TheSongsofDistantEarth

Babananda, are you connected to the 'Babaji's Kriya Yoga' that M. Govindan teaches?

Interesting vibe, this Babananda has.

Hi Babs, what's Biff been up to?

What happened?!? Let's all have two beers and start this thread up again!

This is a thread for those musings, observations, rantings, thanks, thoughts, and perceptions of modern daily life. Life today can be wonderful, insane, peaceful, chaotic, frightening, overwhelming and absurd, sometimes all in the same day. Many times I'll have some thoughts or observations about something in life that doesn't deserve a thread of it's own, but I would still like to share or express. So here is a chance for you to just put up whatever is on your mind, and perhaps express something that you wouldn't ordinarily get a chance to express. I thought about making it a personal practice discussion, but it's not just for my observations, but everybody's. So, I'll kick things off... Certainly we all are aware of the increased pace of life, the constant stimulation and the correspondent increased need for stimulation. One way this happens is visually, more and more we are bombarded with advertising, often in places where none was before. Our eyes and minds and attention spans get more and more attuned to stimuli, and the attention constantly seeks that little 'dopamine squirt' that comes from things like surfing the internet or texting or checking emails. We also are unused to silence, and are uncomfortable with it. Every so often I go way out away from things to a ranch or a canyon, and i am taken with how much texture and fullness real silence has. Then just a trace of a light breeze across the ear creates and even fuller, three dimensional silence. I can feel the silence in my body. I actually remember what true silence feels like, in my normal state of mind, it escapes me. As I get older, I find myself wanting silence more and noise and sound less. I have a really wonderful audiophile stereo system, and I find myself listening to it less. Sometimes 2 or 3 months will go by and I don't turn it on. I also find myself switching off music or npr in the car and just driving in silence, focusing on my breathing or doing mantra...om mani padme hum...

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Making a living involving anything to do with metal is a life to be avoided.

This I heard on NPR this morning at 6 a.m.(paraphrased): A child in Europe was upset because his pet chicken became lost. Apparently the parents tweeted about it and the tweet was passed on to the United States. A reply came back to look across the road and that's where they found the chicken. *boing*!!! In a way in which I can't express in words, this had a similar effect of a Zen Koan (although, to be honest, I never really 'got' Zen Koans. I mean, 'one hand clapping' and all that. I understand them intellectually, but it was always an unbridgeable chasm to the 'aha!'). But somehow, this little story just shifted my reality in a big way and gave me the 'aha!' transformation. It works on numerous levels which are hard to articulate. The truth in that old riddle. The Nature of Chickens. The Nature of Roads. The True Nature of Life...and so on. It's still reverberating in me hours later. Go figure...

Stig...we all know...but we ain't tellin'!

Oh, please. I have used all of them and they aren't all that great. I'll bet the movie was based on more potent nootropics, of which psycheledics have the greatest possibilities. For example, low-dose LSD, on the order of 25 mcg, gives super clarity and energy for performing tasks, and doing them with focus. I think the filmmakers may have drawn some little inspiration from the -racetam family, but they are pretty boring and don't point to anything like the movie.

Click on link below. Best watched HD fullscreen, with headphones in a dark room. The metaphysical and spiritual content is wordlessly apparent, especially after several viewings. Enjoy! Sync

I wouldn't mind having some NZT for those days when you need to be Oh So Fresh and on your toes. Kinda seemed like cocaine a little bit without the usual downsides. A few years ago I met Sasha Shulgin, the chemist who explored many different phenyethylamines (see the book 'PIKHAL') and Tryptamines ('TIKHAL'), and was responsible for re-discovering the possibilities of MDMA and, for better or for worse, popularizing it. A conversation I had with him as well as an underground chemist that had once worked closely with him was there were at least several other compounds that enables super-normal abilities, like being able to see in complete darkness and a little known phenyethylamine that made you much 'smarter' and with greatly expanded memory capabilities (I would venture that this compound is what gave rise to the whole idea of 'NZT' and this movie...apparently, it was a rare, hard to get drug that occasionally popped up with use in grad students in Boston and Chicago at one time a few years back). While my psychedelic days are far behind me, watching this movie really re-awakened the excitement and possibility those classes of compounds held. I used to be very curious about these chemicals, both natural and synthetic. Much of the interesting, esoteric street stuff largely became unavailable on the black market after the government passed the law making drugs with similar structures (analogs) illegal, and when they really began watching the purchase of precursor chemicals and ingredients for most of these compounds. Oh, well. Perhaps some day human beings will be free to experiment freely, until then, the Man is watching.

Spiritual exercise for -K- and Sifu Garry: Listen to Tolle tapes until his voice no longer bothers you and you will be enlightened* *not really, but you will have accomplished some degree of something, I'm not sure what, though.

Nice. I agree about how the funkier places open up the conversation to wider spaces.

I still loosely hide behind the anonymity of the internet, not revealing my identity in my profile, mostly because I wish to be unfettered in my expression. So perhaps that's why my 'notoriety' score is rather high.(Although some bums know who I am through private conversations, hehe).

I think your sentiments are shared by many here. I believe that I am a monk at heart, and often fantasize about joining a monastery. But there is something within me which resists running away from life that I haven't mastered. I would only allow myself to be a monk if I felt successful in ordinary life. I believe that Gurdjieff espoused these same sentiments, that one needs the material of ordinary life as 'grist for the mill'. Absenting oneself from that often leads to spiritual sterility if one is not truly ready.

It's not that controversial. There is no evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus.

Sounds right to me!

Interesting read, not on Taoism, but on Bushido, the Japanese 'Code of Honor' from the Age of the Samurai. It speaks to what you are asking, I think. So I would say no, honor is not bullshit.

I think people look at profiles after interesting or provocative posts, both of which I do, even if they are not often 'popular'. I am surprised Vajrahridaya didn't make the list.

Poetry. Throbbing veins begging to be lanced?

Poetry. Real Poetry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZZajMAbCag&feature=related Down To You Joni Mitchell Everything comes and goes Marked by lovers and styles of clothes Things that you held high And told yourself were true Lost or changing as the days come down to you Down to you Constant stranger You're a kind person You're a cold person too It's down to you It all comes down to you. You go down to the pick up station Craving warmth and beauty You settle for less than fascination A few drinks later you're not so choosy When the closing lights strip off the shadows On this strange new flesh you've found Clutching the night to you like a fig leaf You hurry To the blackness And the blankets To lay down an impression And your loneliness In the morning there are lovers in the street They look so high You brush against a stranger And you both apologize Old friends seem indifferent You must have brought that on Old bonds have broken down Love is gone Ooh, love is gone Written on your spirit this sad song Love is gone Everything comes and goes Pleasure moves on too early And trouble leaves too slow Just when you're thinking You've finally got it made Bad news comes knocking At your garden gate Knocking for you Constant stranger You're a brute-you're an angel You can crawl-you can fly too It's down to you It all comes down to you Ooh, love is gone Written on your spirit this sad song Love is gone Everything comes and goes Pleasure moves on too early And trouble leaves too slow Just when you're thinking You've finally got it made Bad news comes knocking At your garden gate Knocking for you Constant stranger You're a brute-you're an angel You can crawl-you can fly too It's down to you It all comes down to you