Life 04 (Aug 09 - Sep 09)

[winston]

Of Lost Souls and Lucky Stiffs by Alexander Greenm, Spiritual Wealth

I was saddened to read my parents' obituaries this week.

They have often been described as dear friends, "good people," and pillars of the community.

In our small hometown, for instance, my Dad was - at one time or another - President of just about everything: the Chamber of Commerce, the YMCA, the Rotary Club, the perpetually strapped local golf club, and so on.

Yet their obituaries don't begin to capture them as individuals.

Maybe that's why they had me read them. After all, they're not dead yet.

In fact, I don't know anyone more alive...

Though close to 80, my parents are active, healthy and - as always - having the time of their lives, even playing a particularly vicious game of doubles ping-pong and regularly beating the pants off my wife Karen and me.

So why am I reading their obituaries?

Some people can't deal with the thought of their eventual demise. My parents don't have that problem.

The living trust is done. The will is updated. The funeral plans are made. The kids have all been told which knickknacks around the house will be whose.

Now I learn their obituaries are written, too. But not particularly well...

The information they've jotted down is skeletal, bare facts that don't begin to do the job.

For instance, there's a long list of relatives and descriptions of who predeceased whom. But where's the beef?

Where's the story about the time my mother awoke in the middle of the night when she heard someone poking around under the bed and - assuming it was me - chased a burglar down the stairs and out of the house?

Or the time the family station wagon broke down on the way back from a ski trip and we decided to hitchhike the last 40 miles home? Since there were five of us (my Dad, my three brothers and me), we split into two groups so it would be easier to catch a ride. It's an odd memory: riding in a stranger's car on a freezing winter day, passing my Dad and younger brother on the side of the road with their thumbs in the air... and not stopping.

Obituaries don't always cover important milestones like these.

And that's unfortunate. After all, an obituary is not just a notice of a death. It's the story of a life, perhaps even an inspiration for the eulogy or the start of a memorial.

In the best cases, an obituary can rise to the level of literature. In 1988, an unsigned obit of jazz great Chet Baker in The Times of London said:

There were certainly off-nights, but even when his trumpet tone was practically transparent, his singing voice a whisper, and the music seemingly in imminent danger of coming to an absolute halt, his innate musicianship could still achieve small miracles of wounded grace.

Other obits, like this one by Hugh Massingberd of The Daily Telegraph, are less poetic:

The 3rd Lord Moynihan, who has died in Manila, aged 55, provided, through his character and career, ample ammunition for critics of the hereditary principle. His chief occupations were bongo-drummer, confidence trickster, brothel-keeper, drug-smuggler and police informer..."

Most of us, of course, will never be famous enough to merit an obituary in The New York Times or some other national paper.

Rather the first and only time your hometown paper will write a word about the vast majority of local citizens is when they've "gone to their reward."

As obit writer Richard Pearson likes to say, "God is my assignment editor."

And it's a tough job. Working in the hurricane of emotion that swirls around the newly dead, the obituary writer routinely deals with unknown subjects and distraught survivors while doing his or her best - on a tight deadline - to write something accurate, lively and memorable.

Even under the best circumstances, summing up a life is an awesome responsibility. The goal is to honor the deceased, to inform the community, to help families learn more about one of their own members - and perhaps about themselves.

Obituaries weigh someone's life and accomplishments, communicating the significance of a person, a place, an era.

The best are not simply portraits of grief. They inspire the living, reminding us what matters most.

Obituaries don't mention the budget meeting, the pay raise, the financial statement or the Rolex Presidential.

Rather they remind us of the importance of family, friendship, and community, perhaps inspiring us to emulate the best qualities of the deceased.

That will be a tall order when my parents' day comes. Their attitude, humor and irrepressible zest for living have set a near-impossible standard for the rest of the family.

Still, it's a star to steer by.

As Marilyn Johnson, author of "The Dead Beat" says, I wish I'd known him is the response every good obit writer tries to elicit.

And something the rest of us might endeavor to deserve.

[winston]

The Being In The Mirror

When you look in the mirror, how often do you look into your own eyes? And not to judge the color or shape or wrinkles around it, but to actually see a living being, to acknowledge the person staring back at you.

When we interact with someone in front of us, we look into their eyes and acknowledge them as a human being, a fellow traveler, a spirit or soul. We don't scrutinize their face and inspect it for flaws, nor do we gloss over them as though they were just a body in front of us (well, hopefully we don't). We try to make a connection, giving them the respect of eye contact and genuine interest in who they are. We look into their eyes to see who we find and we connect to a real live living, breathing human being.

Rarely do we do this with ourselves. When we look at ourselves in front of the mirror, we often look at everything BUT our self. More often than not, we look at the physical attributes and flaws. We can spend hours looking into the mirror and never truly see ourselves. Many of us spend a lifetime looking in mirrors every day and never truly see ourselves.

Start today and acknowledge your SELF in the mirror. Every time you pass a mirror, use it as an opportunity to connect with yourself, say "Hi", and recognize the being behind the eyes. Treat your reflection as you would a stranger or friend, giving it at least the courtesy of a simple greeting. Instead of acknowledging a wrinkle or a blemish, acknowledge the life force flowing out from the eyes, acknowledge the beautiful soul staring back at you through your own eyes.

Source: www.FollowYourSoul.com.

[winston]

Time as a movement of the infinite past

Every human being is caught in time. I am not talking about time by the watch, chronological time which does influence thought, but of time at a different level, time as a movement of the infinite past, moving through the present to some future. As long as I am caught in that, there is no end to sorrow.

I say to myself, “I’ll be happy tomorrow; I’ll escape from my present misery, my deep inner psychological disturbance which brings about sorrow. I’ll gradually get over it, forget it, rationalize it, escape from it or invent some future hope.”

But to end suffering I must understand time. Time must come to an end, because thought has created sorrow, thought is time, thought has said, “I’m lonely; I’m of incapable of functioning; I’m not loved; my ambition, my capacity is not fulfilling itself. I must have time to do this, and time to achieve, to become, to change.”

The Collected Works vol XVI, p 142

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com

[kennynah]

time possibly has no end... einstein discovered that light, which is a measurement of time, bends in space. to be exact, light moves in the path of space and if space bends, light bends with it.. this was his reknown Relativity Theory..

so, if space can bend ...it could always bend one full circle with a very very large circumference...so large, we just can't see it... but if this was true, then light will go one merry go round.... and hence, time has no end...

[winston]

My Life Is about My Relationships... You will never find yourself in a point in time when the subject of relationships is not an active part of your now experience, for everything you perceive or notice or know is because of your relationship with something else.

Without a comparative experience, you would be unable to perceive or focus any kind of understanding within yourself. Therefore, it is accurate to say that without relationships you could not exist at all.

--- Abraham

Excerpted from from Abraham's newest book, The Vortex, Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships

Source: abraham-hicks.com

[winston]

You must endeavor to understand the principle of Divinity. Nobody in this world can help you in the ways the Divine rushes toyour help. Hence surrender yourself to the Divine, and pray for His help. Also devotion to the Divine safeguards your ancient culture.

People get haunted by misery and grief when they forget the Diviine. Control your emotions. Do not entertain evil thoughts. Develop Love. Love all and all will love you. Sing the glory of the Divine. In doing so, you would have rendered a great help to the whole world. Chant the Divine's Name and make your heart sacred.

- Divine Discourse, Oct 9 2002

Source" radiosai.org

[winston]

You are the master of time

You are the past, the present, and the future. You are that. You are the master of time, and you can shorten the time or lengthen the time. If you are violent and you say, “I will become non-violent”, that is extending time.

During that interval of time, you are being violent, and there is no end to that kind of activity. If you realize that you are the master of time, that time is in your hands, which is an extraordinarily important thing to find out, that means you face the fact of violence. You don’t pursue non-violence, but face the fact of violence, and in that observation there is no time at all, because in that observation there is neither the observer nor all the past accumulation, there is only pure observation. In that there is no time.

Are you doing this? When the speaker is talking about it, are you actually seeing the truth of it and therefore doing it?

Suppose I have a particular habit, physical or psychological, can the habit end immediately? Or will I take time to end a habit? Suppose you smoke; can you end that habit immediately? The craving of the body for nicotine is different from the perception that you are the master of time. You can shorten the time, and therefore that perception is not a decision not to smoke.

On Love and Loneliness, p 94

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com

[winston]

My Most Important Relationship Is With My Source...

There is no relationship of greater importance to achieve than the relationship between you, in your physical body, right here and now, and the Soul/Source/God from which you have come.

If you tend to that relationship, first and foremost, you will then, and only then, have the stable footing to proceed into other relationships. Your relationship with your own body; your relationship with money; your relationship with your parents, children, grandchildren, the people you work with, your government, your world . . . will all fall swiftly and easily into alignment once you tend to this fundamental, primary relationship first.

--- Abraham

Excerpted from from Abraham's newest book, The Vortex, Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships

Source: abraham-hicks.com

[winston]

My Most Important Relationship Is With My Source...

There is no relationship of greater importance to achieve than the relationship between you, in your physical body, right here and now, and the Soul/Source/God from which you have come.

If you tend to that relationship, first and foremost, you will then, and only then, have the stable footing to proceed into other relationships. Your relationship with your own body; your relationship with money; your relationship with your parents, children, grandchildren, the people you work with, your government, your world . . . will all fall swiftly and easily into alignment once you tend to this fundamental, primary relationship first.

--- Abraham

Excerpted from from Abraham's newest book, The Vortex, Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships

Source: abraham-hicks.com

[winston]

Control your emotions. Develop Love. Do not entertain evil thoughts.

Nothing can confer the experience of bliss that the proximity of the Divine gives. Love all and all will love you. Share your love even with your pet animals and you can see how they reciprocate your love.

As you think, so you become. You are bound to experience the reflection, reaction and resound of your feelings, be they good or bad. If you see bad in others, it is a reflection of your own bad feelings. It is a mistake to blame others ignoring your own faults. Purify your feelings as a first step as quickly as you can.

-Divine Discourse, Oct 9, 2002.

Source: radiosai.org