Posted 2 hours ago
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action—
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
~Gitanjali 35 / by Rabindranath Tagore
Posted 6 hours ago
Posted 7 hours ago
How Not To Make Pea Soup
I was going through an old laptop and found this article I’d saved. Unfortunately, I didn’t save where I found it or who wrote it. I’d love to give credit to the author, so if anyone knows who it is, please pass it along to me.
Back in the 1950s, London used to have a lot of fog. When the fog combined with the smoke from thousands of coal fires, it created what the Londoners called ‘a real pea-souper’ because they experienced it to be just like the local pea soup!
Have you ever been in such a thick fog? Sometimes you can’t see in front of your eyes for more than a few feet. Any object coming towards you, like a horse, a walking man, or this double-decker London bus, can only be seen as a blurred shape until its very close. It can be difficult to find your way in such a fog. Sometimes you can even become completely lost.
People can generate fog too. Its not made up of ‘pea soup’ or even particles of water. Its made up of particles of conversation, emails, and website posts. When people come together to form groups, and groups come together as larger organizations the ‘cyber-fog’ can be really dense sometimes. Either the members speak so much about the organization - or other people speak about it - that it forms a communications ‘fog’ so thick that its possible the entire organization - rather like a London bus - can be completely obscured. Only when up close can you really see what its like.
In the Srimad Bhagavatam, Srila Prabhupada comments that all the lies in the world - especially coming from lawyers, politicians and the like - who routinely speak what they know to be untrue simply for personal advantage - can travel as vibrations into the atmosphere and come down again as subtle pollutants.
Every human being therefore has a duty to speak in such a way as to help clean the atmosphere. And devotees of Krishna in this wonderful movement for Krishna consciousness have an extra duty to spend their time glorifying Krishna and the Vaishnavas. Particularly they must not waste time in employing electronic gadgetry in broadcasting their less than helpful comments on the lives of others. Otherwise the fog thus generated will tend to obscure our movement. People will see a distant, vague shape but be unable to see our movement for what it is. They will see the fog first - and may miss the bus completely.
Posted 10 hours ago
Many of us have an exaggerated sense of our own importance. I can tell you that come Tuesday morning, the Earth will still be revolving, whether you have checked your email or not. It’s like an arms race: everything is an emergency. We have created an expectation in society that people will respond immediately to everything with no delay. It’s unhealthy, and it’s unproductive, and we can’t keep going on like this.
Posted 1 day ago
We’ve all had at least a taste of it: the falling away of everything. It can happen anywhere, at any time: during a walk through the park, or while listening to your favourite piece of music, or perhaps while looking into the eyes of a loved one. All past and future fall away, all ideas of a future attainment, a future happiness, a future ‘enlightenment’ simply dissolve into the vast open space which embraces everything. In that falling away, there is a simplicity, an intimacy, a freedom without a name. It’s totally beyond words, and yet it’s as obvious as breathing. It’s a glimpse into what you really are, beyond any story about what you are.
~Jeff Foster (via ashramof1)
Posted 1 day ago
I used to make a lot of little 8½ x 11 mini-posters for people to print out and hang on their walls. This was one of them.
I’ll post others from time to time.
Posted 1 day ago
This is a whole bunch of pictures I found of from our vacation in Hollywood, Florida a few years back.
Posted 1 day ago
One time a person asked me for advice, and I suggested she go someplace all alone and just sit quietly for a little while; just give the boogies in her mind time to calm down.
She laughed. To her, the idea of Just Sitting Still was so absurd she thought I must be joking.
But I wasn’t. And I believe it would have done her a world of good.
Posted 1 day ago
Boy Scouts
Okay, so the Boy Scouts decided to stop discriminating against homosexuals, at least some of them, so Hooray and Welcome to the 21st Century, but then there’s this:
“The resolution also reinforces that Scouting is a youth program, and any sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or homosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting,” said the Boy Scouts of America in a statement released Thursday.
“Any” sexual conduct? Sixteen and seventeen-year-old young men aren’t allowed to hold hands or kiss? Or does that just mean they can’t orgasm?
Does this mean maintaining one’s virginity is a requirement to be a Boy Scout?
Is there a merit badge for Mastering Your Domain?
Posted 2 days ago
The difference between reality and imagination wasn’t ever clear to me at all.
~David Lynch
Posted 3 days ago
Posted 3 days ago
Human beings matter little in the corporate state. We myopically serve the rapacious appetites of those dedicated to exploitation and maximizing profit. And our corporate masters view prisons- as they do education, health care, and war- as a business.
I pray the maha-mantra, I dance to Classic Rock, I eat a lot of lentils and rice, and I'm in love with a girl named Mona.
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