration

I think the most universal advice that I know of is that no matter what you do, live your life with deliberation and consideration.

And occasionally, take a breather and do a "Total Restoration", meaning reconsider *everything*. Your whole role and direction in Everything. And do it from the biggest perspective you can which seems real to you. Probably this will be expanding as time goes.

Personal upheaval

    "Between 1930 and 1990,  a convenient and superficial brand of spirituality has been circulating and pretending to be the real thing.  This form of spirituality has been most sharply characterized by a pervasive ego-gratifying and materialistic series of assumptions.  The marketing of spiritual approaches to life during the 1970's and 1980's became highly sophisticated in conveying to consumers that a spiritual path or dimension is the icing on the cake of life,  and does not require any deep soul searching or inward changes.

    In the late 1980's and early 1990's,  a counter-movement has been emerging which is much more Earth-real and  oriented toward core spiritual values.  As this counter-movement gathers momentum, the truth that every spiritual aspirant must move through major and extended upheavals will become basic to our evolutionary planetary shift into the 21st century.

    [Our aim]  is to give support and encouragement to those who find themselves faced with a call to die to their old selves and to come alive in a vibrant new way. We wish to affirm with glad hearts that each individual is equipped with  all that is needed to move through the planetary identity crisis and their own personal struggle and change.  In no way can we float along with the comfortable insinuation that these radical transformations will be easy,  or simply a matter of changing the paradigm of the way we look at things.  Now is the time to set to work and serve [Mankind] with a whole heart."

... from the book Inside Planets by Elias Lonsdale. Thanks to Laurie.

Note the expression "major and extended upheavals"... I can attest to that, as can many of my friends and many of the teachers who I have studied. We're not talking kindergarten problems when we approach the real spiritual center. It counters the popular belief that as you make spiritual progress, your life will become better and better, easier and easier. It may do so for a while, and then one day the express bus smacks you as you cross the street. The Self's resistance to Truth is very, very strong.

"Live in the Now"?

In the wonderful show Dead Like Me, Georgia complains: "Everybody says Live In The Now."

And I too feel that it is pretty useless advice. For one thing, the Now is no more real than the past or the future. There is no Now. Time is imaginary like space and energy.

For another thing, if you can live in the Now, I'm sure you're already doing it. It's like saying: "just be happy".

Stupid as that sounds, thinking about it I realize that there are actually people who do give that advice. "What do you look so sour about, smile!" So you're supposed to look happy so they don't feel bad?

And people who insist that others should be happy are always at best white-washing their own unhappiness. Why else would they care? And white-washing don't hold out in the rain, sorry.

Weekend quotes

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

           -- Bertrand Russell

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

           -- Mark Twain

Backwards blind

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.

           -- Marie Curie

Yes, I noticed this many years ago. It is frustrating, it makes it feel continually like all the work is in front of one, even if one has made enormous strides in the past. 

And at this point in time, I think anybody has made enormous strides. J says in The Course that we have crossed a great desert, now we merely need to wash the dust from our eyes to see it. 

And I do believe it. Many years ago I had a vision of a great crystal arrow sitting in the bulls-eye of a great target. The arrow had been fired from the other end of the universe, at the beginning of time, and now is sitting dead true in the target, the job is done, we're just too confused to know it. 

I was interested to read that writer Bernadette Roberts had virtually the same vision, only the "crystal" bit missing. 

Can't push Love

"All you need is Love, duh-dah-duh-du-dahh..."

That's a theme that universal in pop songs, films, and literature. And even many spiritual and self-help books, it's there, you just have to Love and everything will sort itself out.

But while it's literally true that Love is All, I don't think you can push it or enhance it. The real love, the only Love, belongs to Source, and it's far, far beyond the control of the Self.

A Course In Miracles says it very simply: "The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance."

It's good news if you think about it. You don't have to worry about being deficient in Love or about how to enhance it. Love is infinite, in you and everybody. All you need is to remove the blocks to your awareness that Love is there.
That this is much easier said that done is another story.       :-)

ACIM in Chinese

Congratulations and Well Done to Judith Skutch Whitson and her team, they are coming out now with a Chinese edition of A Course In Miracles. [update, see below] I don't think it needs to be said how important an event this is, politically, religiously, philosophically, spiritually, and just in terms of sheer numbers!
Chinese is a profoundly alien language to English, in form and in thought, and it must have been a colossal challenge and job to do this right. (Not that it's ever easy, they say that they target any translation of ACIM to take five years.)

They are also doing amazing work in the digital sphere, they now have The Course out in ebook format on many platforms, Kindle, Nook, Sony, Mobi, iPhone/iPad (via Kindle and BN, not iBooks), Android, and soon Google. I am into those things (ereaderJoy.com), and I can tell you it is not a trivial thing to develop an ebook, even though by rights it should be these days. Just for one thing there are apparently no tools which does a really good job of translating a regular wordprocessor file into any of the ebook formats, it has to at least be carefully edited and corrected manually.
I have the Course in Kindle format (reading mostly on iPad), and it's beautifully done.

Update:
I contacted Judith Whitson to see if I had it all correct. It turns out there are two different Chinese versions of the Course, one in the "Traditional Font" and one in the "Simplified Font".
Judith told me:
The first edition of the Chinese translation of A Course in Miracles was first published by the Foundation for Inner Peace in 1997.  It was printed in the the Traditional Font and disseminated in all countries where Chinese was spoken except for the Peoples' Republic of China, where the Simplified Font is used. You are correct in assuming that there was also the timing factor in that a decade ago there was indeed resistance to the themes introduced by the Course on Mainland China.
 The first edition was widely distributed through the efforts of a remarkable translator, Chiao lin Cabanne who then spent years in public presentations, teaching and traveling throughout Asia. Because of her efforts, the Course is now studied through dozens of groups in Taiwain, Malaysia and Hong Kong.  Groups also started to spring up on the Mainland.  Finally, this past year, Course was set into Simplified Font, approved by a publisher in Beijing and was printed last week for distribution in the Peoples' Republic of China. 
So you see, Eolake, it has been a double phased effort. 
It warms my heart that you understand the great commitment of love, time, resources and effort that are given these translations. 
As best as we can estimate, this means that approximately 93% of the world's population is able to read the Course in languages of their choice.
Also, by the way, the Translation Program of the Foundation for Inner Peace is an equal effort of Dr. Kenneth Wapnick, who teaches the translators and Dr. William Whitson who manages the process.  :>)
I hope this is helpful to you, and again, I am so appreciative that you let me clarify the process.
And you made me smile by recognizing in your excellent blog the size of the Course's electronic outreach through the ebooks we design and make available just as fast as we can!  We are coming out with two more this year and I'll let you know when they are being launched.
"Love is the way I walk in gratitude".
Judy 

Georges Duhamel

I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world.

           -- Georges Duhamel

---

Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.

           -- Rabbi Julius Gordon

Axioms

ax·i·om 

noun

1.

a self-evident truth that requires no proof.

2.

a universally accepted principle or rule.

3.

Logic, Mathematics . a proposition that is assumed without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from it.

I find it interesting that we as humans even has a word for "a self-evident truth that requires no proof." 

The best teachers, for instance Jed McKenna, stress that we cannot be certain of anything. Everything is based on belief, and a belief that you can't change is a trap. 

Intelligence and faces

I find it very interesting how intelligence is reflected in a person's face. Intelligent people have a very specific tension in the face, particularly around the eyes. You can almost literally see the focus of their mind.

Y's beautiful dream

My artist friend Y wrote this awesome dream to me. I’m almost envious of it. 

Eolake

===

Y wrote:

I had a really strange and interesting dream.

I was back at a house where I grew up... except it was quite different.. and there were a lot of people there who I did not know or recognise, but it didn`t seem strange to me, as I was the age I am now, and I seemed to take it forgranted that they were living there in the present tense outside of my dream.

Anyway, it was night time, and dark outside, and we all were outside the kitchen door at the back garden.

I saw a faint glimmer of light in the sky, and began to look for it again.. no-one else had noticed it.. as I stood looking, I saw the most beautiful sight.. ( in my dream, I had decided that it was an alien space ship )... it was transparent with areas of flickering almost neon light, like a deep sea jelly fish, but it was in the shape of a Giant Manta Ray, and gracefully and slowly moving through the dark sky just as a Manta would move under water, with it`s long tail extended behind it. 

I kept telling other people to look, but they didn`t seem to be able to see it.. and they made jokes about me seeing things... But I felt so happy at being able to see this beautiful thing of wonder... this organic spaceship / creature... in all of its beauty.

Anyway, that's how the dream ended... with me just standing staring at this wonderous thing in the night sky, and feeling so privileged and happy.

- Y

Clumsy forceps

The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it.
- H. G. Wells

====

... And that's just human truth. I feel that Universal Truth may be as far beyond a human mind as the galaxy is to an ant.

Speaker, Gangaji

This speaker, like Adyashanti and Jed McKenna, is a good example of that characteristic we often see in advanced teachers: an interesting way of speaking: Slowly, and without any force whatsoever. Sort of distracted. Sort of disinterested. And these small pauses all the time.

Not surprising characteristics, if we look at what awakening is supposed to be: a strong subjective perception that the universe does not exist, it's a dream. So any strong interests and intentions in the Universe will have gone, naturally. And probably the direct perception of The Light/Source all the time explains the appearance of distractedness. 

Gangaji:

Adyashanti:

Eye of the beholder

People often say that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves. - Salma Hayek

J saves

Jesus saves. That's why credit crunches don't bother him much.

Previous PoS title

Here is an interesting previous use of the title of this blog, Power of Source.
I think Hubbard was a very good writer, I much enjoyed his SF epic Battlefield Earth (the book, not the movie) and the ten-volume satire Mission Earth (though in retrospect it was sometimes needlessly violent on the part of the Big Hero). But as a musician, I really don't know... He had the belief that if you just believed you could do something, you really could, training or no training (his words), there was no excuses, and that's what he told his mostly untrained musicians in this band.

What place is holy?

Two buddhist monks recently set themselves on fire as protest against the Chinese government. And the Daily Llama (sorry, it's a Python mag. I meant Dalai Lama) is in a battle of words with the same, about who can choose his successor. So in short, they're still in battle.

 Like it was said in The Disappearance Of The Universe: "what would make one place holier than another? They are all part of the same dream." The buddhists could save themselves a heap of trouble by just settling down in any peaceful country which would have them, and practice their Releasing, Advanced Forgiveness, and connection with Source.

 Similar stuff on a smaller level: some years ago I imagined that one day I'd build or buy a big and very cool house. But since then it has become less and less interesting, especially since finding nondualism in the book mentioned above. All the interesting stuff is happening Inside anyway. And by living in a small and cheap place, I don't need to work as much, leaving more time to practice advanced forgiveness (giving up conflicts). Also it lets me save up for retirement and a rainy day, giving a little more peace of mind, and the ability to donate to causes I believe in. (While I try to keep in mind that since the world and money are both illusory, it's the love behind the giving which counts. If you do it out of guilt solely, not much is moved on a spiritual level. (The Soul Of Money.)
   Eolake

A Spear of Light, A Lens Onto the World

Here’s a cautious notation, mostly a “record of research”, since it’s just the latest perception, and far from confirmed. 

I got the perception last night that I finally got a handle on the form and position of the “Big Pain” I have long struggled with, sometimes seeming like a headache, but usually oddly unfocused. It seemed to be a sharp spear going into the middle of my spine, up the back, and hitting the top of my head from inside. 

More meditation on it mutated the view so it seems to be the energy of “god’s light” which is the spear. My role is to be a channel, or seeming more accurately, a “lens” for it, for some reason this is symbolically or somehow going out through me vertically upwards. The entrance through the spine is very much in doubt, maybe there isn’t really an entrance at all, maybe the illusory Personality (Individual Consciousness) is collecting The Light from all around or from Beyond, and focusing it in the World. 

I have been a functioning lens at some times and in some functions, but the reason it’s painful is obviously that I am too blocked by energy, beliefs, ego, all that junk. 

The overall Process is the unblocking of that channel to the lens, like water flowing through a hole (interesting that “hole" is like “whole"), and slowly but inexorably making the hole bigger, until the damn dam is all gone.

I suspect that this process mostly takes place on a much bigger plane, but how this is related to the body and its space I have no clue. 

It seems for some individuals that they have some human life to live after the dam is (practically?) gone, I believe this is to serve as a clearer lens for the light to shine on the rest of the world, for the benefit of still extant illusory individuals. Yeshua* is an obvious example, whereas Bill Thetford seemed to step out the moment he was “clear”. 

But then there’s also evidence that individuals (or “their images” as the Course says) can continue as teachers on a higher plane after the final lifetime. And seemingly much more free of the linearity of Time in that state. 

---

*"J" or "Jesus", see The Disappearance Of The Universe and here. 
(Note, I'm not a Christian, but I try to learn from many teachers, and J was clearly a big 'un.) 

Me and Buddha

Me and Buddha, is it a thing?

Trouble is a Friend

Trouble is a Friend, music video.

And it's true. If the Dream of Life was too pleasant, we would never Think very much about it, and so never wake up.

ACIM lessons in audio

Gene Bogart has made excellent audio recordings of the ACIM workbook lessons. Warmly recommended. You can use them for free, but if you can, donate some, I think he has done the movement a big favour.