Life 02 (Nov 08 - May 09)

Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby Poles » Sat May 23, 2009 9:55 am

very sad, before this hoo-haa, what i read he was enjoying a quiet retirement in his village.
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Sat May 23, 2009 4:34 pm

Everyone doesn't have to be the same. Most say,"Well, it's so much easier if we're all the same." And we say, it is not easier when you're all the same; conformity is the thing that thwarts you most.

That massive wanting to get you to conform - to all think the same way and want the same things - is what is causing the revolt that is happening within you. You are determined to be freedom-seekers in a Mass Consciousness society that is determined to make you the same.

--- Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in Asheville, NC on Saturday, October 25th, 2003

Source: abraham-hicks.com
It's all about "how much you made when you were right" & "how little you lost when you were wrong"
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Sat May 23, 2009 4:41 pm

What do we mean by sorrow?

What do we mean by sorrow? You see a child with a healthy body and a lovely face, with bright, intelligent eyes and a happy smile. As he grows older, he is put through the machine of so-called education. He is made to conform to a particular pattern of society, and that joy, that spontaneous delight in life, is destroyed.

It is sad to see such things happen, is it not? It is sad to lose someone whom you love. It is sad to realize that one has responded to all the challenges of life in a petty, mediocre way. And is it not sad when love ends in a small backwater of this vast river of life? It is also sad when ambition drives you, and you achieve—only to find frustration. It is sad to realize how small the mind is—not someone else’s mind but one’s own.

Though it may acquire a great deal of knowledge, though it may be very clever, cunning, erudite, the mind is still a very shallow, empty thing; and the realization of this fact does bring a sense of sadness, sorrow.But there is a much more profound sadness than any of these—the sadness that comes with the realization of loneliness, isolation.

Though you are among friends, in a crowd, at a party, or talking to your wife or husband, you suddenly become aware of a vast loneliness; there is a sense of complete isolation, which brings sorrow. And there is also the sorrow of ill health.The Collected Works vol XI, p 285

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Sun May 24, 2009 4:05 pm

Attachment is one of the causes of sorrow

One of the causes of suffering is attachment. Being attached and finding it is painful, we try to cultivate detachment, which is another horror. Why is the mind attached? An attachment is a form of occupation for the mind.

If I am attached to you, I am thinking about you, I am worrying about you. I am concerned about you in my self-centred way because I don’t want to lose you, I don’t want you to be free, I don’t want you to do something which disturbs my attachment. In that attachment I feel somewhat secure. So in attachment there is fear, jealousy, anxiety, suffering.

Now, just look at it. Don’t say, “What am I to do?” You can’t do anything. If you try to do something about your attachment, then you are trying to create another form of attachment. Right? So just observe it.

When you are attached to a person or an idea, you dominate that person, you want to control that person, you deny freedom to that person. When you are attached, you are denying freedom altogether.

If I am attached to a communist ideal, then I bring destruction to others. If the mind sees that loneliness, attachment, is one of the causes of sorrow, is it possible for the mind to be free of attachment?

Talks in Saanen 1974, pp 49-50

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com
It's all about "how much you made when you were right" & "how little you lost when you were wrong"
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Sun May 24, 2009 4:34 pm

From "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius. Very deep book. He wrote it >1850 years ago on the battle fields ..

Quotations

If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now. (VIII. 47, trans. George Long)

A cucumber is bitter. Throw it away. There are briers in the road. Turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add, "And why were such things made in the world?" (VIII. 50, trans. George Long)

Soon you'll be ashes or bones. A mere name at most--and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, trivial. (V. 33, trans. Gregory Hays)

Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust or lose your sense of shame or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill-will or hypocrisy or a desire for things best done behind closed doors. (III. 7, trans. Gregory Hays)

Not to feel exasperated or defeated or despondent because your days aren't packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human--however imperfectly--and fully embrace the pursuit you've embarked on. (V. 9, trans. Gregory Hays)

Let opinion be taken away, and no man will think himself wronged. If no man shall think himself wronged, then is there no more any such thing as wrong. (IV. 7, trans. Méric Casaubon)

(...) As for others whose lives are not so ordered, he reminds himself constantly of the characters they exhibit daily and nightly at home and abroad , and of the sort of society they frequent; and the approval of such men, who do not even stand well in their own eyes has no value for him. (III. 4, trans. Maxwell Staniforth)

Take away your opinion, and there is taken away the complaint, [...] Take away the complaint, [...] and the hurt is gone (IV. 7, trans. George Long)

Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together: your own existence and the things that happen to you. (V. 8, trans. Gregory Hays)

Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good. (IV. 17, trans. George Long)

Do not then consider life a thing of any value. For look at the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations? (IV. 50, trans. George Long)

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own-not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. (II. 1, trans. Gregory Hays)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Sun May 24, 2009 8:22 pm

From "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius:-

Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature and end thy journey in content, just like when an love falls off when it's ripe blessing nature who produced it and thanking the tree on which it grew ..

When thou hast done a good act and another has received it, why dost thou look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return ?

In the morning, when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present - "I am rising to the work of a human being " ..
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Sun May 24, 2009 10:12 pm

On The Web: Positive Psychology Tips by Bob Tschannen-Moran

One of the most popular classes at Harvard University is a course called Positive Psychology, taught by Tal Ben-Shahar, which focuses on topics such as "happiness, self-esteem, empathy, friendship, love, achievement, creativity, music, spirituality, and humor". Last September I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Ben-Shahar at a conference where he summarized some of the current research on how to be happy.

So what does current research recommend? Here's a quick summary as reported in the June 2009 issue of Consumer Reports on Health:

Count the positive. People who literally counted their blessings had a greater sense of well-being in several studies conducted by researchers at the University of Miami and the University of California, Davis.

Be thankful. People experience a better mood for up to a month after they gave a letter of gratitude to someone who had been kind to them.

Make friends. Chronic loneliness is associated with higher rates of high blood pressure, inactivity, smoking, and stress, according to several studies.

Volunteer. People who donated an average of four hours a week to good causes reported a greater sense of optimism, self-esteem, and sociability, a February 2009 Australian study found.

Focus on the present. Employees who participated in an eight-week meditation course based on mindfulness, or focusing on the here and now, reported less anxiety -- and brain scans showed greater activity in the region associated with happiness even four months after the course ended.

Follow your passion. Too often we "give up the things we enjoy and end up with a very thin life," says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ph.D., a psychology professor a Claremont on Graduate University in California. So identify what you love doing, or want to try, then do it.

Move. Exercise helps give you a sense of control and can ease depression as effectively as medication.

Laugh. That may reduce stress, help maintain a healthy immune system, and improve arterial blood flow.
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Mon May 25, 2009 10:26 am

Self-pity is the root of sorrow

Sorrow is rooted in self-pity, and to understand sorrow there must first be a ruthless operation on all self-pity. I do not know if you have observed how sorry for yourself you become, for example, when you say, “I am lonely.” The moment there is self-pity you have provided the soil in which sorrow takes root.

However much you may justify your self-pity, rationalize it, polish it, cover it up with ideas, it is still there, festering deep within you. So a man who would understand sorrow must begin by being free of this brutal, self-centred, egotistic triviality which is self-pity. You may feel self-pity because you have a disease, or because you have lost someone by death, or because you have not fulfilled yourself and are therefore frustrated, dull; but whatever its cause, self-pity is the root of sorrow.

And when once you are free of self-pity, you can look at sorrow without either worshipping it, or escaping from it, or giving it a sublime, spiritual significance, such as saying that you must suffer to find God—which is utter nonsense.

The Collected Works vol XIV, p 211

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Mon May 25, 2009 4:05 pm

Act a little less and think a little more... We're not saying stop acting and do it all in mind. We're saying work your 8 hours or your 10 hours or your 16 hours.. Just spend at least 10 or 15 minutes -- in a day where you are working 8-10-16 hours of physical action in order to maintain the physical stuff that you've gathered around you -- trying to find pleasure from some vision.

Afford yourself that. And that 10 or 15 minutes that you are finding pleasure, will cause a focalization of Energy within you that the Universe will actualize around. You will begin to notice that you are more productive, because of 15 minutes of visualization, than you were from 16 hours of hard labor.

--- Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in Boston, MA on Saturday, October 9th, 1999

Source: abraham-hicks.com
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Re: Life (Nov08 - May09)

Postby winston » Tue May 26, 2009 10:27 am

The immense collective sorrow

To end sorrow is to face the fact of one’s loneliness, one’s attachment, one’s petty little demand for fame, one’s hunger to be loved; it is to be free of self-concern and the puerility of self-pity. And when one has gone beyond all that and has perhaps ended one’s personal sorrow, there is still the immense collective sorrow, the sorrow of the world.

One may end one’s sorrow by facing in oneself the fact and the cause of sorrow—and that must take place for a mind that would be completely free. But when one has finished with all that, there is still the sorrow of extraordinary ignorance that exists in the world—not the lack of information, of book knowledge, but man’s ignorance of himself.

The lack of understanding of oneself is the essence of ignorance, which brings about this immensity of sorrow that exists throughout the world. And what actually is sorrow? You see, there are no words to explain sorrow, any more that there are words to explain what love is.

The Collected Works vol XIII, p 253

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com
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