Ulises

I hear you. I feel more and more in love with the mystery of who we are..of course I have and honor my ancestry, but I feel more and more a human animal, a ecstatic terran,more interested in: "The most ancient Eurasian mystical traditions achieving a state of Communion that discloses the true, single nature of all animate and inanimate entities veiled by the illusion of inherent multiplicity—including Indian Shaivism, Himalayan Bön, Chinese Taoism, Persian Zurvanism, the Egyptian cult of Osiris and the Greek Dionysian mysteries.." from Capriles, E., (enero 2007 ), “From Primal to Postmodern Ecommunism.” http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/humanidades/elicap/en/Main/BookChapters

Why the end of nationalism is good for you Let’s burn the flags of all nations No more nation-states No more patriotism Try it, you’ll like it Welcome to the post-national future Coming sooner than you think Because we’ve had enough of endless statements Like this one by India’s Environment Minister: “National interest trumps all else.” Or this one by the President of Turkey: “No one should test the power of the state.” But why not test the power of the state? Why does an abstraction come Before the needs and desires of real people? What if there were no Israel, no China, no Indonesia? No Iraq, no Iran, no United States? Too radical for you? Maybe you’d rather remain a glutton for punishment Continue swallowing non-negotiable declarations such as the following:“No government allows any organization to intervene in its internal affairs.” That’s a Thai government spokesman in 2010 During the mass demonstrations in Bangkok Rejecting the Red Shirts’ appeal for peace talks But nation-states are not the same as countries The Mayan or Amazonian or Tibetan people Will get along perfectly well Without an artificial nation-state to define them Because countries don’t wage war, governments do War presents itself as necessary for self-preservation When in fact it’s necessary for self-identification As long as we identify with nation-states We know ourselves by what we oppose Not by who we are And who are we? We are one No need for separation The only way to say it We’re all one All humans on the planet Same heart, same mind, same eyes Or would you rather turn a blind eye To developments such as the following: A Botswana judge has ruled that Bushmen Who return to their ancestral lands In the Central Kalahari Game Reserve Are not allowed to drill wells for water This decision condemns them to having to walk Up to 380 kilometers to fetch water In one of the driest places on earth However, tourists to the reserve Staying at Wilderness Safaris’ new lodge Will enjoy the use of a swimming pool and bar While Gem Diamonds’s planned mine in the reserve Can use all the water it needs on condition None is given to the Bushmen Bushman spokesman Jumanda Gakelebone said, “If we don’t have water How are we expected to live?” No human illegal No more national borders generated out of fear Out of a total failure of trust Arbitrary fictions laid down on the landscape In reality they don’t exist And if you believe they should, tell me this What of all those who came before Swearing fealty to other flags at the cost of their lives? Down through history conquerors, pillagers, colonizers Who are we to claim this land—any land—is ours? Go back far enough and we’re all illegal immigrants But things are different now It’s dawning on us why we’re here We’re here to change our presence on this earth Release the stranglehold of the nation-state Find our way to true community By trusting—can we do that?—ourselves and each other Living democracy in real time rather than in a voting booth No more nationalism Cloud clover for demogogues and racists America-firsters (or Russia-firsters, etc.) What are they afraid of? That they’ll melt into all us other humans? But that’s exactly what’s happening, like it or not Reality of the Internet, everyone alive today our IP addresses Floating in space Just like the planet No more nation-states benefiting those in power Mimicking individual egos in combat Battling for vanishing resources, for territory, lebensraum Using the sentimental hook of tribal identification to maintain order What’s called “The United States of America” a rank hallucination “Russia,” “Myanmar,” “Nigeria,” and on and on Hallucinations generated for profit and control For suppression of the human spirit But the human spirit knows no boundaries No ID cards, no cradle-to-grave oversight It’s time to step outside of the trance Walk among the trees, listen to the birds Do you think they belong to something called the U.S.A.? Do they fall in line behind “Old Glory?” ...And ain’t it strange, hundreds of old glories across the globe Each meant to be defended to the death Tears streaming down the faces of deluded patriots (The chips were installed at birth) Who drop their flag only to pick up a weapon And murder those unlucky enough to be holding a different flag Fiction, trance, rank hallucination Yes, it’s against the law to burn the American flag And how many other flags around the world 192 member states of the United Nations From Afghanistan (when will we ever learn?) To Zimbabwe (the less said the better) Outmoded nationalism, we’re outgrowing it No more electrified fences lit by floodlights of paranoia No more making the nation-state safe for surveillance But here’s some magic for you Burn any of those 192 flags and before you’re arrested You’ll see one of the wonders of the natural world The ashes will form a spiral opening out to the stars Cotton and rayon and nylon and polyester Released at last from their symbols Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself No more patriots marching under One or flag or another, heads held high Legitimizing a myth of separation The myth that we humans who started As a single band in the prehistoric night Now can only act from our differences Beating our chests, teary-eyed In a futile attempt to retrieve Long-lost trust and solidarity Rationalizing mayhem and extermination Forgetting who profits from separation The corporate, political, and military leaders Of fictional entities founded in our name Let’s burn the flags of all nations Either join together or the human experiment dissolves In a flaming brew of war and environmental disaster The curse of nationalism Everyone stuck in their own cultural narrative A cage rather than a playground It’s time to open gates, tear down fences, shred passports Roam wherever we like Along rivers and mountains without end Because we ourselves are those rivers and mountains Our lock-tight identities due for game-changing transformation Here and now time to exhale We’re all one No human illegal Mexicans, Guatemalans, whoever else is out there Let them come, let them swarm over Gringostan’s border What are we afraid of, that they’ll find out what we’re really like? Afraid they’ll compromise the American way of life? But what is the American way of life? Everything for sale Every last one of us prostitutes, hustling something Methamphetamine trailers lighting up the high plains night Strip malls from sea to shining sea All for another slice of virtual pizza While the other nation-states are busy copying us But these campesinos Why are they stampeding across our borders? If their local, village-based mode of survival Were still functioning after corporate capital’s depradations After the bait-and-switch called Free Trade After the drug violence fueled by our cocaine habit Do you really believe they’d leave families and ancestral lands For a life of drudgery in the icy heart of the North? Can you imagine what those who’ve risked their lives To cross the border are thinking As they clean our toilets and mow the lawns Outside our cheesy McMansions While we sprawl in the family room Sucking up doses of radiation from our plasma screens? Hey, that’s not me, man: I’m not watching TV. I’m fixated on my new iPad. I’m pecking away at my Blackberry, dude. I’m cheering myself hoarse for the home team while the world burns... What if, on the contrary, these campesinos secretly envy us What if they want their deracinated children To grow into big-time consumers just like us? What if they can’t wait until their children Turn into dark-skinned versions of our tight white selves? Dios Mio... And democracy, our claim to fame Time for a reality check We don’t live in a democracy Voting means getting lost in make-believe As soon as more than ten thousand people are involved Approximate size of the polis in ancient Greece Where citizens encountered one another face to face Knew their strengths and foibles Knew the skeletons in their closets Their families and ancestors Whereas in modern mega-states Do we know who represents us? Fantasies concocted by spin doctors and handlers If you doubt it (and have enough pull) Approach the leader of any nation-state It doesn’t matter what their politics are The only question is How deep into trance is this person? Wave your hand in front of the face Watch the eyes light up When you say you’ll vote for it Watch the eyes go cold When you say you won’t Only local democracy is real When allowed to function, that is Living democracy of community movements Farmers in Africa planting trees on barren land Cooperative ventures worldwide While left and right, socialist and capitalist Two sides of the same grabby coin Solidifying the delusion that we get somewhere Only at the expense of others And—haven’t you noticed?—the game is never won Over the centuries always a sense Of impending emergency, of corruption and betrayal The open field of existence Tricked into gigantic hoardings of mine and yours The question is Do we have what it takes to clear the deck And work out a new way of life The planet is calling to us in a voice louder than politics Sweeter than vested interests Can you hear her? She’s asking for change That’s the only reason astronauts were allowed up in space To see a global intelligence unfolding A vast gathering of ecologies One flowing into the next Rivers and mountains without end To see that we’re all one Humans and plants, animals and spirits, sky and ocean No more nation-states No more patriotism Try it, you’ll like it MIchael Brownstein http://www.realitysandwich.com/lets_burn_flags_all_nations

I could'nt agree more... ; )

Of course! Now we know - if we believe the scholar/mystic Peter Kingsley - that Native Americans, and Gnostics share the same shamanic roots...

I understand your doubts. I only can say that I've attended a gathering of Shaking Medicine with him and he is a force of nature...or more simply, he is real. I have learnt to trust my intuition and I can say that his presence was like a mirror. Nothing fishy, just a big, big heart. I witnessed his interactions with the ladies: What can I say? Palyful, as with everything, but clear. And his curriculum (Academic and shamanic) is amazing, truly "one of the great therapists of our time", recognised by the greatest psychologists (as Ernest Lawerence Rossi,world-class expert in the psychobiology fo the body-mind healing; or Heinz von Foerster, father of the cybernetic thinking...just that) I'm not a "groupie" of Keeney, but I recognise the real gold (and the false gold) when I meet it. The money thing? oh well..I don't know how much it is this adventure, but I'm so glad I could attend the Shaking gathering (it wasn't cheap...it wasn't expensive): it keeps going an amazing (challenging) catalyst of blissful change in my life, Keeney has good medicine...he knows how to awake your own medicine

A fresh experiential approach... Inner relationship Focusing (many people from different spiritual paths are using it with great success as an excellent tool for emotional healing) http://www.focusingresources.com/articles/inner-relationship-focusing.html http://www.futureprimitive.org/2009/01/radical-acceptance-ann-weiser-cornell/ Presence Meets "Ego" by Ann Weiser Cornell What is “ego”? Is “ego” something bad that should be eliminated? I’m hearing this question a lot these days, so I decided to do some research. I discovered that there are two very different definitions of “ego.” The Freudian term “ego” refers to “the organized part of the personality structure” (according to Wikipedia) which includes conscious awareness. Then there is the Buddhist ego, which seems to be what my questioners are wondering about. “Ego, in the Buddhist sense, is quite different from the Freudian ego. The Buddhist ego is a collection of mental events…” (from “An Overview of Buddhism” by Mike Butler) I found a number of writings in which “ego” in the Buddhist sense is treated quite negatively. The message is, this is something you’d be better not to have. For example: “The deepest meaning of ignorance is the believing in, identifying with and clinging to the ego, which as we have seen, is nothing but an illusive mental phenomenon.” (“Ego and Desire,” www.mathri.com) Eckhart Tolle is one of these writers. In his book A New Earth he writes: “The ego tends to equate having with Being: I have, therefore I am. And the more I have, the more I am. The ego lives through comparison. ... The extent of the ego's inability to recognize itself and see what it is doing is staggering and unbelievable.” So, according to these systems, there is something called “the ego” -- and it is spoken of with such disdain and contempt that one naturally concludes the ”ego” is bad and should be eliminated. A Process, not an Entity Now, if you read these writers carefully, you see that none of them actually advocate saying to a part of one’s self, “Bad ego! Go away!” Buddhism has an eightfold path that involves building up positive practices such as right view, right intention, and so on. Tolle recommends an awareness process that emphasizes the present moment. (And he says, for example, “There is nothing you can do to become free of the ego.”) So why is it that when we read these writers we have the strong tendency to treat a part of ourselves as bad and assume that trying to eliminate it would be a good idea? I believe it has to do with the labeling process itself. What is essentially a process has been given a name—a noun, a label. Add the contemptuous tone, and you have a classic “exiling” of an aspect of self. If the problem is labeling, then what is the solution? I’d say we need to shift our language—and the new language brings with it a shift in how we understand, treat, and interact with the phenomenon in question. Rather than saying, “My ego says…” or “That’s just my ego wanting that,” let’s say instead: “Something in me says…” or “Something in me wants…” By saying it this way, we begin to get curious about what is going on with it, from its point of view. We take the first step toward an inner relationship that can lead to its transformation. And if there is some part of us that has an objection to doing that, we can turn with curiosity toward that as well. We may discover that a part of us doesn’t want us to be curious and compassionate toward that part called “ego” because it holds the belief that the “ego” part is incorrigibly, unchangeably bad and wrong. I can’t help but notice how alike that is to some social and political beliefs: “Don’t even talk to that person (or that type of person) because they are [LABEL].” Thus we stay stuck, inwardly and outwardly as well. Fear and Ego I remember hearing a noted New Age author being interviewed on the radio. She said, “Fear is the ego’s way of keeping us small.” From my way of thinking, that sentence contains assumptions that are unlikely to contribute to transformation. In other words: when you see the world that way, you stay stuck. How remarkably everything shifts if, instead of saying “fear,” we say, “Something in me is afraid.” Then we start to get curious about what would happen if we get to know it (this something) better. The same kind of shift happens when we treat “ego” as a process rather than an entity. “Something in me seems to want to keep something in me small.” How interesting! I wonder what’s going on for it, that it would want to do that. (And I won’t find out by reading books or listening to lectures about “ego.” I have to go inside and invite this part into a conversation where I will be the listener… because I don’t know in advance what the answer will be.) Presence and “Ego” Presence, or Self-in-Presence as Barbara McGavin and I are now calling it, is the embodied ability to be in compassionate, curious company with whatever arises in us. “Whatever arises” includes what is called “ego.” As Self-in-Presence we are not judging as bad or good, not evaluating, not labeling. Judging, evaluating, and labeling are “partial-self” experiences that perpetuate the struggle and therefore the stuckness. As Eugene Gendlin puts it, “We think we make ourselves good by not allowing the feeling of our negative ways. But that just keeps them static, the same from year to year.” (Let Your Body Interpret Your Dreams, p. 178) When we’re identified with a part of ourselves that feels the need to judge and label and eliminate other parts, then we are stuck. Tragically, we are behaving in a way that is intended to save us but will not succeed. Please understand: I am not saying that Buddhism leads to being stuck! Our ways of misunderstanding or misapplying it seem to be the problem. There may also be problems with some ways that it is taught, but that is not for me to say. Here is what I do know: Any inner aspect of experience is on our side, trying to help us, no matter how negative it may seem and even be in its current behavior. This includes what is called “ego,” what is called “critic,” and what is called “mind.” It is in the compassionate company of Self-in-Presence that the life-forward energy of any part of us can be tapped into and carried forward. This article appeared in The Focusing Connection, January 2009

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I have my reservations about some parts of this material, but I feel it's worth to share this (take it with a grain of salt): http://www.metahistory.org/tantra/base/GaiaAwakening.php http://www.futureprimitive.org/category/organiclight/

"Both the cult of the sky gods and the cult of the earth deities require their offerings and their proper respect. Both the Goddess and the devil continue to exist even today, as secret lovers in the darkness of night, while God remains alone on his throne in heaven sexually frustrated. That is perhaps why he has been in such a bad h...um...or. These two slandered against deities, the Goddess and the Devil, exiled from heaven and the light of consciousness, need to be called back from the outer darkness to which they have been banished by Western consciousness and the churches of the celestial gods. Let them return to our day time world and take their rightful places in the sun and within the temples of humanity. When the Goddess and the Devil return to the sunlit world of human consciousness and are again acknowledged with the proper cults and offerings, they will cease to be demons and the embodiments of evil, the role to which patriarchal religion and imperial monotheism now allots them. only then can the burdensome schism within humankind's psyche be healed., the split between spirit and nature. For both spirit and nature, masculinity and femininity, are part of human nature and they are complementary. The presence of both is necessary in order to realize our full potential. The one-sided exaltation of the spirit and the denial of the flesh is ultimately self-defeating because we are denying something that is part of our own being-- the external material world is not some alien planet and the physical body is not some prison of the spirit. Both the world and the body are manifestations of an inner principle that transcends the dichotomy of spirit and nature. The external is a manifestation of the internal. Monotheistic religions assert that evil and materiality will be overcome by a radical alienation-- there will be a cataclysmic end of the world, a resurrection, and a final judgment. For those judged worthy, they will thereafter abide in a purely sexless spiritual existence, in a new world of light without shadows, without evil, without matter, and without the feminine. But this scenario is not possible because both light and shadow are created by the Nature of Mind. The light and the shadow require each other; otherwise there would be only stasis, an endless boredom and ennui for all eternity. In Buddhist terms, both Samsara, the world, and Nirvana, the celestial paradise, are ultimately of the same origin-- they both proceed out of the Nature of Mind. Not even the gods know this, for it is the Great Secret of Secrets. And that realization lies behind the teachings and the methods of the Tantra. Tantra is the Way of the Serpent because the serpent is the archaic symbol of change and transformation and rebirth. It is the serpent who taught the Mysteries to the first woman in paradise at the beginning of the world. The serpent is the companion of the Earth Goddess, the Mother of all life. The serpent lives beneath the earth and in the dark waters of chaos. But it is from these same waters and the womb of the earth that all forms come forth into manifestation and enter the sunlit world of consciousness. The chthonic deities not infrequently manifest themselves in serpent form. The spirits of the dead may also appear as serpents. Moreover, the serpent is the bearer of Wisdom and the Gnosis to humanity. Whereas the celestial God would have kept primitive humanity in ignorance within the gardens of paradise during the great summer time of the world before the ice ages descended, it was the serpent, called by the ancient Sumerians Enki, the lord of the earth, who gave humankind the Gnosis of self-knowledge, for only with self-knowledge could this walking hairless ape evolve into a god. And the transmission of this Gnosis was only possible because of the alliance between the serpent and the woman. It is only the Gnosis that can liberate humanity from bondage and servitude, for the slave shall neither be liberated by faith nor by obedience to the tyrant in heaven. However, these are the images of myth and myth does not actually represent a factual chronology of events in profane history. Rather myth is a sacred history of the gods and their deeds at the very beginning of time, those creative acts which brought the world as we know it into manifestation. But at a higher level, myth tells us in narrative form something essential about the human condition. Myth is a primordial and fundamental way human beings organize their experience of the world and understand themselves. Theology and philosophy only came later; but religion and self-understanding began with vision and myth. Characteristically, as exemplified by the dragon combat myth, the patriarchal sky gods overthrow and suppress the older chthonic gods worshipped by the mothers. The great sea serpent Yam, otherwise known as Lohan or Leviathan in Canaanite mythology, was driven back and bound beneath the earth or else slain by the young celestial hero god Baal, in the same way as did the Babylonian Marduk with the dragon Tiamet, or as did Zeus with the dragon Typhon and Apollo did with the serpent Python, or as did Indra with the great serpent Vritra, and so on. Yet in the later Biblical religion, mighty Baal himself became demonized and retired beneath the earth to become a chthonic god of sex and death, banished from human consciousness by the triumphant desert god Yahweh. The prophets commanded that the Old Gods be expelled from the temple and their idols destroyed, being ground in to dust, so that none might even know and remember their names. Yet the Old Gods have lived in the shadows for far too long, and now the stars have turned in their courses once more, and the priests in their temples shall have nightmares of their return." John Myrdhin Reynolds

I'm glad we can meet here... "...And I wished he would come back, my snake. (...) For he seemed to me again like a king, Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld, Now due to be crowned again." ... D. H. Lawrence

"The real problem in the world is secrecy not leakers." http://sofiaecho.com/2010/12/23/1016331_secrecy-is-the-problem-not-leakers

In Broken Images He is quick, thinking in clear images; I am slow, thinking in broken images. He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images; I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images. Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance; Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance. Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact; Questioning their relevance, I question the fact. When the fact fails him, he questions his senses; When the fact fails me, I approve my senses. He continues quick and dull in his clear images; I continue slow ans sharp in my broken images. He in a new confusion of his understanding; I in a new understanding of my confusion. Robert Graves

Interesting...my imagination brings this image of a Terminator dressed in Buddhist robes... I'll repeat it again: My heart melts when somebody shows his Buddha/Shiva/Christ/Osiris/Dyonisos nature...each time I meet you, Vajrahridaya, I feel that the "Buddhist" has kidnapped the Buddha..."mind", "mind", "mind"...where is your hridaya...?

A war on the Self.. http://www.lorinroche.com/page8/page8.html

I am familiar with many branches of Buddhism...but the root is the same

"St. Augustine announced the triumph of Literalist fundamentalism, writing: 'Nothing is to be accepted except on the authority of scripture, since greater is that authority than all powers of the human mind'." Tim Freke A useful way to frame it: Gnostics versus Literalists: The ecstatic experience of the numinous - the Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans - is first. Then some ecstatics try to encapsulate it to be transmitted...with the infortunate results that the words - "the scriptures", Christian, Buddhist, etc. - end up being more important that the vibrant original experience...as far as I know, the First People (Bushmen of the Kalahari, Aborigianl Australians) are the only ones that have avoided to fall in that deadly literalist trap. In fact the Bushmen stress a lot that words are the dominion of the Trickster...they say that the most unseful way for words is for...teasing, creating vibrant absurd humor to "shake" the ego from any rigid understanding....

In theory, nothing to object...it's just that I'm pondering that the systematic killing of Bon shamans through centuries as the politics of Tibetan Buddhism doesn't marry well with those noble ideals... just read the book by Kingsley: all the historic data are there...

Just answer this question: Does a Buddhist want to re-incarnate..or not incarnate anymore...?

Beginners By Denise Levertov Dedicated to the memory of Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralla "From too much love of living, Hope and desire set free, Even the weariest river Winds somewhere to the sea--" But we have only begun To love the earth. We have only begun To imagine the fullness of life. How could we tire of hope? -- so much is in bud. How can desire fail? -- we have only begun to imagine justice and mercy, only begun to envision how it might be to live as siblings with beast and flower, not as oppressors. Surely our river cannot already be hastening into the sea of nonbeing? Surely it cannot drag, in the silt, all that is innocent? Not yet, not yet-- there is too much broken that must be mended, too much hurt we have done to each other that cannot yet be forgiven. We have only begun to know the power that is in us if we would join our solitudes in the communion of struggle. So much is unfolding that must complete its gesture, so much is in bud.

Sometimes, some posts I read here make me have doubts about that..but I believe you : ) "Death is the side of life averted from us, unshone upon by us: we must try to achieve the greatest consciousness of our existence which is at home in both unbounded realms, inexhaustibly nourished from both…The true figure of life extends through both: there is neither a here nor a beyond, but the great unity in which the beings that surpass us, the ‘angels’, are at home…We of the here and now are not for a moment hedged in the time-world, nor confined within it…we are incessantly flowing over and over to those who preceded us…, toward our origin, and toward those who seemingly come after us. ... It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its essence can rise again 'invisibly', inside us. We are the bees of the invisible. We wildly collect the honey of the visible, to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible." Rainer Maria Rilke "Yet: our cells remember. We can redirect our minds and consciousness with experiential perception. We can learn to feel morphic resonance (Rupert Sheldrake's term), and the living energy of all things-"the environment as our extended body". We have to spend time outside-observing, listening, connecting-to learn the environment as our extended body. Looking out a window gives what an Andean friend calls a "conceptual" picture-the idea of tree or lake-in contrast to a "perceptual" or experiential sense of a specific tree and the feeling of its bark, leaves, and shape, or the smell of wet earth, the feel of the wind, and the shifting colors of a specific lake. The more we are outside experiencing such sensations deeply, the more we become embodied parts of the whole." Meg Beeler "If we think about it, we find that our life consists in this achieving of a pure relationship between ourselves and the living universe about us. This is how I "save my soul" by accomplishing a pure relationship between me and another person, me and other people, me and a nation, me and a race of men, me and the animals, me and the trees or flowers, me and the earth, me and the skies and sun and stars, me and the moon: an infinity of pure relations, big and little, like the stars of the sky: that makes our eternity, for each one of us, me and the timber I am sawing, the lines of force I follow; me and the dough I knead for bread, me and the very motion with which I write, me and the bit of gold I have got. This, if we knew it, is our life and our eternity: the subtle, perfected relation between me and my whole circumambient universe." D. H. Lawrence