You need not get at it, for you are it. It will get at you, if you give it a chance. Let go your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own. Continue reading
Author: onetusk
What kind of stories are you telling yourself and telling about yourself?
Language is the paintbrush by which you paint what is real for you. People mistakenly think that they are reporting on the way things are with their language when what they are really doing is creating. Continue reading
path to transformation is specific to each person…
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother did not codify a set of techniques in their teachings. Maintaining that the path to transformation is specific to each person, they instead emphasized an ecumenical approach comprising skillful aspiration, rejection, and surrender as means to progress. Continue reading
Thought for the Week – 2nd June 2014
There is a never a good excuse to have a bad day!
making your life a worthy expression
How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence . . . when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? Continue reading
Book Recommendation: The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas
“Gandhi was inevitable. If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable… We may ignore him at our own risk.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Mohandas K. Gandhi, called Mahatma (“great soul”), was the father of modern India, but his influence has spread well beyond the subcontinent, and is as important today as it was in the first part of the twentieth century, and during this nation’s own civil rights movement. Taken from Gandhi’s writings throughout his life. The Essential Gandhi introduces us to his thoughts on politics, spirituality, poverty, suffering, love, non-violence, civil disobedience, and his own life. The pieces collected here, with explanatory head-notes by Gandhi biographer Louis Fischer, offer the clearest, most thorough portrait of one of the greatest spiritual leaders the world has known.With a new Preface drawn from the writings of Eknath EaswaranIn the annals of spirituality certain books stand out both for their historical importance and for their continued relevance. The Vintage Spiritual Classics series offers the greatest of these works in authoritative new editions, with specially commissioned essays by noted contemporary commentators. Filled with eloquence and fresh insight, encouragement and solace, Vintage Spiritual Classics are incomparable resources for all readers, who seek a more substantive understanding of mankind’s relation to the divine.
Don’t think. See.
Book Recommendation : The Law of Attraction Made Simple by Jonathan Manske
I knew about this book for a couple of years, but didn’t buy it, figuring “What else can be said about the law of attraction that hasn’t already been said 10,00 times?” Finally I did, and it was a revelation! I would have to say it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. His explanation that the law of attraction is like gravity at last made the concept concrete to me, and I have used several of his techniques over and over. I especially like the “wonder” concept, the difference between being “committed” to an outcome versus “attached”, and the Grand Canyon technique. The situation I’ve been visualizing has become stronger and stronger, not only in the exercise, but also in real life! Thanks, Jonathan, for this rich source of simple, intriguing methods…
– Feedback from Connie Ellefson
Don’t pretend to be what you are not, don’t refuse to be what you are….
That which you are, your true self, you love it, and whatever you do, you do for your own happiness. To find it, to know it, to cherish it is your basic urge. Since time immemorial you loved yourself, but never wisely. Use your body and mind wisely in the service of the self, that is all. Be true to your own self, love yourself absolutely. Do not pretend that you love others as yourself. Unless you have realized them as one with yourself, you cannot love them. Don’t pretend to be what you are not, don’t refuse to be what you are. Your love of others is the result of self- knowledge, not its cause. Without self-realization, no virtue is genuine. When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously. When you realize the depth and fullness of yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection. But when you look at anything as separate from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of it. Alienation causes fear and fear deepens alienation. It is a vicious circle. Only self-realization can break it. Go for it resolutely.
– Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj from I am That
the tragedy of the commons
Today, psychologists, economists and environmentalists use the phrase “the tragedy of the commons” to describe the same basic principle: when we use a common resource at a rate that is slower than the rate at which it replenishes, all is well. However, if a few individuals get greedy and use more than their share, the system of consumption becomes unsustainable, and in the long term, everybody loses. In essence, the tragedy of the commons is about two competing human interests. On one hand, an individual should care about the sustainability of shared resources in the long term because everyone, including the individual, benefits from it. At the same time, in the short term, the individual benefits immediately from taking more than his or her fair share. (Social scientists refer to such betrayers of social contracts as “defectors.”) Of course, if we all cared about the common good or thought about the long-term consequences of our actions, we might not run into resource-sharing problems. But because human beings tend to focus on short-term benefits and our own immediate needs, such tragedies of the commons occur frequently.
– Dan Ariely
ONE TUSK 