I have the precious gift of eyes with which to see, ears with which to hear, a sense of touch, a sense of taste, a sense of smell and a mind with which to process the information I gather through these senses so as to grow. I also have other faculties, including subtler counterparts of these senses.

I believe that one can live forever if one so chooses. It is possible and indeed natural to live an eternal life in state of health, joy and peace from beginning to end.

I also believe that every moment is infinitely precious, indescribably precious, whether one lives eternally in the form in which they currently have manifested or chooses to manifest the dissolution of that form at some point. In attempting to describe the preciousness of each moment, one will find oneself in the midst of a profusion of feeling in the present moment, find oneself in state beyond words, flooded with sensation, until the heart opens and what is left is direct contact with, oneness with the moment itself - a direct experience of its infinite preciousness.

Everything I take in with the senses in each of these senses in each moment affects the subsequent moment and who I am in that moment. I AM eternally and also it is worth serious consideration as to whether the form I take in manifested reality depends upon who I have been - my habits of mind and body in mental, verbal, emotional and physical action - in previous moments.

I am taking in sights, sounds, smells, sensations, tastes and beliefs, thoughts, and mental and physical habits with greater and greater deliberate care given the preciousness of the gifts of these faculties and of each moment in which to employ them to a purposeful end.

I wish to see, hear, taste, smell, feel, know, contemplate, say, do, and be what is most beneficial for my growth and for all of Creation, and the Unmanifested - for all of That with which I share this moment in space and time.

I often question if what I am doing is the most beneficial thing for me to be doing. If I must choose between reading a Gospel or the news or listening to pop or a spiritual teacher speaking or singing, I generally choose the scripture or the spiritual teacher - material for the senses which affirms my eternal nature and assists me in my growth, and which affirms the intentional, endlessly creative, purposeful and healthful nature of Reality.

At first this choice was often a matter of will which my reason informed - reading this teaching would be the best thing for me. Listening to this discourse would be the best thing for me. It is becoming now a matter of taste as well. I really do prefer the Bhagavad Gita to witty criticisms of popular culture online or novels. I prefer this singing which breaks my heart open into a fullness greater than I had known before and dispels my ignorance to pop music. I am grateful for the books and music and movies which got me to this point today and also prefer media which refers more nearly to that which is lasting, permanent and satisfying to me, an eternal being who is innately whole and who wishes to become ever more conscious, ever more inclusive of consciousnesses, and ever more indissolubly whole.

I was just reading Carolyn Myss' site (myss.com) and saw that she recommended an upcoming online event by expressing that (to paraphrase) the content of the discussion has the power to change one's life.

This phrase caught my attention. It seems that an event, teaching, technique, attitude has great value relative to other content for the senses and faculties if it has the potential to bring one to safely consciously reside in the state in which one perceives the nature of Reality as one of continuous change. Why would I change my life when Life Itself is of the nature of constant change? My creating a life the content of which I might wish would change is a result of: my unconscious resistance to direct experience of change - my belief in a notion that Life be somehow different.

I have had the great fortune to encounter media which did and continues to intimately acquaint at least myself with Change as an experience and it is media which has this effect which I find myself increasingly choosing over other forms and even looking beyond. This media nourishes a consciousness which is simultaneously creative, receptive and disciplined; the Self of the Being in its natural state, in which the Self is one with the Other while also able to establish, maintain, and create with a health individuality from which one perceives, accepts, and participates with the Other - state in which one can be oneself, connected to God and also honor the connectedness to God of all beings while creating a reality with all beings and God.

Every experience, every creation, every thing one could possibly imagine has infinite value and deserves respect. Also, certain objects of sense perception will facilitate one's growth more effectively than others by fostering soundness of mind, emotional body, physical body, spirit and so on. Certain objects of sense perception promote the development of wisdom, of physical health, spiritual development and emotional well being (which leads to greater degrees of creativity and access to greater potential for growth and rates of growth). I learned something about That which is eternal from smoking pot, about the inherent fluidity of states of consciousness. I also could have learned the same thing without the damage to my gross physical body and subtler aspects of it through means which cost less money and were more pleasant to experience.

So, if a thing facilitates my connection with Reality in its ever changing, simultaneously ever-still nature, then I can say it is relatively of more interest to me than something which points less clearly and directly to that Reality. I can also say that each time I choose to contemplate an object which acquaints me with Reality and fosters the development of wisdom, I plant a seed in my consciousness, in myself which blossoms progressively moreso each moment, for eternity - beyond the boundaries of time and space in the case of some media.

I reject asceticism, which I definte as  the cessation of the use of the senses with a foundation in a belief that intentional sensory experience is inimical to one's development. I also affirm that it is possible to grow beyond the senses, the vehicle containing which is of the nature of illusion, using the senses themselves, and that even this illusory vehicle which it may seem one must have to reject is in fact, given understanding an instrument for one's expression as a Divine being creating a reality in partnership with God Themselves.

The power to choose what one takes in with one's sense organs, including the mind, and the habits of mind and body one fosters is an incredible gift as well. Every use of the eyes, every impression one records with the ears, word one speaks, idea one considers, feeling one feels determines in some way who one will be in the next moment. We have the power to become whomever we wish to be according to the habits we choose to foster. We are by nature direct emanations of God and have the innate ability to create here and now a reality founded in a freedom which transcends even the notion that one must choose either heaven or hell by choosing to contemplate objects and consume materials which affirm Reality and support us in our understanding of It and one another.

If we favor media and habits of body and mind which affirm our Divine nature, the creative and loving nature of the Divine and the essential goodness and perfection of all things as they already are, we will access with greater ease greater and greater creative possibilities in the creation of ourselves, households, societies and beyond, in day to day life and in the realms of art, economics, medicine, and every other field which we can imagine. We are, as SOTU puts it, already creating these things unconsciously. We will also be cultivating a self and a daily life even if we manage to levitate in the middle of the Himalayas or actualize a very abstract state of consciousness; we always create these things, by virtue of incarnating in a machine which creates them according to how we program it. There is no escape from it and it is also a lot of fun once one willingly and consciously does so.

Why not take in and put out that through which we can create the most fun experience for ourselves and all that we love?

Speaking of SOTU, per some requests:

The website for the being and company with whom I have been studying metaphysics in Massachusetts is:

http://www.ejamagic.com

They (the being) are called the Soul of the Universe - hence "SOTU."

May all beings be happy.
May all beings know Great and Natural Peace.

Just moved to the Berkshires from Philadelphia this week and have joined the staff of the Kushi Institute in the kitchen.

The hillsides up here are a speckle of reds, greens and golds as the leaves are already changing. The view of the stars is really nifty, to put it mildly.

Ever hear "Mr. Sandman" by The Chordettes?

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream (bung, bung, bung, bung)
Make him the cutest that I've ever seen (bung, bung, bung, bung)
Give him two lips like roses and clover (bung, bung, bung, bung)
Then tell him that his lonesome nights are over.
Sandman, I'm so alone
Don't have nobody to call my own
Please turn on your magic beam
Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream

What's his "magic beam?" And how does he use it to deliver dreams?

This morning while doing some dishes I got to thinking about how I am dreaming my reality and what I experience is a product of a dream which I have dreamt in another point in space and time. A cook behind me started humming the tune while making dessert.

"Mr. Sandman
Bring me a dream..."

I usually stop there though this song often pops up in my consciousness and I enjoy singing these first lines.

I got to wondering what the lyrics are and was enjoying wondering and thought I'd enjoy finding out and so I investigated further.

Magic beam....

From SOTU: (the library section at www.ejamagic.com, from the article with the date of 9/2001)

"We would like you to give you a metaphor. We would like you to understand that you are a reality projector, each and every one of you. You project the pure energy of creation through a lens, perhaps positioned in front of your Solar Plexus Chakra. This lens holds all of your beliefs and judgments. For each of you, this lens holds both a personal and a consensus belief that there is not enough. You know, in our perspective this supposedly physical reality is really an illusion. From our perspective this reality is so malleable, so changeable, so moveable. As you change this lens of belief, as you start to create through a lens that says there is enough, everything that you create comes through that lens of enough."

They've called this projection of the pure energy of creation a "beam." So perhaps human beings, if not other species, project this energy through this solar plexus chakra and in doing so experience their dream - which derives it structure and content from the beliefs one holds.

For awhile I've derided pop music and a couple of years ago it occurred to me that one could discover and express the deepest truths of life and death, nonbeing and all that other good stuff by singing at least some of them in the right frame of consciousness.

We all live in a yellow submarine
A yellow submarine, [...]

I've heard that color yellow has some association with the solar plexus chakra*, which one might find several inches in front of the "physical" body in the area of the solar plexus.

So we sailed on to the sun,
Till we found the sea green,
And we lived beneath the waves,
In our yellow submarine,[ ...]

And green has a similar association with the heart chakra, which one might find around the area of the chest. 

As we live a life of ease(life of ease)
Every one of us(every one of us) has all we need,(has all we need)
Sky of blue,(sky of blue) and sea green,(sea of green)
In our yellow(In our yellow) submarine.(submarine) ( Haha! )

And blue has an association with the throat chakra, which also has a function as a gate to the heavenly realms, the realms beyond the passive experience of a reality which seems independent of our interaction with and interpretations of it. 

Why are we in a yellow submarine and not a blue airplane? Why the waves and why beneath the waves?

I have had an experience of being situated or "plugged-in" at the middle of body, as if I were a ball of energy which contracted such that my center of gravity were in my waist. I had a sense of well being at the level of being who I am in the most casual and also balanced way - of being myself as an individual in a visceral sense. (I wasn't listing my favorite bands or flavors of ice cream or anything; just being with a subtle sense of physical solidity and self-awarenese.) I wasn't necessarily aware of being a human being so much as of being who I perceive and feel myself to be as a "person" and that that sense or person was okay as it was. I strongly associate the color yellow with this exprience.

My guess based on hypotheses and study is that when one creates a viable ego-structure, a sense of oneself as an individual which allows one to function in consensus reality, one can also take ownership of and embody the consciousness of a being who can consciousness rise to this level of vibration, that of the third or solar plexus chakra. (Some beings say there are more though I don't recall ever having heard it having an association with a number other than 3.) So one can now donn the suit of the ego, the personae which one, as a spirit-soul, has created and within it explore the infinte realms of possibilities of states and content of consciousness - and realities.

So I would think yellow submarine and not blue airplane as, from this state of consciousness, we explore the depths of ourselves and integrate the previous levels of consciousness so as to "transcend and inclue" them, as Ken Wilber says in describing the process of integration. Ultimately we may fly in a blue airplane, though perhaps not with this physical body in tow (unless one were to elevate the energy constituting that physical body to higher vibrations, as I've heard Jesus and Prophet Muhammed [Sal.] and perhaps Jesus' mother Mary did, at least Jesus elevating Himself to pure white light, the color of the crown chakra and outer atmospheric levels and stars - or pehaps the clear of space).

The waves seem to me to have to do with our emotions. SOTU refers to the "sea of emotion," diving to the depths of which one can reclaim one's power so as to use it to create one's reality consciously. One must go far beyond the surface of this ocean so as reach the depths of oneself, the levels of consciousness which were precedent to emotional experience and from which we create our realities. The heart chakra, the one with the association with green, also has, I've heard, an association with emotion.

Perhaps the human being finds oneself located somewhere between the throat and the chest in a world of apparent superficiality which urges an understanding of one's origins and purpose? (Some people say they're up in their heads; I'm wondering why the Beatles started their journey on solid ground next to a green sea before getting in a yellow submarine? Where were they?)

I've never heard the entirety of this album by the Beatles. I imagine that one who remains on the shores of this green sea and choose not to plunge the depths of their emotions and beyond (to language, to being, to manifesting, and beyond even manifesting), never see the real blue sky, never see even the sea of green beyond the littlest glimpse through the eyes of a guide who has, and that there are immense treasures in store for one who does make that journey in that self-made boat.

It's obviouly worth mentioning that if one can observe this "belief that there is not enough," that resources are scarce and that scarcity is a given fact of life, then one can also change this belief to "there is plenty" and enjoy the reality which one experiences when one's little beam projects through a lens with "there is plenty" etched into it. SOTU has stated that there will be no more war when we provide for the basic needs of our species' members. I'm inclined to agree, on my way to enjoy a nourishing dinner of natural ingredients which suggests that making such provision would be pretty easy.

(*"Chakras," the word itself being the plural for "chakra," is a part of the more subtle aspects of the human anatomy, the focal points of which one would find in various areas of what one might call the "physical body." Since as SOTU put it this "supposedly physical reality is an illusion," or everything which appears to be unchanging is always constantly changing and interacting with us according to our interpretation through the machine through which we are learning in this reality, the distinction of the chakras from the more "gross" or "dense" so-called "physical" body is arbitrary.)

Eid Mubarak?

Ramadan Mubarak?

Ramadan Mubarak!

It's like the New Age New Year's Eve - midnight to dawn veggie chopping at the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Ral.) Fellowship in Philly after this evening's breaking of the fast for Ramadan to find out if the fast ends tomorrow and the Eid begins, in which case some folks would have been preparing ingredients for buryiani for hundreds. Which I imagine would be a very fun thing to do in the middle of the night. It turns out that the Eid, the holiday which follows the end of Ramadan, will be on Monday, so there was no buryiani prep. There were, however, some nifty conversations, including an inspiring exploration of dualistic religions and non-dualism.

While discussing macrobiotic and Indian cuisine, I realized after eating a hefty batch of the former that "pakoras" and "tempura" are very similar foods and the words for them sound very similar. Are they ontomatopoetic, describing the sound of the veggies hitting the hot oil - PAK PAK TMP and aaaa as they cool off out of the pot? The "ooor" in the middle is the little interlude where the cook hesitates over the oil in case it explodes at them. Eeeeeh... now! "Oooor" Chinese from down the street?

I wonder also as I will be joining the kitchen staff of the Kushi Institute in MA on the same day that a form of tempura is on menu for lunch.

From the conversation: "Know the knower completely." Know the concept the knower presents and know this "knower" completely so as to, perceiving both directly, know the Truth of at least that moment. Really incredible to just show up at a place down the street and have one's neighbor transform one's life for the better simply by sharing their viewpoints and experiences.

I was speaking with a frequenter of the Fellowship who pointed out that Jews also schedule Rosh Hashanah by the sighting of the moon, and that there is also a Hindu (?) festival coming up, if not already passed, which coincides with the new moon. Which got me wondering why there is so much violence across ideological lines. There seems to be a widespread tendency to act without questioning the basis upon which one chooses an action - to kill without questioning the nature of what one is defending and the senseless tragedy of doing harm given the interconnectedness of all life. To defend an ideology at the expense of a living being rather than first "knowing the knower completely" and thereby freeing oneself and the other of the self-created shackles of mutual ignorance and imagination run amock.  

It also got me wondering if the coincidence of the Indian festival in honor of the Divine in the feminine and the major holidays of patriarchal religions keeps the planet from spinning out of its orbit.

Wishing you abundance and real freedom.

A family in Costa Rica hosted myself and another American student back in... 2000? during a community service trip. They put a lightbulb in the room they provided us as they heard that Americans like to read at night. It struck  me as a very precious gift.  They had put so much thought into and it felt that they had done it together. My impression is that it wasn't common practice in this town to use electricity much at night, if at all. They didn't seem to feel a need to and the infrastructure for delivering it to homes wasn't as developed as in most American towns I've seen.

I've been thinking more and more about the family giving us the lightbulb since then, almost every day lately. I don't know why. I wonder what they did to put the fixture in - they built their own house. I wonder how they are.

I've been using one lightbulb at night and find myself not using electrical light at all during the day.

It's nice - the natural light and the wood of the walls and floor come through more and even the air seems more alive.

Being able to read is more and more a special thing to me, too, a special thing and somehow also a very basic human right; this family's generosity has a lot to do with that dawning realization.

That and the fact that I am beginning to get some small sense of how hard my ancestors and parents worked to provide me with an education and to create a civilization in which reading and exploration and learning are of central importance at least in its ideals.

Incredible what one gesture from one human being to another can do to open a mind and heart and change a life.

One of the most delicious things I've eaten recently if not ever:

Aduki, Squash and Kombu Stew with Fried Mochi

1. Soak 1 C aduki beans overnight with 1" of kombu - rinse the kombu first.
2. Put the kombu in the bottom of a pot and spread 2 C of cubes of butternut, buttercup, kabocha or hokkaido squash over the kombu and the bottom of the pan..
3. Put the beans on top of the squash.
4. Add water to cover the layer of squash down the side of the pot.
5. Gently bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 - 15 minutes before covering. I've heard that simmering a bean dish without the lid reduces flatulence.
6. Cover and gently simmer for around an hour or so until the beans are 80% done. Check occasionally to make sure the dish isn't burning; add more water down the sides of the pot if the water's running low and return to a simmer.
7. Add two pinches of salt when the beans are 80% done. To me, that's almost done enough that you would eat them and uncooked enough that you know they could use some more time in the pot.
8. Cook until the beans are very soft. Turn off the heat and let the dish rest.
9. In a separate saucepan, fry 1/2 C of mochi* in an oil that won't smoke easily. I used sesame oil and safflower oil would work, too.
10. Add 1t shoyu to the pot while cooking the mochi.
11. When the mochi is fried a little on the outside, add 1C of the bean stew to the saucepan.
12. Bring to a boil then simmer until the water gets low. Stir to keep from sticking.
13. Add water as necessary until the mochi is soft. Add more shoyu if you like a saltier dish; I wouldn't add more than another teaspoon for one person or you may find yourself face down in a pint of ice cream.
14. Turn off the heat. Let rest for a minute or two while chopping some parsley for a garnish.
15. Put the stew in a bowl and top with parsley.
16. Enjoy this creamy, hearty stew!

*To prepare the mochi, remove it from the package and cut it into little 1" cubes. I used about 1/4 of the package for a serving, maybe less. So I cut 1/4 of it off of the block, cut that into little cubes and then fried those little cubes. I used sweet brown rice mochi, which is a whole-grain product. I've seen it at several health food stores. I enjoy "Grainaissance" plain mochi. I've heard Kendall makes a very nice one though it costs more than I wish to spend for the amount and quality of the product in the package.


A nice bright green side dish with a sour kick... Collards and Peas:

1. Remove the stems from some collards (1-2 per person) and chop finely
2. Stack the greens on top of each other, roll the stack like a burrito, and shred cross-wise. Ideally you would end up with very thin strips of greens.
3. Heat a splash of water in a skillet or wok until steaming and add the collards with a pinch of salt. Saute until the greens become a little limp and still bright.
4. Add a handful of peas per person.
5. Add 1t of umeboshi vinegar or soy sauce or another pinch of salt and 1T apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar.
6. Toss together and sautee until the collards are very limp, like wilted spinach.
7. Serve as is or with flax oil, or flax oil with strips of nori in the greens.

And one more... Babies' Teeth and Sweetness, a tasty little snack:

Crumble a brown rice cake into a bowl and top with some tahini and apple butter. Stir it up and munch.

New daffodil, linen preciousness,
In two days I will forget you
And the mind which I loved loving you

It's the 10th anniversary of the Columbine school shootings and I find myself wondering what I have done and would do to learn from them and prevent them from happening again.

I recall seeing on TV a young person covered in blooding scrambling out a window - dragging himself and falling out more than climbing.

I move further and further toward the sky and trees and animals for my sense of where to go in life with each passing day; television makes the escalation of violence seem normal. This scene is almost normal now in the mainstream of our culture. A teenager kicking his way through his own blood is sad now where it used to be horrifying and intolerable. I see a few editorials and no real change. The main headline I found on the anniversary was that Oprah pulled her piece on the subject from her show today. The air here practically trembles with the confusion and pain of the people in this city and this nation and still we seem to be barrelling over a dark cliff in some strange sleep.

I'm hesitant to spend too much of my awareness on understanding the murderers' motives, nor them as people, so much as their role in a situation made up of many people and factors which culminated in the murderers slaughtering beings who deserved at the very least their respect. I believe that every action is ultimately up for understanding and that whoever chooses to develop that understanding will benefit; I also believe that I have in the past indulged in analysis of horrible acts in order to file them away and see how much longer the slumber I'm in will hold out against the reality of a crumbling paradigm.

This afternoon I was thinking I would have fed the students and teachers really well in the cafeteria, introduced meditation practices at the school (I've heard they worked well for reducing violence in at least one Detroit school), created a student and teacher coalition to govern the school. I would have gotten the murderers up before dawn every day, had them grow food, build houses for people, do something to give them a sense of their self worth and the value of life by getting them engaged in activities that would build a community and nation that they wouldn't have hated so desperately.

I've since read that the murderers had planned destruction on a greater scale than the Oklahoma City bombing and that they intended the shootings at their school to be an act of terrorism on a national scale and not an isolated act of vengeance towards members of their community. I don't know how one reforms, awakens, heals, nurtures back to sanity and participation in society a creature who has so deformed themselves and blinded themselves to the reality of the fact that the beings around them were almost exactly like them and to the murderers' agency in their own lives.

I would still say feed them well. I wonder what they were eating, and  what mental food they were taking in, and when they went to bed, when they got up. With whom they spoke every day. Simple daily habits seem to me to build a person to a great extent. Did their parents ever talk to them? Talk with them, rather? How much hatred was in those households? What did the murderers take in emotionally, what were they swimming in emotionally? Where did all of that come from?

I've heard that Bawa (Ral.) said something to the effect of: the cause of any of a child's misbehavior is the hypocrisy of the parents.

How am I a hypocrite to future generations? How do I slaughter hearts every day with little acts of hatred and refusals to acknowledge kindness? 

About to buy some books with a very nice surprise birthday present the spirit of which gave me much joy.

It is about half past twenty minutes ago for some WILLY THE SHAKES!

And how about Ken Wilber? Anybody, anybody? I'm about ready to categorize my SOCK DRAWER I'm so excited.

Some Masanobu Fukuoka-san? I won't even touch these keys and the thing will show up on it's own!

I just had a moment of not taking my mind personally. Which was a very happy moment indeed and so have the ones been since cause I don't have to be at war with you! Hot diggity dawg!

My lovely and witty Floridian cousins are: giving birth (have already, actually), and getting married. So I'm shopping for a pair of shoes to go with the dress my mom graciously bought me and life graciously and very elegantly provided for the wedding. I'll probably meet the baby beforehand.

I've been sticking to buying as little as possible these days in general and second-hand if not also vegan when it comes to clothes. So I'm looking for secondhand vegan shoes. I read a site by a vegan who celebrates buying shoes at Payless. Right on for her to buy clothes at a reasonable price - after all, we all have a right to free clothing seeing as there are plenty of resources to provide clothing for everyone for free. I don't get, though, why someone would buy vegan shoes that probably came from sweatshops?

Why buy clothing that human children may have endured human rights abuses and starvation while making because it's made from non-animal materials?

That purchasing choice seems underinformed to me, that if one were to consider the good's cost in labor as well as materials, then one would even consider buying handmade leather from a fairtrade manufacturer rather than vegan shoes from a sweatshop. Especially if the fairtrade manufacturer assists in providing its workers with an education. After all, one human mind with access to an education has the power to ensure kinder treatment to animals in one whole household, town, city, nation and even the world.

I figure that I'm more inclined to purchase leather than plastic after a conversation with my father wherein I realized that plastic doesn't biodegrade nearly as quickly and leather has a less detrimental effect on the environment. Some manufacturers make 'vegan' shoes out of petroleum products. (I doubt most of these people made them for vegans.) Where is that petroleum coming from and at what human cost? Are Iraqi civilians and US soldiers dying to make those shoes? They're not vegan, then, as I assume a vegan also values human life in addition to animal life.

So it matters where the goods came from, who put them together and under what conditions, how they got to me and where the materials go when the clothing no longer fits or seems to me to be beyond repair.

I'm looking for a pair of silver, biodegradable flats in a natural material that doesn't contain petroleum. Checking out second-hand shops early next week. I'm thinking aluminum foil on some flip flops could be kind of cool, too, though it does lightning a lot down there and I like puddles.

This dress is really pretty. It's a light, light blue jacket and dress combo. The jacket has this Victorian and futuristic at the same time vibe going on with pointy turn cuff sleeves and the dress is very simple and tasteful and comfortable. Overall it looks like one would enjoy a chat in it between magic-fueled bouts with world-domination minded creatures from other dimensions. And/or dance. I couldn't have imagined a dress more exactly what would have been best for this wedding. I hope my cousin who's getting married likes it and my cousin who's a new mom doesn't mind me holding her son in it as it's got a tinge of Cruella DeVille in the sleeves!

May you be happy.
May you know great and natural peace.