DISCIPLE OF TWO MASTERS, DISCIPLE TO LIFE

(excerpt from: The life of an ordinary guy – meeting with extra ordinary beings,
in progress, to be published one day, probably, God willing 😉

texte en français ici: https://atisupino.com/2023/07/06/disciple-a-deux-maitres/

July 6 holds a double significance in my life.

Back in 1983, when I was only 22 years old and lacking experience in this vast world, I became a disciple of Osho on this very day. It marked the beginning of a profound love story that continues to this day, even after 40 years, and will endure forever. This story, which I have yet to fully comprehend with my mind, resonates deeply within my heart and soul. It’s a story that didn’t bring me material gains, but rather stripped me of everything I thought I was. The process of deconstruction is still ongoing—a work in progress.

July 6 also commemorates the passing of Mestre Irineu, the founder of Santo Daime, a spiritual movement originating from the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. I find it impossible to use the word « death » when referring to him because he remains so vividly alive, just like Osho, by the way. On July 6, 1971, Mestre Irineu left his physical form behind to reside forever in the hearts of numerous Daimistas. Aho Senhor do Juramidam!

For the past dozen years, I have been a disciple of two masters—a relationship characterized by openness to the unknown. They are a dual source of inspiration, guiding me toward greater love and enlightenment. They serve as beacons of light in my life, resembling a sailing boat on the sea.

After Osho transformed in 1990, I never anticipated nor desired to have or follow another master. One master is more than enough, in fact, even more than enough. In truth, I hadn’t even contemplated having a master initially; it’s a profound mystery. But as they say, it’s not the disciple who chooses the master, nor the blind person who can lead the one who sees.

Thus, having been a disciple of Osho since 1983, I started engaging with the Santo Daime community around 2007 through Carioca. The Daime tradition encompasses not only the study of sacred texts but also their embodiment, living, and communal singing. In our rituals, we play together, aiming for harmony, love, truth, and justice—the four cardinal values of the movement, symbolizing the four directions. Humility serves as an additional virtue.

In 2011, during a trip to Brazil, I accompanied the head of the church in Montreal to Ceu de Dedo de Deus in Teresopolis. This visit was part of her process of formalizing the rituals surrounding this sacred beverage, irrespective of its name. I wasn’t a Daimista and hadn’t been particularly interested in becoming one. The Christian aspect of Daime often triggered my reactions and irritations. Strangely, this is what both attracted and repelled me about Daime. While I could engage with Taoism, practice zazen, recite Sanskrit mantras, or participate in indigenous rituals without any adverse reactions, the mere mention of Jesus made my hair stand on end and provoked a bodily contraction. I felt compelled to explore what was concealed within.

Later, the assertion by Jacques Mabit, a friend and founder of Takiwasi in Peru, that we should make peace with the religion we were born into further validated this intuition. There was much to explore in that regard. And with Daime, it was impossible to ignore or evade; one had to courageously venture within to truly see and feel.

Before this, I had facilitated shamanic-inspired ayahuasca ceremonies, and in my own humble way, I aimed to help formalize the rituals associated with this sacred brew, regardless of its specific name. This tea is genuinely precious. However, I never expected to become a Daimista myself.

During the summer of 2011, when I asked how I could assist, knowing that no one else could accompany the head of the church from Montreal to Brazil, I volunteered to do so. Consequently, we embarked on a three-week pilgrimage to Teresopolis, Sorocaba, and Santa Catalina.

During our stay in Teresopolis, Padrinho Ze Ricardo graciously hosted us. In the room where I was staying, I noticed an Osho book on the bedside table—a sign that spoke to me. Moreover, the website of Ceu do Dedo de Deus displayed various photos of spiritual masters, including Osho. It felt like a divine confirmation.

While we were in Teresopolis, we participated in two Daime ceremonies held in the small church of Ceu do Dedo de Deus. In between these ceremonies, I requested permission to remain there alone for a brief vision quest—a quest for clarity regarding my relationship with Daime in correlation with my discipleship to Osho. I pondered whether accepting another master would be a betrayal of Osho.

During my periods of meditation and contemplation, a vision, message, or idea arose within me—from Osho and Mestre, or perhaps from my own being? It suggested that I was entangled in my own mental struggles about them, and that in reality, they were no longer present in a form I could conceive. Instead, they embodied the same transcendent presence—a presence that transcended differences but led to the same path toward enlightenment.

At that moment, a flash of realization struck me: It was July 6, exactly 28 years since I had taken sannyas in Oregon, affirming my commitment to Osho and becoming his disciple. It was yet another divine coincidence.

Subsequently, events unfolded, gradually merging into one unified journey. Through various encounters (elaborated further in my book) and divine synchronicities, I became a Daimista and even a Padrinho of a small church nestled in the forest. It certainly wasn’t part of my initial career plan.

To ensure integration and coherence, I named this small church « Osho Daime » as a tribute to my two masters. Each, in their unique way, inspires me to strive for inner illumination, both within myself and in every human being.

Osho, with his introspective and delicate approach from the East, and Mestre Irineu, the great man from the South, embodying strength and expression—both dancing together in the realms above and within my heart.

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7/6/23
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BEING BREATH

Small relapsing chronic this morning. Inspired by these few words of Thich Nhat Hanh.

Because ultimately, the breath is all we have left, our ultimate refuge. When the world is too crazy outside, and also inside at times, we just have to breathe. All we can do is breath.

It is also said that life does not begin when our body is expelled from the womb of our mother, but rather when we take our first breath. Breath of life. And it is also said that life leaves us at the last breath.

Osho, when he spoke about breathing, was pointing to the interval between inspiration and expiration. That slight moment of suspension as we neither inhale nor exhale. This floating in time, this suspension of being. This zone neither yin nor yang, neither in nor out, where many secrets hide if we pay attention to it.

Inspiring. As the world breathes out, one breath at a time, each breath in faith.

And we can let ourself being breathed by life.

Ciao. I return to draw inspiration to continue my long-term writing.

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BEING BETWEEN THE LINES

It is this gentle being, who has written so much and so beautifully, who says this.

So I believe it. On word. As between the lines. I never met Mr Bobin during his lifetime, but having seen and heard him in a few interviews, I am certain that he incarnated his own words. That he brought them to life with his words crafted by hands. He lent them and gave them life, sweet vitality and peaceful vigour.

Last almost daily column for me for a while, an uncertain time.

Need to redirect the flow of words, need to go see who I am in my forest. I’m also shopping for a battery-powered chain saw to clean up the surrounding woods. I was going to say my woods, but not my woods at all. Only some woods, here long before me, around and among which I have lived for 12 years.

Want to take the time to write long-term, longer-term, write longer-range than on a daily basis. To write bits of my life for posterity, to pay homage to my mother, to leave to my daughters the essence of what animates their father. Because we may be family, but no one really knows us inside. Unless it reveals itself. Want to reveal myself, First to myself, and then to the few people who will read me. To write but without knowing if I will never be read, but to write all the same, to write in a vacuum. Write first to reveal myself to myself. Because I am certain that I am a secretive person in front of myself.

Moreover, as Tennessee Williams asserts:
No one is ever free until they tell the truth about themselves and the life they’ve been thrown into. Write it down, tell a friend in need or a stranger who needs a diversion. We are all here to be a witness to something, to help and guide other people.

The words must come at certain times. To me, they often come, and quite easily. But for the next few months, I want to put it on paper screen, first for me, notes to myself. Want to transmit it more in 3D songs than in flat screen, want to broadcast it accompanied by music.

For the next few months, I want to work in the forest when it’s sunny, and on the computer when it’s raining. For the next few months, I want to be different, even to write differently. By adopting a different routine, breaking up the regular beat. A question of stirring the cage of time, of taking time, and of giving time to time.

Want to sing, play, stretch the time a little too fast, and too superficial, want to watch it pass on the other side. To also slow down this damn time which flies like a fly. To close the windows of virtual social sô sô sô a little. And to live in a slightly more closed vase, to play in the mud, to live a little closer to the inside of me. To visit this time made of fresh air, water, earth and wood. To go down in me, and to go up the time which paraded and defy time.

For the next few months, want to commune more than communicate. Want to sing more than talk, and keep quiet too, want to play more than work. Want to walk in the woods.

So dear readers, I wish you a beautiful, a good, a sweet one. With rain for the earth,

To be. Just saying.

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6/22/23
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TASTING THE SILENCE

Much expression, too little reception in our world.

Many words, bla bla, explanations and justifications, little silence, impression and introspection.

We are a noisy world, we create a noisy world.

We talk a lot, too. We think a lot. Even when we listen to others talking, we are talking to ourselves, preventing us from really hearing, hearing, hearing ourselves. We are full of our own inner noise.

Indeed, music can teach us to listen better. Before we can play or sing together, we have to listen, listen to each other, we have to let ourselves be able to hear. Let the sound enter into us, let it resonate throughout our body. Feel it, feel it. Even look at the others. Hear and feel their pitch, tone, texture. To then get in tune, on the same level, on the same wavelength. And harmonize.

Last Sunday, we had a music rehearsal to learn new hymns. And we had no choice, we had to listen, firs tot he hymns, than to each other because we had never played these hymns together. Before transmitting, we must put ourselves in a listening mode and allow ourselves to receive, to take it in.

Recently I was at the center of a situation of discord. And if I hear the various people tell two versions of the same story, I also hear completely different stories. I also hear that people don’t get along because they just don’t listen to each other.

We don’t listen to each other, me included of course.

They say you always talk of yourself. Great finding. That we must learn to change, state that we must learn to modify. To refine our hearing ability.

It is also said that we have one mouth and two ears, so we should listen at least twice as much as we talk. In any case, I think that we should already listen a little more than we do at the moment.

By the way, have you noticed that when we talk, we often repeat the same thing, we ramble ? It seems that when we listen, we risk learning something new.

So, about we started shutting up a bit more and listening, by starting by to ourself ? We might be surprised at what life has to tell us.

Good listening, good summer.
6/21/23

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AIMING FOR AND LIVING IN SILENCE

We all carry some kind of baggage. Whether genetic, cultural, ideological or karmic.

And one of the primary goals of our existence on earth is to unload it, for a while or for ever, to put it down, or to lighten it, and to get rid of it, a little or completely.

And it is silence that must be our destination, like our refuge.

In fact silence must become our way.

So when we no longer know where to go, when we no longer know what to do, maybe the first thing to do is to stop and be silent. And listen.

Because silence is our home.

8. COMING HOME
Hinario Luz Azul # 15

We are coming home
Safely coming home
We are coming home
Sweet home again

As we are approaching
Getting closer and closer
We all have to leave
Our luggage behind

As we’re getting nearer
Getting lighter and lighter
We’re finding our way
Back home again

Para sempre home again
Para sempre home again

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6/20/23

__________________________________________________________________________FROM ME ME TO WE WE

We are in an era of the Self. Me, me, me, I, I, I. Me and the world.

Little Me with a big M who takes precedence, who sits on top of our occupations and personal concerns.

Yet little Me can only existe in the whole wide world.

While our world is changing in a disturbing way, our little personal belly buttons take all the place of the world, this little navel of our us which sometimes blocks our eyes on the bigger picture and often make our hearts shrink.

Our navel, our ultimate belly button, little center of our big world, can constitute either an antenna opening to the world, or an end in itself closed in fear of the other.

As if we could live alone. Oh, we can survive alone, but live ? Totally ? Really ? Sincerely ? Not sure at all.

In any case, if we perish, we will all do it together. As the meme above says, if no one can transform anyone else, and if no one can transform themselves by themselves, it is through our encounters, our meetings of the heart, that we can and will be able to do so. In our exchanges, our collaboration, our support for each other, in particular for the poorest and most needy.

Perhaps this technological evolution, which has led us to such an intensity in our social isolation, despite the advent of so many so-called social networks – or because of them ? – will allow us to realize that we, more than ever before, need to work together, with each other, not against.

One and only world. Despite our 8 billion small worlds. Despite our differences, despite our disagreements, despite our reflex and fear based instinct to close in on ourselves when things are stirring in this big human world.

We have to think in terms of ourself, our own needs, in the first place, of course, everything starts from down here inside. But not only, not limited there. It is crucial to keep in mind and in heart the good of the greatest number. And big big is this world.

Elsewhere, more and more of us are drowning while trying to flee to simply survive. Closer to home, more and more of us find themselves on the street because they cannot find a home, more and more seniors among them. Here too, they are less and less rare not to have enough to eat, among them many children. Daily. Right next to us.

And the list could go on. Like the need for service.

Many of us prefer not to watch the – bad – news anymore because we don’t want to be disturbed in our little comfort here. We close our blinkers and we each continue to live each our little vinaigrette (french expression). But the fire is burning.

And it seems inevitable that we open our eyes to realize it, even if it bothers us in our sweet illusion of happiness separated from everything else. And just as essential to open our hearts to feel and resonate with this human pain that can either crush us and make us shrink back, or motivate us to roll up our sleeves to start helping fix the world, together. Because it is our world.

And to do this, we can only start within ourself, then around ourself, and expand this circle of sharing, of service to the whole wide world. Because life, like love, is a spiral, which wants and can only grow, increase, expand and open, more and more. Like our hearts.

Aho !
6/19/23
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NEVER ENDING STUDIES

I have no right to call myself one who knows.
I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I’m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me.
My story isn’t pleasant, it’s not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.
~Hermann Hesse

When one wants to learn to know oneself in totality, to go to the bottom of oneself, to rise beyond, to know everything about oneself, one must go all-in. All as in everything, all included, specially the not wanted stuff.

One must dare to look at everything – and see everything – about oneself. Digging into all corners, our all the bottoms of the drawers of our soul, and of our psyche. Especially the darkest, the furthest and deepest, to see all our shadows, and to allow all that lives deep within us to come up to the surface. Not always easy to do but essential. And much easier said than done.

When one begins the endless journey of self-re/discovery, one must pass through that personality, in and through this vehicle with which one journeys in this existence. And we never really know what we’re getting into. But once started, the journey cannot stop. There is no looking back.

We, who are so hungry and fond of light and yummy yummy will inevitably have to confront our shadows at some point, a work of discovery that is never quite complete nor completed. never ending process. Any all shadows will inevitably have to face the light to reveal itself, and then to merge with the light.

This sentence of Hermann Hesse is particularly inspiring:
I’m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me.

Quite a job. Not only hearing our own heart beating, but even the blood circulating throughout our body.

Such an enlightening quote.

Because after a while, we realize that what we are looking for cannot be found outside of ourselves. If we contemplate the stars, it is only to realize that we are only dust from it and so small in this immense existence.

There comes a time when we realize that to really know ourself, we have to close our eyes, open our heart and dive inside. Dive into ourself, by opening our eyes wide, breathing deeply, without holding our nose, because it is also by smelling that we discover certain shadowy areas that lie dormant deep within ourself. By feeling, hte good and the less. Listening, patiently. Waiting, without expecting nothing in particular. One breath at a time. Every breath in faith.

Daring everything and wanting to see and look, smell and feel. Allowing all that emerges to be seen, recognized and letting go of it. Especially what we would like to close our eyes upon it, dismiss, and look away.

Because it is only by paying attention that we can see, feel and know, know again.

Bon voyage !
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6/16/23
en français ici: https://atisupino.com/2023/06/16/selever-jusquau-coeur/

__________________________________________________________________________EXISTENTIAL WINDOW-SHOPPING

Most of us are looking for something. Something more, more beautiful, softer, more peaceful. Something outside of us. Something out there.

Something or someone. A thing, a person, a group, a state, a place, or perfect outside conditions. More money, comfort, ease or enjoyment. Nothing in itself is problematic with searching for the best, for oneself and our loved ones. But we should include the whole world to our list. For the greater good.

All our life, we travel the wide world in search of THAT, in search of happiness, peace, God or of the great Spirit, name it.

I like the parable that humans seek the key to fulfillment throughout the wide world when it is in our own hearts that it has been deposited. Quite simply. Just here. Right here. In our own heart.

Would it then perhaps be enough to simply close your eyes and dive in ? Or rather to let oneself ease down ? Slowly. One breath at a time. Maybe too simple to believe it.

To let oneself descend into oneself, but also to show patience because before arriving at the heart of the heart, at the heart of oneself, one must calm the mind, the famous hyperactive hamster convinced of having to run out of breath to death before being able to find the treasure, the jewel.

And moreover, in this world of materiality, one must earn a living. And often we get lost in that task. We run out of breath just trying to make ends meet. Even those who have a more than enough want more. Always more.

And now it’s possible to do existential window shopping online. Virtual spiritual quest through a screen. Be realized, in only 3 installments. When deep down, all we have to do is stop and breathe. And expect the unexpected. Patiently.

And maybe instead of searching, we should just uncover what is already here ?

This is why I appreciate Zen so much. No promises. simply an onion to undress. One peel at a time. To infinity. Until nothingness.

6/15/23
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HEARTFUL HEAD

As a child, no one ever warned us that the cohabitation between the head and the heart would be a walk in the park, nor always easy, nor harmonious and flowing. One of our great challenges as human beings is to learn to make the head and the heart coexist peacefully. The great challenge of human duality. Learning to let the heart and the head coexist is the work of an artist of the presence, the task of a lifetime. To learn every day because it is never acquired and stabilized.

The two spheres are concerned with different things: the head thinks, plans, calculates, prepares, and looks ahead. The head tries to make sense of everything that goes around inside and outside. A sword that must sometimes cut, take a stand, decide. Even if and when sometimes it turns and spins in ambivalence.

While the heart is a sponge that pulsates, that swallows, that beats the rhythm of life, that naturally emanates and receives love. Open, it tastes, savors, smells and feels. Closed, it shrinks, is afraid and suffocates. The heart is the roundabout of the material and spiritual worlds. This is where everything passes, with each life beat, each pulsation. Our anchor point in this earthly existence. Poupoum poupoum.

When we no longer know where to turn, we find refuge in our heart.

The mind never stops thinking, nothing can be done to stop it, it’s its job, its function, to let ideas roll and spin around and to observe them, and, if possible, to organize them to make sense, to build meaning among all that passes within and without us. Not easy, especially these days.

For its part, the heart is our réservoir of love, the heart cradles, says yes and seeks to join and unite: with life, with the others, with everything. And when it conforts, it is the emotional wounds more than the concepts that the heart heals. The opening from where the light can come in.

Over time, it seems to me that the heart harbors the true seat of our soul, linking the golden thread that binds us and connects us to the rest of existence, to the heartbeat of the world. Where would reside our ancestral wisdom, the baggage of experience that we carry from life to life if this is the case, from there that we would keep a thread with our lineage, with the source.

Moreover, according to Annie Marquier, in the heart there is a second brain, containing an independent and well-developed nervous system, with more than 40,000 neurons and a complex and dense network of neurotransmitters, proteins and supporting cells. And thanks to these elaborate circuits, it can make its own decisions and take action independently of the brain. It is also said that he can learn, remember and even perceive thanks to four types of connections that start from the heart and go to the brain from the head.

Quite smart the heart.

As to who should be the pilot and/or the co-pilot, that is not necessarily the question. Each center has a specific role. Some people are more rational and intellectual, thinkers, others more people of heart and emotions, lovers. The challenge is for each of us to find a comfortable balance within ourselves, to be able to walk on two feet.

From the head to the heart, while infusing some heart to our head.

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Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words.
Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior.
Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values.
Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
–Mahatma Ghandi

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6/14/23

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REAL WORK & REAL JOURNEY

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Version française de ce même texte:
https://atisupino.com/2023/06/13/etre-tout-simplement/

As they say : what do you do when you no longer know what to do ? And where do we go when we no longer know where to go ?

It is said that the real meaning of a lifetime can only be done on the ground where we always stand. From within. In ourself. Here. Now. As the saying goes. Or is it NowHere ?

But sometimes we have to go all the way around the world to come back to this simple observation.

When we are young, younger anyway, it is quite natural to want to discover the whole wide world (now seems more to be the whole wide world web). We want to travel horizontally, discover new horizons, see new countries, meet new people and live new experiences. We are looking outside for self-realization.

But as the years goes by, or in the face of certain trials that push us into ourselves, another world opens up to some people, little by little or suddenly. The world of the heart, the land of the soul, of introspection. This so-called inner world. And gradually, no matter where we stand, we tend to always be here, more and more only here. And not elsewhere, and not later than now. Trying to squeeze all the juice out of every moment. And at the same time, doing less and less of anything to get something.

Moreover, there is nothing to do to enter into oneself, it is enough to stop going out, to disperse outside oneself, to project oneself onto and into the vast world. Or in other words, to stop wanting to be in search of more and more of anything, be it more happiness, more sensations. Because if some always want more, others can also want less and less. Which perhaps amounts to the same as long as the will – for something or nothing – is present.

In the domain of the inner world, or as we sometimes call it the more and more full mindfullness, some are in search of enlightenment, realization, transcendence of the ego. The ego that wants to get rid of itself, the ultimate joke.

I myself have run for a long time on this path which always seems to go further and faster the more you undertake it – to arrive nowhere in the end – as long as we keep running our lives. The famous carrot that always moves as fast as you do, and sometimes even a little faster it seems. Maybe that’s why rabbits are so prolific, the carrot is a quicky one.

But over time, through weariness, loss of interest, repeated disappointment or maturity, cravings and desires diminish, dwindle, run out of steam and shrink. All that remains is the desire to simply be in the moment, where we are now. Simply, more and more simply. Not any where other than here, because it is here that life has placed us in this moment. As simple as that. For now.

Learning to simply be. Neither good nor bad, because we also eventually understand that the famous couple good and bad are only two facets of the same medal, the medal of judgment and categorization.

The outside world seems in peril these days. If some people feel eco-anxious about the current state of the world, for others, this observation seems to create a form of despair, a kind of race forward. And if we are to get into the wall, let’s go quickly seem to say some people.

So in the face of adversity, either we go for it and get out of ourselves and fight, or we go inside. And up, and down, we search, we feel and resonate. Without judging, without moving or running. By living, quite simply, what has to be lived.

With the head always active, the thoughts never taking a break, moving in and moving out, passing by like clouds, we learn to anchor ourself somewhere safe, in the heart, where time stops, where time does not exist in fact. As the heart is always here, and now.

And off we go, here we come, back to work. The real work, the real journey has begun.
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6/13/23

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NEITHER THIS NOR THAT

Each and everyone of us has a particular perspective, a different viewpoint of the world around us. A perspective that is unique to each of us, mitigated by our conditioning, our life experiences, our education and our culture, from which our values and beliefs derive.

These values and beliefs make up a kind of filter that distorts and shapes the way we look at the world. So we don’t really see the things and the people around us as they are, we mainly see what we think and believe about what is the world.

Some people like to think that there is only one universal truth, one and the same reality. But I think it would be more accurate to think that there are billions of small worlds, which co-exist in one big world. Hence the different perceptions of this same and apparently unique world.

Billions of mini multiverses on 2 and 4 legs, in this same vast universe.

When we accept this possibility, because that is what the world is, a myriad of diverse possibilities and different viewpoints, this idea helps us to respect the perspectives which diverge from our own because there are none and no other exactly identical to ours. Each has its own unique observation post in and on this vast world.

Of course we already know that you and me.

Now, what is left is to realize it, to make it real. To incarnate it. And to listen to where people are coming from when they express themselves about the world. Instead of reacting. Respond rather than react..

I was posting these words from Alaric Hutchinson the other day that pretty much mean the same thing as the meme up.

So perhaps the idea is quite simply to rediscover the original love in order to clarify our gaze in order to finally see the world as it is.

To look at life with the eyes of the heart ?

What is essential is invisible to the eye; One sees clearly only with the heart.
– St-Exupéry via Anand Gyan
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6/12/23

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ETERNAL LOVE

We often envy the rich, the famous 1%, those who own a lot: a lot of money, a lot of power, a lot of many various things, like the so-called glory too, which we think brings happiness.

But all those things that we think we own will eventually disappear. And these things that we think we possess, deep down, they perhaps possess us in reality.

People who own a lot, too much often even, those who own so much, well, we think that they might be secured by their apparent (temporary) possessions. But probably that they are afraid – consciously or not – of the possible loss of these things. Which will come one day, at time of the death, or before.

Yuval Noah Harari says moreover (what I understand at least) in Homo Sapiens that it was when humans started owning parcels of land that they started to become prisoners of it.

On the other hand, some people are said to be so poor that all they own in life is money.

Of course, having enough money to support onerself is essential. So many people don’t even have that much. But we often tend to want more than just enough. Human nature they say.

Nevertheless.

It has long been said that money does not buy happiness. Money in itself means nothing. If we reduce it to its basic value, money means freedom, autonomy, security, comfort, well-being and pleasure. But when we lack it, it takes up all the space.

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Love is not a relationship, it is a state of being.
– Osho

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Love is a Rose

If you really want to know love, forget love, remember meditation. If you want to bring roses into your garden, forget the roses and take care of the rosebush. Feed it, water it, make sure it gets the right amount of sun, water. If all is taken care of, the roses are bound to arrive at the right time. You can’t bring them in sooner, you can’t force them to open sooner, and you can’t ask for a rose blossom to be more perfect.

Have you ever seen a rose that isn’t perfect? What else do you want? Each rose is perfect in its uniqueness. Dancing in the wind, in the rain, in the sun – don’t you see the immense beauty, the absolute joy? An ordinary little rose radiates the hidden splendor of existence.

Love is a rose in your being, but prepare your being. Dispel darkness and unconsciousness. Become more and more alert and aware, and love will come by itself, in its time. You don’t have to worry about it. And every time he comes, he’s always perfect.

Love is a spiritual experience – nothing to do with sex and nothing to do with bodies, but something to do with the deepest being.

But you haven’t even entered your own temple. You don’t know who you are at all and you wonder about love. Be yourself first; know yourself first – and love will come as a reward. It is a reward from beyond. It rains on you like flowers, fills your being. And it continues to overwhelm you, and it brings with it a tremendous desire to share. This sharing can only be indicated in human language by “love”. It doesn’t say much, but it points in the right direction. Love is a shadow of vigilance, of awareness.

I teach you to be more aware. And love will come as you become more aware: it is a guest that comes, that inevitably comes to those who are ready and prepared to receive it.

– Osho

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Accept what is, let go of what was, and trust what will be.
– Buddhist saying

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SPIRIT MIND

meme via Chay Tana Prince Wao

The Great Mind – or Spirit, or the full potential of our ability to relate and locate ourselves in the universe – is our gateway to the rest of creation. But at the same time, the little mind that is afraid and thinks it knows can lock us up.

Ramana Maharshi describes this double function well here in my opinion: Mind is infinite consciousness, the feeling of limitation is the work of the mind.

I thank Chay Tana Prince Wao for posting the quote above in response to this Max Planck quote that I used as a basis for reflection a few days ago.

There is indeed a certain connection between the words of the two men. Consciousness in particular. Consciousness greater than our little self, our ability to conceive the grandeur of all that lives, of which we are a part. The part of the great Mystery in us. What does not separate, what does not discriminate, what includes everything, what sees wide.

The mind, which is sometimes translated in French either by mental or by spirit , already a strange linguistic situation in the langue de Molière, an ambiguous position, constitutes a strange machine. Capable of the best and of the worst. I have the impression, moreover, that our intuitions are modulated by this healthy spirit within us.

If the term mind translated by mental as by the spirit, I have the impression that the mind constitutes the limiting part of the thought machine, whereas the spirit is what opens us to the rest of the universe, our divine receiver/transmitter. The Wholly Spirit would be the opening part of the mind.

If I also understand Schrödinger’s words correctly, there would be only one Great Spirit, in which all the little ones merge, find themselves. We are one ?

As you see, I am really groping my way here trying to shed some light into the realm of consciousness and the role of the mind/spirit/sensemaking machine, name it as you feel.

But above all, I am launching this short text of questioning and reflection, and these 2 quotes, as a common basis for reflection. Any feedback that will fuel the discussion is welcome.

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The brain has in the mind
– Bruce Lipton
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6/7/23
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OUTDATED PRESENT MOMENT IN BECOMING

Ah this famous present moment. This existential Holy Grail which is supposed to contain all the truths of the world.

What a beautiful and grand illusion. Because the present moment is only an eternal and brief passage of a time that does not even existas they say. Yes these famous they.

Each moment is only a futile slide into the void, an escapade of thoughts and passing emotions, an apparent material reality in constant mutation. Slow passage of time perhaps, but real transmutation constantly in progress. And what is now will not be anymore soon. Like what was and what is no longer and will never again be.

Like all of us, the moment, which is only a subtle movement that seems to be constantly passing, is always a little outdated. We are always a little behind on the here and moment that we call present. As soon as we think of seizing it, the moment has already passed, is gone, evaporated. And the next one is already slipping through our hands faster than we can even realize.

We think that over the years, with experience, we have acquired wisdom. We think that because we have seen a lot of water flowing under bridges, we know more than before what water is. Or about bridges. More than before, or more than the others. Because our knowledge often needs the ignorance of others to measure itself. Or what we perceive as such.

But the truth, or one of them if there are several, is that we don’t know anything, we don’t really understand anything, we don’t understand anything for real. Even if some think they do. And probably, or possibly, we’ll never know anything more than what we don’t know right now. We can still imagine if it pleases us.

For the great mystery cannot – and perhaps will never be understood, it can only be swallowed up, or one can only get lost in it, engulf oneself in it. Get burned up in the great mystery.

We have no idea of the greatness nor the immensity of the great mystery surrounding us as the one living in ourself. Me first I don’t know. Or maybe it’s just me who doesn’t know anything, what do I know ?

I write several mornings a week and I’m never certain about what I’m saying. I like to write to realize my ignorance. This is exactly why I write in fact, because I ain’t got no certainty in the face of anything. I have to remind myself again and again that I don’t know anything because sometimes I think I know. If I knew, I would be silent, I would hide in my lands and I would say nothing. I would only be. Maybe baby.

I write to realize that I know nothing, or so very little. Because knowing that we do not know is the first thing to know as Socrates, Plato and Jean Gabin reminded us a while back. And maybe the last too. But even that, I don’t know. but we can always supect.

As soon as we rely on what we have already experienced, already known, already seen, we no longer know because what we are now is only found in this moment, a totally unknown and new moment, never lived before. Never seen before. New air never breathed before. Brand new moment. Which requires a fresh presence, a new presence.

Who am I ?

Something between who I was and who I will be but am not yet. No less, no more. Perhaps at most a small flame of presence which observes this moment flowing by in the sandglass of the great mystery. Maybe.

What do I know ?

I probably know only what I think I know, what I have been told, what I have read, what I have already experienced. A little of all that but at the same time none of that. Because if I don’t know anything, I don’t even know anything about the nothing that I don’t know yet. Infinite ignorance.

Even unaware of my own ignorance. Is it a good start or a never ending story telling ? Maybe, maybe not.

Oh this moment.

Already gone, not yet here.

Only a brief space in between.

On our way to infinity.
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6/6/23
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ONE OF A KIND

Kindness is a theme that pops up regularly these days for me. It’s not the first time I am writing around this theme.

Kindness seems to me to be underestimated in this time of public shouting, media arrogance, all-out criticism and big words on anti-social networks.

We may tend to think that kindness means being nice, too, nice, good-natured, not speaking the truth or swallowing what we really mean.

By the way, someone posted this as a comment to my most recent column dealing with kindness.

Of course, several reservations and nuances can be brought to the concept of kindness. Like everything.

But what exactly is kindness ?

The dictionary offers us as a first definition: quality of a kind person. well, of course, but again, we need more.

To be gentle with others, one must be lovable toward oneself as to be able to love ourselves, we must love ourself first. Then it will follow and radiate around us.

Lovable – able to love – capable of loving, capable of love. Open enough to let love flow through us. As in fact, we do not do love, we simply let love flow.

There are also some synonyms for kindness: affability, pleasantness, friendliness, attention, benevolence, complacency, delicacy, regard, eagerness.

Many nowadays want to become enlightened, (re)known, famous or rich. Others want to be rebellious, daring, innovators, to think and live out of the box.

But few just want to be nice.

Like Mr Dahl, I believe that kindness demonstrates inner peace, an ease of being oneself, with oneself, which translates into our relationships with others. Because we can only relate to others as we relate to ourselves.

Thus, we must first learn to become (more and more) nice to ourselves because often with ourselves we are the hardest and most demanding.

In these times of potential social turmoils to come, kindness will be a weapon of massive inclusion. We will have to show it and develop it because the emerging challenges risk taking us out of our zone of confidence. And we will have to learn to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves.
6/5/23
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WHO SEES WHAT

We often hear that we, humans, are almost nothing in this immensity, or so little anyway. Only small crumbs in this so vast universe. Universe that has been active for billions of years. But when one of us disappears, the world keeps spinning.

And at the same time, they say that when we are no longer here, the whole world will disappear because who will be able to see it, perceive it, become aware of it ?

At first glance, both points of view can be true. Like this famous question that asks if the falling tree makes noise if no one is there.

Personally, I have the impression that the falling tree makes noise even if I am not there. But who I am to know. I can only imagine.

The words of Max Planck up there are nonetheless enlightening as to the idea of consciousness as the foundation of all life.

So these few words, do they exist for real or did you just imagine them?

You see, Friday can be light too.

Have a good rest.

6/2/23
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WRITING TO SAY NOTHING

Of all those who have nothing to say, the nicest ones are those who remain silent.
– Coluche (a french stand up comic)

So many words in this modern world, so many words in this blah blah world.

Words trying to be right, words to justify oneself, words to try to say who we are, or think we are. And yet. Nothing can allow us to tell ourself as much as silence. As silence that can invite our truth as much as absence can reveal our presence.

Often, it is only when someone is no longer here that we realize how important this person will have been.

Absence reveals presence as silence reveals speech.

So rather than saying, and adding to the big ambient blah blah, I write. I whisper on this screen. I scream silently through your screen.

So many words to try to reach others, to try to communicate. When deep down, deep within, what we are looking for is fundamentally something like a union, a communion. A common union. A common unity, trying to belong to the living, to the Greater than oneself. A unique meaning to life.

At the dawn of each week day, I write these little posts for a handful of you, just a few pairs of eyes. Green eyes, pers eyes, blue eyes. Open eyes and hearts. These words are our means of communion. And sometimes I probably talk to myself when you are not here. But I hear you anyway.

I like to write for myself, to myself. In the first place anyway. Because we always write mostly to ourself anyway. Like talking. Talking with ourself always. It doesn’t matter who listens to us, or hears, or reads us. Always to ourself.

I like to write what cannot be said anyway. So I might as well shut up and write my way to God.

I try to say my tiny, big, wide open, pounding heart with words, and rather than keeping them in, I type them out and send them out into the universe, into the multiverse. Enter. Bottle in the sea. Message enbottled.

Rather than shouting them, I whisper them down on my screen, toward yours. I say them, but silently. Tac tac tac. This little nothing that can’t be said I try to say it anyway, I like to say it quietly. I write low profile.

I write as I can, as I want, or a bit of both, and you read as you want. but most don’t read me. So I write alone. To nobody.

I write freely, I write free, and a little fried in the head, but right from the heart. I give my words, I sow them to all winds. Where the answer is blown. I have a blog in the cerebellum. I allow myself the joy of writing because the pain is not worth the joy.

I write but do you really hear me ? I cannot say, cannot hear you hearing me. Still, I write. But I write quietly. I write humbly. I write as a nobody And since people now read so little past the images, lack of attention and intention, little risk of being read.

Who is this I that Rumi speaks abour ? The Big Me? The one who speaks to the billions of little I’s we all think we are ? The Big Man or Woman in the Sky ? Let’s raise our heads to – try – to see. Or should we close our eyes. Because as they say, inside is out. Omni presence.

I cannot say what to say. But as they say, it is all the same, I am me, and you are us

Some shout themself, others write themselves down. We write, or speak, to make ourself believe that we exist, we write so as not to go crazy in the face of the madness of a world that is heading straight for the wall, that of sound or that of annihilation. Or is is all a FB wall ?

Of all those who have nothing to say, the most pleasant are those who are silent, says Coluche.

So me, I write.

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Love is wise – Hatred is foolish.
In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact, that some people say things we don’t like.
We can only live together in that way.
But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital, to the continuation of human life on this planet.“

— Bertrand Russell, BBC Interview on Face to Face (1959)

6/1/23

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ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVENS

At this point, after abusing and exploiting the planet for centuries, as well as in the state of our various current of social relationships, I believe that we, the great family of humans, need Divine help. The Divine outside of us, as well as the one we carry within us.

We need inspiration, vision, clarity in the face of the next major social movements to be undertaken as humanity if we want to survive. Quite certain that the planet will be able to adapt, it has seen and survived other challenges, but us, its tenants who take themselves for its owners and, moreover, so negligent and disconnected, it is less obvious.

I don’t know if or how we will get out of this, but the warning signs of disaster to come are already present and evident. As much on the environmental, economic and technological levels, the time is now.

But whom to ask for this much-needed help ?

Certainly not to our so-called leaders, whether they are businessmen (mostly men) or politicians. The former always want more for themselves and their shareholders, the latter have very little real power, when they do not work squarely for the former, or when they are so thirsty for power for themselves. Very small gods they are. But still, relatively powerful on the horizontal level.

In the past, we placed our orders with God, the Almighty Father, creator of heaven and earth. And then we waited for our order, hoping to have been heard correctly. But this concept seems outdated and obsolete in the face of the complex situation. WE need to do something. At least, it is too simplistic in view of the complexity of the current situation to only send wishes. And more than inadequate, especially considering the past twisted actions of many men of God here on earth.

I think we are going to need the help of all Gods and Goddesses, as well as all of the great extended Divine family. Ancestors, Angels and Sages included. With a good touch of sacred femininity. Not necessarily so that they will do the job for us, but above all that they may enlighten us, guide us, inspire us. Help us to find their word and their guidance within us.

Some pray to Gods and Goddesses, others invoke higher forces. Some speak to them, in various languages and in several dialects, all over the world, many discuss with the greater than oneself.

Others prefer to be silent and listen to them because they are said to be constantly whispering in our spirit. If only we would stop and listen. From the heart.

Something brought us into the world, maybe we should listen to it.

People who hear voices are usually said to be crazy. But perhaps it is them who hear the voice of wisdom, who are told the way forward ?

It doesn’t matter whether we are speakers or listeners, it seems to be the right time that we open up to the presence of super our supra human beings in order to be guided, to open up to receive the help of greater than us. To improve things for the good of the greater good. Because there are 8 billion of us living together on a shrinking, accelerating and overheating ball that turns on itself in infinity. Let’s think of our children who are following us.

Let us open ourselves to feel accompanied, at least accept that there is more than us, and that we finally realize that we belong to a common Together, to a Whole, to a large and united family of Souls. Life.

The elements of nature are in this sense precious guides, a great source of inspiration and intuition. Because as they say, we don’t walk on the earth, we are the earth. If we could feel her, if we could listen to her more, if we could follow her so natural teachings, if we can respect her cycles, what she tells us, we would surely act differently. More naturally, more spiritually and less only than simply humanly. Divinely too.

If we learned to feel more connected to the earth on which we walk, the earth that sustains and nourishes us, if we became one with it, if we made its breath our own thanks to its air, if we integrated the vitality of its fire and the solidity of its minerals, and if we learned of the fluidity of water. Like the First nations, we would naturally respect all its inhabitants more, the four legged, like us funny two-legged bugs but with a big head and a shriveled heart.

If only we could only realize – as in making it become real – the potential presence of beings of another nature, of other dimensions, and if one could consult them and rely on their will, the divine will.

Either by asking them for advice – prayer – or by listening to them – meditation and contemplation. By feeling them, by receiving them. But for that we have to slow down, let go of the screens and reconnect with the earth.

Because it is on Earth as it is in Heaven.

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If you wish to go for a walk with a friend, more than likely you would chat the whole time, sharing your challenges and joys, and receiving support and companionship. You would be grateful for the listening ear and open heart your friend brings.

Do you not realize you have guides who are your constant companions ? Go for a walk today and chat silently with them exactly as you would with a friend. They will answer in the 3rd person, addressing you as a beloved equal with gentle, loving advice. Yes, of course, some of you will think it is your imagination speaking.

How else would your guides speak to you, if not through the mind? But do this often enough and your belief and intention will result in breakthroughs—insights that break through the conscious mind and allow you to know you do not walk alone and that you have a trusted friend who walks you through life. It is a friend who has only been waiting for you to say, “Come. Let’s go for a walk and have a chat. I could use some advice and a listening ear.” We are here and you are so very loved.

– Suzanne Giesemann, a Navy commander turned medium and spiritual teacher, via Noosheen Nasri

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YOU WHO ?

Now we only have to define this you of us.

The other day, I was sharing a few tidbits with a friend who is traveling in India at the moment. While I told him that it seemed to me that I was nothing, beyond this physical body at least, if not a simple observer of my thoughts, my emotions and the surrounding world, he pretended that we were rather the Divine spirit, the Light, the quality of the Buddha in oneself, what one could call the presence of God.

I have another friend with whom I discuss God regularly. We tease each other around it. He is rather allergic to the 3-letter word – which is a 4-letter word in french – whereas I am rather flexible in our various attempts to name the bigger than ourself, the divine within oneself or outside. Just a small name basically. Until people are willing to kill to defend it.

These kinds of reflections about the great Mystery often pass through my little self, especially in my upper body. And it rolls in a loop, without my wanting at all costs to find an absolute answer. I like to play with words, and their various meanings.

No matter how we try to name or describe God, the great Spirit, the great Mystery, our Buddha nature, Life, Existence, personally I don’t get too caught up in the flowers of the Divine carpet.

I could not name or attempt to describe the greatness of the mystery that surrounds us, and that inhabits us, even less the reason why we chose – or were obliged to ? – to incarnate ourselves for this lapse of time in this concrete and so abstract timeless reality at the same time.

With the time that passes though me, I feel less and less as a someone defined, precise, permanent, but more and more like a something, an increasingly vaporous presence, who observes.

If God exists as a certain singer wonders, she is there watching in me, in you, as in each of us. If he or she exists, as if God exists, it would be more of a she, impossible to describe IT. Even if trying to do so is fun, as well as futile. If God exists, we must live him or her. Whatever the gender.

We debate less and less about God it seems to me, or about the meaning of life, while our humanity seems to be living an intense period like never before at the environmental level.

We have developed a not-so-natural form of intelligence that seems to elude us, which can even create new reality. Not some kind of Godliness ? And yet, a little disturbing, if not very disturbing.

No matter what words we use, we are always at a loss for explanations or rational concepts to try to describe the great mystery that eludes us.

Some write prose to try to approach it.

Others prefer to converse directly with God, to make him/her/it human, and make it their own. Oh my God !

Still others prefer to listen to it, because it is said to speak to us non-stop, whispering in our ears and breathing life straight into our hearts at every moment.

The most intellectual attempt to decipher and decode the mysteries of the sacred texts, or to pierce the magic scientific complex formulas.

Others look for it in nature, in wildlife, or in the songs of birds.

The most artists write songs, poems, or paint graphic works. Like this one my friend Kerry gave us recently. Mother of God.

Others, intrepid, take risks to feel more alive and get closer to him.

No matter how, I believe that we are all, each in our own way, in search of something greater than ourselves, more immense and infinite than this poor little me of ours who stands around our little navel. . Perhaps it is the navel of God that we should seek for.

Whether it is the love of our loved ones, which obviously can only be based on our love for oneself as it is where it starts, for one’s own person, or by the quest for lasting happiness and inner peace (because for the external is more complex), each of us is looking for something. And no matter what we are looking for, which is often induced by our beliefs and the existential concepts on which our reason is based, it is the path that counts. This path that can only be lived in the simplicity of everyday life. And that leads who knows where.

I generally like the Zen approach that keeps life and its explanations rather simple and simplistic. Split the wood, and carry away the water. And some extras on the side in this modern life.

Below are some pearls of wisdom to ponder upon.

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I’m so close, I can seem distant.
So completely mixed with you, I may seem separate.
So uncovered, I appear hidden.
So quiet, because I’m constantly talking with you.
―Rumi

There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond all of us, beyond the heavens, beyond the highest, highest heavens. It is the light that shines in your heart.
―Chandogya Upanishad

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POLISHING LIFE

Sometimes life flows smoothly, and sometimes it sends us trials. Sometimes it runs freely, like water on the skin of a duck, sometimes it gets stuck in the corners. Coin coin. Obviously we prefer when things flow, when the flow is easy, when things are smooth.

But over time, over the course of our life, we realize that following hardships, we are stronger and more lucid, more resilient as we say nowadays. They also say that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. So far so good it looks like as we are both here still.

Trial is linked to the verb to experience, to which we give various definitions, including that of feeling, or experiencing something that is hard, difficult to bear, that puts our physical or moral resistance to test.

But my favorite definition of the verb to undergo is this one: to have direct knowledge of states, situations, emotions or sensations; to know from personal experience.

Experiencing is therefore not limited solely to knowing, nor to merely knowing with one’s head. Experiencing involves the whole body, it passes through the body, through the heart, through the guts. It implies feeling, letting oneself and life be felt above all, letting the sensations inhabit the whole body, and even possessing it, letting oneself be possessed by the experience.

I appreciate the quote from Confucius because it gives added meaning to the adjective polite. It is usually understood that to be polite means to be affable, well-mannered, civilized, decent, correct, courteous, deferential, respectful.

But to be polished can also mean having acquired a certain finesse. Being polished, or having been polished, can also indicate that life has passed through us, that it has sanded us down, that it has put us to the test. And in doing so, it has built, solidified us, then marked and refined us. To finally take back our body at the end of the road.

In a way, life is sandpaper from which we will only come out as dust, as human sawdust. Like the onion that we peel and in the center of which we will find nothing. Other than a few tears on the way, and a seed of something else that might survive him.

Some of life’s more difficult experiences forge us, plow us, knead us. When we live them, when we are in it, we often look forward for their ending, we wish they would become things of the past.

But possibly – probably ? – that at the end of our lives, we will realize that it is precisely these experiences that have made us who we are, who we have become. Who we have become again. As deep down, something never changes.

It is these experiences that give us strength and beauty, courage and impeccability. Which brings us back to our greatest common denominator. It is to the extent of the trials that we have know and experienced that we become ourselves, and greater than our little self we thought we were limited to. Life calls us to go beyond that little self that we think we are so we can become the whole life again, to become eternal light again.

Because they are rich, or because they smile a lot on the social networks, we sometimes think that some people have – or have had – easy lives. But inevitably, each one of us carries their ordeals, their own challenges to experience, to understand, to transcend. Life doesn’t just give us gifts. Or maybe everything is a gift if we accept everything life presents us. The flow like the less flowing.

5/29/23

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POWERFUL GENTLENESS

Gentleness and power seem two contradictory concepts. However, we all know certain people who embody a quiet strength and who make beautiful things happen in them and around them.

Often, in our competitive, successful and upstart society, all means seem good to achieve your goal. The end too often justifies the means. Especially on the human and environmental levels.

Often too, audacity, performance, willpower, extravagance, fearlessness and youth are overvalued. Only to see the new little kings who lead the world.

Yet so much wisdom and beauty lie in delicacy and kindness, as well as in discretion, maturity and shyness. Low profile is in.

When you’re young, you have to push and be bold to make your place in this world of performance. In fact, the first half of our life is largely about daring, standing out and going for it. Even rebelling sometimes when necessary to take our place.

Myself when I was (more) young, I was (more) drooling and arrogant than now. But youth is passing by. Slowly, and surely. Over time. This time that is is a great existential sandpaper. Time polishes us. It refines us.

Age, and the passage of time (even if we like to pretend that these two concepts do not exist, often the (most) young people who say so 😉 are definitely great teachers. If we want, and can learn from them.

Life teaches us, for some at least, that everything passes and will pass, including us with our vitality, our youth and our dreams of eternal youth. Which teaches us humility, delicacy and kindness. In the long run. Because we’re just passing over this earth, you and me.

So let’s take the time, and learn from the passing of time, to be kinder to each other, as we wanted to be kinder to us. Let’s be supportive and kind, even if these words are overused. Let’s give them a chance to incarnate. Let’s counterbalance the ambient arrogance that is rampant everywhere with an extreme sincere and true kindness.

Let’s find our inner strength – and our self-confidence – which allows us to allow ourselves to become vulnerable and tender again as when we were very young. Because you have to be really very strong to allow yourself to be vulnerable, very strong to allow yourself to be weak. Humility as a fundamental value.

We begin to recognize more the quiet strength of introverts. They and they who don’t cry out loud, they and they who are simply here, in their rightful place, doing what they should.

Long live the people who are strong enough inside to be able to just be nice. Their silence will be heard by those who listen well.

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Humility is the symbol of nobility – Counselheiro Luiz Mendes

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Love is basically a state; we are not in love, we are Love. – Osho
5/25/23
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OBSERVING THE FLOWERS OF THE MIND

In french, these flowers are called pensées, which is the same word we use for thoughts.

And it’s spring right now. It’s the season of thoughts. As are summer, fall and winter.

We think in all seasons. We think all the time, nonstop. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts.

In fact, IT thinks all the time. Without our intention. Even when we sleep.

Besides, with age, it seems that we forget more and more often what you were thinking about just a few minutes ago. Thought seems to unravel despite ourselves.

But it continues to think on all sides, non-stop. It is a ongoing festival of thoughts in our heads throughout our whole lives.

As Eckart Tolle suggests, it is a very good idea not to believe everything that comes through our mind. Because most of the thoughts just pass through us, but don’t really come from us. In fact, nothing really comes from us. Everything just passes through.

When we were born, we came with a brand new and virgin thinking machine – and with beliefs and ideas pushed down bu our culture, whether justified or not, we were filled with beliefs and concepts that we came to think true. And since then, the machine has been running. Nonstop. And it keeps running.

And once in a while, life – people, situations, events – shakes us around and our framework of thoughts expands, discovers, changes track.

And then Eureka ! Then, suddendly, more space is created, then more possibilities appear, and then life we can start to imagine life itself differently, open, then more possibilities emerge, appear.

Whereas thinking is the perpetual movement of thoughts passing through, the container, the thoughts are the life essence of ideas which pass by there, the content. Infinite.

So rather than believing everything that moves through our mind, let’s observe. Let’s breathe, observe, and let it go. Anyway always more will come.

And anyway, the vast majority of the raw material that comes to mind is just old used recycled stock. Only very little new material presents itself to our mind. Because words and concepts are often so limited, finite. Their arrangement requires observation, and detachment.

Definitely, life is an endless season of thoughts, thoughts observed.

So in this blooming season, let’s jump into the field and watch it unrolls, and unrolls, and unrolls.

But these are clearly the most beautiful ones, the pensées.

5/24/23

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DISTRACTED FROM DISTRACTIONS

More and more, I consider leaving FB, the only social network I use to keep in touch with my friends around the world. Where I also post my little necklaces of words in the morning.

I’m not completely decided yet but there are more and more inconveniences on this damn exhausted time consuming network. Every new friend request turns out to be suspicious now. We are bombarded with advertisements and virtual booby traps abound more and more. More and more throlls surfing there too. Not to mention the arrogance of the FB leaders in the face of the intentions and attempts of governments to police them a little.

I am considering moving away from it temporarily – at least for the summer because with the good weather, it is only natural to want to play outside more and to move away from screens other than sunscreen – or permanently, I don’t know yet.

But I am still ambivalent.

I am a sociable guy by nature, a social guy. I’m curious, I like beauty and at first it was mainly what we saw when we walked there.

In addition, I like to hear from my friends and acquaintances around the world and that’s how it goes. It would be very difficult for me to conceive of no longer maintaining my local social circle but even more the international one. But I consider, I consider.

Also want to drop the news that makes us always more worried and depressed, without it changing much that we know about all the disasters around the world. Even if we still have to stay abreast of what is happening on our ball. Because our world after all.

But sometimes, we come to have our eyes and head too full, overflowing, which ends up affecting our heart. So many distractions that end up blurring our view not only of the world but of ourselves as well.

So it sometimes becomes necessary and even essential to re-create space for the void, for something slower, to explore nothingness outside as well as within, for more silence. To simply settle down, and slow down.

Make a fire, contemplate it, and listen to the frogs.

Play music.

Read a book.

Walk in the forest.

Talk to one person at a time.

Work with his hands.

Create concrete beauty in various forms.

This is my summer schedule.

Not yet there to unplug, but not far.

To be continued.

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SHAPESHIFTERS

Shiv, you’ve often spoken about how you experience a great intimacy with life. How does one go about developing that kind of intimacy? Is awareness the key? I don’t experience that kind of intimacy with life that you describe…

***

I wonder if you have ever listened to a piece of music and given yourself to it so completely – that time stops, and the music fills your whole consciousness.

I wonder if you have ever been so overwhelmed with grief that the deep, wracking sobs of your distress envelope all of space and time.

I wonder if you have ever laughed so hard and so hysterically that the world comes to a standstill and it is only the last gasp of air in your lungs that can get it started again.

I wonder if you have ever been so consumed by rage that your consciousness leaves your body and watches as your entire being becomes consumed by the flames.

I wonder if you have ever been touched by your lover in such a way that every cell in your body unanimously and instantaneously aligns to their sensual energy like iron filings to a magnet.

I wonder if you have ever felt the exhilarating sensation of all-encompassing relief that a cool glass of water provides on a blistering day when you are utterly parched.

Intimacy with the moment takes infinite forms. None are sustainable. Nor do they need to be. For the moment is perpetually shifting and with it our ways of experiencing intimacy with it.

Your problem isn’t that you struggle to be intimate with life. Your problem is that you struggle to be intimate with life in the way that you have idealized intimacy to look like.

You would rather the bliss kind of intimacy than the grief kind.

You would rather the laughter kind of intimacy than the rage kind.

You would rather the peace kind of intimacy than the anxiety kind.

Every moment is an intimate one.

When you are lost in thoughts that is because you are being intimate with your thoughts.

When you are distracted by your phone, that is because you are being intimate with your phone.

When you are stressed out about your work or your finances. That is because you are being intimate with the story of your life.

When you are anxious about what others think about you – that is because you are being intimate with your distorted self-concept.

Human beings do not lack intimacy. We are forever losing ourselves in the things, people, events, ideas, opinions and institutions around us.

Life takes on all these forms – of thoughts, objects, experiences, events, people, opinions – and compels us to be intimate with it THROUGH its various forms.

Life is shapeshifting all the time. And we are shapeshifting with it.

We are shapeshifters and this very ability is testament to our capacity for intimacy.

When life is tough we respond with resistance. When life is smooth we respond with ease. When life is uncertain we respond with fear. When life is secure we respond with confidence.

When life is complicated we respond with confusion.

When life is simplified we respond with relief.

This means we are in sync with the way life is manifesting for us.

We are like dance partners. When life puts its foot forward we put ours back. When life steps back we put our foot forward.

What greater intimacy can there be than two halves operating as one whole?

Like I said, you may not perceive it in that way. But that is only because you have been enculturated into developing a skewed view of living. You have been brainwashed into believing that intimacy must always feel good.

Why ?

A mother’s embrace can be deeply intimate. Getting punched in the face can also be a deeply intimate experience.

Intimacy can look like love, depression, joy, sorrow, excitement, boredom, expansion, contraction.

In every moment, we are wholly and completely surrendered to experiencing that moment in an entirely intimate way. We have no choice over how we will respond. Life simply induces the response from us in proportion to what it requires.

It is like a pianist playing the piano. Music is what results when varying notes are played in succession with little to no pause between them. Each time one finger releases a piano key, another key is pressed.

Our life experiences are like the keys on a piano.

Anger is a key. Joy is a key. Boredom is a key. Anxiety is a key. Happiness is a key. Fear is a key. Peace is a key. Love is a key.

If your idea of intimacy is to play the same one ideal note over and over again, that is a misguided understanding. For that is not how music is made.

Music is made by playing the whole range of keys.

Intimacy is the contact pressure of the finger with the piano key that produces the vibration of sound.

Intimacy is the contact pressure of awareness with life experience that produces the vibration of a conscious experience.

You are always intimate with life. It is only your own misconceptions that prevent you from seeing that.

There is nothing you can ‘do’ to develop intimacy. Rather develop perspective instead.

See that life happens as it must. And you respond as you must. There is no disharmony in any of this. Suffering and pain are symptoms of disharmony. They are only different facets of that intimacy we share with life.

We are shapeshifters perpetually moulding ourselves to the container we find ourselves in – Life itself.

–Shiv Sengupta, Advaitaholics Anonymous, via Joan Tollifson
5/23//23
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TO KNOW WHICH SELF ?

But who is our dear Rumi talking to ? Who is YOU to whom he speaks ?

To the ultimate beloved ? Or to his sweetheart ? Or to himself, the part of him that is greater than his little self ?

We are – plausibly ? possibly ? probably ? or not – each and all of us depositaries of God, of the Great Spirit, of the Force or of the Flower of life, depending according to the various names that are attributed to this Great Life.

All and each of us are small bits of the embodied cosmos, little heaps of stardust in action on this big ball of blue water and green forest which turns on itself in infinity. With on it, 8 billion humans, and other billions of life forms, animal, mineral and vegetable.

What we often forget however, taken and caught in our personal stories that we think so real, so anchored in these passing bodies. But this physical body, which allows us to perceive, is still our current vehicle, and our senses, our gateways to that which is greater than little selves.

So when we talk to oneself, when we talk to God or to any one of his multiple artist names, who are we talking to ? Are we heard ? Or do we not always speak alone ?

And when we pray, who are we addressing our words ?

And is it really so important to know ?

As you see, a few little simple and light questions on this Monday morning of Patriots Day, Dollard Day or the Queen’s Day. See the names ? Just more of the same.

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And below, Osho about the ultimate desire

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LIFE FLOWS

My sweetheart and I are coming from a few days by the sea. On the beach.

In Maine, just nearby. A little cool there, but more than perfect because too chilly for the tourists. But they are coming.

So we had the beaches almost to ourselves. Great luxury. And great open space.

We walked, and walked, and some more, barefoot. We picked rocks, like children. We got blown away by the winds, and through it. We let ourselves get cleaned by the winds, letting go of the old.

We followed the waves. Observed the tides, high, and low, and on and on. And enjoyed the marshes. And listened to the birds. And found the sandpipers so cute.

The simple life, the beach life, very simple life by the sea. Walking, eating, sleeping.

We followed the flow, like the waves. Somewhere between the discipline of the body which required exercise, and the great salty air, the infinite space, and the surrender, this verb, and a noun, so difficult to incarnate fully. But we are learning to let go of ourself and be carried away by life. Slowly but surely.

In short, surrender ultimately constitutes a kind of quality of being – and mostly a non-doing – which requires simply letting oneself be carried away by the waves, by the flow of life.

WE don’t even hat to go with the flow, simply letting ourselves be carried away by the flow of the waves, letting go in the flow of life.

Like the seas with their movements inspired by the moon, like everything that the water carries in its waves and which eventually washes up on a beach. Even rocks end up letting themselves be polished by life. Let us be polished by the flow of life.

So back home, in the daily routine, with a lot to do. Flood of emails to respond to, but with some fresh flow in the heart, and in the soul, a swing to the booty, with a surge of lightness and marine movement going throughout the body. Woush, woush…

Between discipline, which comes so naturally when you do what you love and love what you do, and ease – another word for surrender. Let us be carried away by the flow, let’s dance with the flow, naively, like waves. Like children.

Summer can start now. No, it didn’t snow there, unlike here, but almost (in Vermont it did, as we were told on the way). If it can comfort you. Because we always compare ourselves a little. On one side or the other. It’s up to us to choose the right one. Or not compare at all as all is unique.

5/19/23
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HEART INFLAMED & SOUL ENCHANTED

Beauty ? a fiery heart and an enchanted soul ? Yes sir and maam.

Beauty is beyond words, so not worth trying explaining and understanding it.

Beyond things and people, and at the same time in things and people.

Behind the thoughts that often impede the raw flow of life, burns a small flame of consciousness in the heart of the observation post, a small glow shining. Always, and forever. A presence looking, noticing, observing, takin note. Without judging, calculating, or wanting to know. A pure simple presence.

Just here, calm, burning. Burn my heart burn.

And an enchanted heart. Always beating in search of beauty in this vast world. Mine like yours. Ours.

With the passage of time, all this beauty remains, persists and matures.

Slowly, but inevitably. Especially gently. Beauty, always. Here.

On this calm and peaceful morning, preparing for a few days at the sea with the one who keeps the flame alive in my burning heart, sitting at the screen, in this moment, in all simplicity, sending these few wishes of beauty and joy sent in the open air towards you, these rare pairs of eyes which will cross these lines according to chance. It is our intimacy that allows this closed-circuit writing.

With my heart inflamed, and burning, and this singing soul, playing, life flows very slowly. This life, the life of all of us. The same one and only.

Inflamed hearts and singing souls.

Aho and Amen !

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You have to have music in your soul if you want to make the world dance…
~ Friedrick Nietzsche via Alain Nyala

05/12/23

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MORE AND MORE (UN)CONSCIOUS ?

This quote from Alan Watts puts into words a certain feeling that has been taking place in me for quite some time now.

As much as a certain openness – whether it is said to be of push of conscience, or more simply a greater sensitivity in oneself therefore inevitably in connection with the outside world – leads us to perceive more the yummy yummy than the ouach and the beurk. Within us as well as without.

As much as the so-called peaks of consciousness make us rise higher and higher in the heavens – vamos subir – as much the descents are as pronounced. What comes up must come down. So let’s have a good look and enjoy the ride.

As much as we begin to be able to appreciate the immense and great beauty of the world – especially nature and children – just as much the ugliness and the horror jump out at us with the same intensity.

As much as we can only live with sincerity and greater transparency, as much falsehood and lies will appear to us in all their light. In ourself, as well as outside.

Because if they are true, these so-called surges of consciousness, or perceptual expansions, reveal everything to us, the beautiful as well as the less, the true as well as the false, the conscious but also and above all perhaps the unconscious. Because when the light shines, it points in the first place towards what hinders it.

When our ability to see, to feel, to perceive, you name it, grows our gaze that sees harmony as well as tumult and chaos. Broader view of all that exist.

When we become better at seeing the true, the false appears in equal measure. In ourself, as well as outside, as there are no real difference.

It is natural to want mostly the best, the beautiful, the good. But without its opposite, these qualities are nothing and don’t exist. And if we claim to want to become more aware, it is inevitable to dive into our areas of unconsciousness. Because that is how consciousness can grow : by shining light on the unconscious. Not always the first thing we want to see right ?

Full of beauty in this world. But also full of horror too. One comes with the other as we could say. In any case, one does not come without the other. And nothing is neutral, nor without its opposite.

Anyway, according to Epictetus,

So it seems, no fact are then neutral in itself, it always comes to us through various filters of interpretation. Filters that inevitably have emotional, cultural and existential roots. All different, so each view of the world is unique.

50 shades of gray they say ?

Gray to infinity I would rather say. Rainbow and all colors and all their shades included.

It’s going to be fine we like to say. But sometimes not as well.

It is up to us to learn to deal with it all, and to see ourselves as the world with a certain relativity. Because it seems everything is. Relative.

5/11/23

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FEAR OF FEAR

When I wrote this chronicle in french, I translated to be afraid by avoir peur (to have fear), but I was hesitating between being afraid and having fear. Because whether we like it or not, we often come back to the famous choice between being and having.

The choice between being in a state of fear, being scared, or to have – and own – fear in oneself, in the stomach, in the heart or everywhere in the body, all the same, right ? Or two ways of saying the same thing ? Or almost ? Or not at all ? Ah words.

Being afraid seems at first glance more involving than having fear (the most common way to say it in french) in itself. But beyond the strict semantics, the two states are similar. Depending on whether one conceives oneself more in a state of being or someone having life (borrowed as we will realize it more concretely one day).

To be alive, or to have a life ?

English seems to me more of a state language, compared to French, which seems to have and possess more.

I think therefore I am ? I feel and I am ? Or I have thoughts and emotions that pass through my head, heart and body.

Coming back to fear, the main human fears are probably death, suffering, abandonment, humiliation, disappearance. And a few others on the side.

If many humans say they are not afraid of dying – which we will see for real in time and place – many nevertheless admit to being afraid of suffering, or being afraid that their loved ones will suffer.

But as Montaigne affirms here:

A man or a woman of course 😉

Simple to say but tell it to someone who is afraid, whether it is to die or to suffer. No less painful for him or her. And when fear holds us, it is very difficult to get rid of it.

Sometimes it’s fear that holds us, and sometimes it is us who hold it and don’t let go. Because sometimes fear is also comforting in some strange ways, it keeps us small. Some really fear to be afraid, but others like it. Hence the horror movies. I am afraid therefore I live. I am scared, therefore I am.

So do we have fear per se or are we fear ?

Small – or big – existential question, but with similar repercussions. Contraction and holding back.

Perhaps the right answer is simply to allow ourselves to feel fear, or to be fear, or to have fear when fear manifests in us and around us.

Because if we think about the future as we all do sometimes, and especially in these uncertain times, it is almost inevitable to feel a certain fear, at least a concern, or a peur bleue fear, or of any other color, in front of the environmental threats facing us.

Whether it is fear for oneself, for one’s children or grandchildren, fear is very real, and human.

And each of us must learn to live with it. Like living with suffering when it comes.

And there is no choice but to feel it when it passes inside or around us, to recognize it and accept it.

Be it, or have it. Whether real or imagined. Let it be consumed. Because it comes, and goes. Naturally.

5/10/23

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FEAR AND PEACE

Sometimes we are anxious when we think about the future. With good reason, or not. But still, the future is unknown. By definition, the future is completely uncertain. And unpredictable.

Whether it is related to the state of the planet, to our physical, or financial and material health, or even to the biggest fear of all, death, the future can always be worrying. Especially if we are mostly and closely identified with our body, which is a vehicle that we will use for a few years.

But good news, and of course this is no news to you, the future does not exist, like the past for that matter. So regretting the past or worrying about later is rather useless, we will agree.

Time is only a necklace of little present moments that follow one after the other. Sometimes almost a cut-and-paste of the previous moment, sometimes a completely and sudden different ball game.

If we can easily understand that there is no point in worrying about later, it is sometimes difficult not to get our feet tangled up, and especially our mind, while facing the possible threats that could arise in the coming times. As so is life. And risk is inevitably part of it. And some of us are quite good at inventing a future full of pitfalls, and imagining the many terrible consequences that could ensue.

The conditional is the preferred conjugation of the future, more than the simple future in any case. And with ifs, and maybes, we can make very exciting horror movies.

Many young people today are eco-anxious. We can understand them. Except that at the rate at which we are chewing up our planet, it is all of humanity who has very good reasons to worry, elders included.

We are rapidly exhausting the very earth on which we live. And since we are the very earth on which we live, it is our very existence that is possibly at stake. Because very likely, the Earth will succeed in adapting, but it is far more less certain for us humans who walk on it. In life we – have to – trust.

So what do we do ?

Let’s enjoy every moment because nothing else exists. And even each moment passes so quickly that we cannot grasp any of them. Now is always a bit past history.

We can only let time flow through our fingers, trusting in the grand cosmic plan, if there is one, and if not, in the simple stream of life that keep flowing.

Let the good and bad times roll by with resignation, not a passive and sad resignation but simply realistic, because what else can we do ?

Oh, we can resist a little if we want to the passage of time, but it is rather futile because this time will continue to pass, whether we worry or not. Time is like water, it brings everything in its path.

And despite this apparent defeatism in the face of the future, which is unfolding more and more quickly it seems, we are also preparing for the future. We don’t know if it will be enough, or fast enough. Only time, and potential future disasters, will tell. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst as they say.

So one breath at a time, each step in faith, and let’s develop that kind of trust in life that is also greater than simple trust. Faith is in a way a kind blind trust that we have no real choice to develop because the light of life is sometimes so dazzling, and the mystery greater than what we can comprehend.

And it is not only because we don’t understand or don’t see what we should do in front of the future. Life will have its way anyway, with our help or despite our resistance.

So be it, and so will it be.
5/9/23

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DESIRE WITHOUT A CAUSE

This quote from Krishnamurti reminds me of the words of the Buddha in connection with the desire which is said to constitute the root and the source of all human suffering.

I say THE Buddha, as I say THE Christ, because according to what I understand of them, these characters were not only men; rather, they seem to me to have been the realization of our potential as humanity, this potential that we all share and carry. When Jesus dies, the Christ is born, when Siddhartta ceases to existe, the Buddha flowers.

For this reason, in my humble opinion, one should not focus too much on their own personality, but more on the potential these two men inspire, the greater than them contained in them. The Flower beyond the seed. What we also carry in ourself. Because beyond our own little separate self, we are much bigger than what and who we think we are.

A bit like these words from Khalil Gibran:

But some of us believe that their personality is an end in itself, when it is only the seed of our possible manifestation.

In the wake of the words from the Buddha, we like to denigrate desire. Because if desire is the root of all suffering, who wants to desire in order to eventually and almost inevitably suffer ? Maybe a masochist 😉

But if we bring back desire to its simplest expression, to its core, to its most essential quality, which would be a desire without a cause, a desire free of any object, this energy of desire is the one that leads us to want to live to the fullest, to vibrate totally, so that each cell of our body simply enjoys being alive, totally filled with energy. Because in the end, desire is only energy, our will to life, our vital energy.

Desire is the human vital energy beyond all fear, all calculation, beyond our smallness. Desire is a taste for risk, uncalculated actions, our leaps into the void of life. With all that that follows.

So, rather than being afraid of our desires, wanting to limit them, shrink them, and fear them, and actually keep ourselves small, and believing that all desire is negative, let’s dare to live and manifest our desires, let’s actualize them. Let’s jump into desire. Desire for oneself first of all, but which also translate into results for the good of the greatest number.

And let’s just think of desire as just a source of energy, as our vitality as the umph of life.

By first of all actualizing our smallest desires, the simplest, the least significant, the most attainable, as a rehearsal, by putting ourselves into action for the simple pleasure of moving, growing, of realizing ourselves.

And over time, small desires will become big, and those initial small desires will lose their focus, and will simply become a great desire to experience whatever life invites us to experience, menoum menoum like yark and yuck!

So Great Spirit, Dai-me a vida, give me life, give me everything you consider I need to grow, learn, and become more and more humble before your greatness and mystery.

To finally arrive at a pure state of desire, free of expectation and results. To get to the end of the road and achieve a state of simple desire to be alive, simply, but totally.

Osho, below in a talk titled The Smokeless Flame, offers another perspective on the term desire, in what to me is the essence of his teaching. Enjoy !
5/8/23

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BIG SPRING CLEANING

Looks like the world is on

this week.

I don’t know if it’s the Wesak

or the beginning of

or just the ups and downs of ordinary life but seems to me that’s it brewing on the planet this week. As usual.

Here it is heavy rains that cause flooding, cutting roads and flooding houses, while elsewhere the heat waves announce an increasingly hot summer in this early spring.

Without being able to compare with the past because the present that we have in the the eyes always seems worse and more dramatic than the good old days – which in fact were neither better nor old – the current times are rock n roll.

In light of what has been going on for the past few years, the old stock of the planet seems to want to come to the surface and be brought to light to be purified.

Nowadays, the concepts of truth and reality are being reinvented under the magnifying glass of artificial intelligence, while the news are more fake than ever. Although the modern age does not have a monopoly on propaganda, it is only more fragmented now, circulates faster and is more accessible.

If we can no longer trust what we see or read on our various screens, which has always been the case anyway, except that we are probably only more aware of it now, some of us at least , we must therefore develop a natural intelligence that emanates from oneself, from the heart.

You have to learn to develop equanimity, to be able to observe the surrounding world from a more neutral, more detached perspective, otherwise you will be thrown into the roller coaster of the news.

But probably a good week of

will replace this gloomy mood and re-illuminate our gaze in this beginning of May, which until now has been rather grey.

We’ve been living beyond the planet’s means for too long, and the Earth is probably telling us these days. And as we are this Earth, a great clearing process is required, and it seems already underway. To get better, today’s world must let go and regenerate. And the process is probably already underway.

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You are made up of 84 minerals, 23 elements and 8 gallons of water distributed in 38 trillion cells.

You are built from loose parts of the Earth that you have consumed, according to a set of instructions hidden in a double helix and small enough to be carried by a sperm.

You are recycled butterflies, plants, rocks and streams, firewood, wolf fur and shark teeth, broken down into tiny parts and rebuilt into the most complex living thing on our planet.

You don’t live on Earth. You are the Earth.

– Aubrey Marcus via Marika Tousignant

Let’s go outside !

111, 555 and 15:15 😉
5/5/23

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SURFING LIFE

It looks like the times to come are going to be chaotic, and changing.

Drought in some places, floods and rising seas elsewhere, extreme heat, mass migratory movements, scarcity of certain products or even of places to live for many, inflation, AI and other techno by-products, etc.

It seems that the world as we have known it before is about to change drastically. As always one might think and say. But perhaps also faster and more significantly than ever before. Who knows ?

Do you also hear the ticking of the big changes to come ?

While some things are changing fast, old traditions like the monarchy are clinging to the past. Some things change quickly, others less so.

But overall, with 8 billion human hearts and bodies on this planet, not to mention animals and the rest of the other forms of life, our planet, which seems to be showing more and more obvious signs of exasperation, we will have to learn to adapt to survive. Quickly and meaningfully.

Because eating bananas, oranges and other imported products have been a great luxury for many years, but it is not certain if we will be able to continue like this for long.

We will have to learn to limit our levels of luxury, our level of general comfort. To open our borders, to share more, to stop seeing ourselves separated from the rest of the world. Because it seems that we are approaching the end of a cycle, and the beginning of another one, still unknown. As always of course, but maybe a bit more unknown than what we have known yet.

The more things change, the more some resist. Each change attracts its equal share of resistance. Until we can’t resist anymore. This inevitably provokes conflicts and oppositions. But it looks like the speed is increasing. Like the heat, and the pressure.

All one can do individually is to prepare for change. By living the present moment because that which exists. What else to do ?

Being totally here, present to what is happening right now around us, observing this big world in motion, and being ready to adapt to what the future is bringing to us. Being flexible, fluid, adaptative and ready to move with accuracy if and when life demands it.

And socially, looking at how we can get more involved because it is only together that we can achieve the times to come. Probably the biggest challenge, learning to collaborate rather than compete, working together rather than against one another.

Until we become the drop that contains the whole ocean, let’s learn to surf on the waves of life. Otherwise we will all be seasick. Very seasick, in our hearts.

Thanks Leonard for the reminder.
5/4/23

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SACRED SHIPS OF FRIENDS

Yesterday I received this bracelet as a gift from very precious friends. Touched straight to the heart this columnist. And to the wrist.

With these friends, we have been rubbing shoulders for forty years, walking on parallel paths, which have crossed more and more regularly over the past few years, to my great joy (my sannyas name, atiharsha in sanskrit).

Paths that took us to Osho in our early twenties, then for them on the red path, me to Veeresh’s home in Holland in the 1980s and here afterwards, on the way to the Santo Daime and various indigenous ceremonies of the South and North, as well as multiple other paths less traveled.

It is all these paths that this bracelet represents in a certain way, in addition to our great and very simple friendship embodied. With a predominance of Santo Daime on the bracelet because it is on this path on which I am engaged for the moment. Star, cross, burgundy sannyas, feathers and Beija-Flor, a little bird with a big heart that bridges all bloodlines. Symbols carefully woven by beads, one by one, all small and thin. Offering Imagined by Kaveesha, hand-strung by Juliette, a young sistar of us. With Ghosha in the background.

For a long time, inspired by Osho among others, we have been exploring various roads my friends and I, but the main avenue we are navigating is that of friendship beyond specific affiliations to one lineage or another. We walk, sing and dance our ways with openness to our world.

We do not study our spiritual paths so much in books or scriptures, nor in the speeches of others, even though we place great importance on the words of our elders who blazed the path before us. Respect for traditions, anchored in the present and in the living of the moment, in the big now. And slowly, simply, naturally and humbly becoming young elders ourselves in our own ways.

We walk our words through the mouths of our hearts and souls, we sing them, dance them, build them and walk them in beauty and care with our hands, our feet and our friends, for ourselves and for others. We make our home in the heart of our world, here on earth and inspired by up there, each with our unifying qualities. Harbors in the hearts.

If the great spiritual revelations are always illuminating when they happen to deign to descend on our souls and our hearts, and we do not seek them absolutely or at any cost, friendship constitutes the greatest spiritual value there is.

Because as long as we are embodied, our friends and fellow travelers are our pillars, our landmarks, our foundations. Our soul family. Heart to heart, soul to soul, here on Earth. Now, here, every moment and for the eternity that passes through every moment.

For the moment, my heart project is our little church in the forest of Val-David. If you want to get an idea of their current project, and support them a little maybe because really a big project, so any help is appreciated. As I cannot contribute as much as I would like, I refer you here:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/wasteskun-meztli-moondance-new-ceremonial-grounds?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_content=undefined&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer&utm_term=undefined

With these words, dear friends, Aho !

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And regardless of our prayers, those below – of Native American inspiration – seem to me to encompass them all because all true human religion is embodied directly and inevitably first of all in the elements of nature, earth, air, water, fire, as in our hearts and bodies.

HEART MEDICINE-LIFE CODE

 Native American Code of Ethics

1. Rise with the sun to pray. Pray alone. Pray often. The Great Spirit will listen, if you only speak.

2. Be tolerant of those who are lost on their path. Ignorance, conceit, anger, jealousy and greed stem from a lost soul. Pray that they will find guidance.

3. Search for yourself, by yourself. Do not allow others to make your path for you. It is your road, and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.

4. Treat the guests in your home with much consideration. Serve them the best food, give them the best bed and treat them with respect and honor.

5. Do not take what is not yours whether from a person, a community, the wilderness or from a culture. It was not earned nor given. It is not yours.

6. Respect all things that are placed upon this earth – whether it be people or plant.

7. Honor other people’s thoughts, wishes and words. Never interrupt another or mock or rudely mimic them. Allow each person the right to personal expression.

8. Never speak of others in a bad way. The negative energy that you put out into the universe will multiply when it returns to you.

9. All persons make mistakes. And all mistakes can be forgiven.

10. Bad thoughts cause illness of the mind, body and spirit. Practice optimism.

11. Nature is not FOR us, it is a PART of us. They are part of your worldly family.

12. Children are the seeds of our future. Plant love in their hearts and water them with wisdom and life’s lessons. When they are grown, give them space to grow.

13. Avoid hurting the hearts of others. The poison of your pain will return to you.

14. Be truthful at all times. Honesty is the test of ones will within this universe.

15. Keep yourself balanced. Your Mental self, Spiritual self, Emotional self, and Physical self – all need to be strong, pure and healthy. Work out the body to strengthen the mind. Grow rich in spirit to cure emotional ails.

16. Make conscious decisions as to who you will be and how you will react. Be responsible for your own actions.

17. Respect the privacy and personal space of others. Do not touch the personal property of others – especially sacred and religious objects. This is forbidden.

18. Be true to yourself first. You cannot nurture and help others if you cannot nurture and help yourself first.

19. Respect others religious beliefs. Do not force your belief on others.

20. Share your good fortune with others. Participate in charity.

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And in closing, a few words from our Beloved about prayer.
5/3/23

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THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH

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These few words are written to the sound of this superb musical piece played on a loop as it simply and so beautifully expresses all the gratitude of the world.

Often, at the end of our ceremonies here, but elsewhere and at other times too, we are confronted with the limits of the word THANK YOU.

But all of us express it all the same because until proven otherwise, this 8-letter word is still the one that best expresses all our recognition, our gratitude, the chance we have to be alive.

THANK YOU as a way of saying the privilege of seeing this life, of being part of it, of contributing to it. To express the great mystery that constitutes our very small role in this great existence.

Despite wars and famines, despite adversity, despite the lows of our highs, we can only continue to say THANK YOU, and yes, and to do the best we can to change the world, little by little around us, through small and humble gestures with no expectations other than that of contributing. And to keep our hearts open, despite the harshness of the world sometimes.

In this new month of May, in these chaotic times on our blue planet, let us sow beauty, goodness, sweetness, care for our brothers and our sisters, our children and our elders, our young and our old. . And let’s continue to consider this world as ours. and take care of it as best we can.

And let’s say THANK YOU, because it’s still the best way to say and express our appreciation.

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When you express gratitude, you raise the vibrations around you to a higher frequency.
You create positive energy that emanates out from you and returns to you as wonderful experiences.
You become magnetic.
Good things and good people gravitate toward you because you’re such a joy and delight to be around.

An attitude of gratitude is naturally attractive.
It has the power to turn challenges into possibilities, problems into solutions, and losses into gains.
It shifts the energy.
It expands our vision and allows us to see what might normally be invisible to someone with a limiting attitude.

Gratitude is a prayer for goodness to abound.
I think the words “thank you” are two of the most beautiful words in the language.
They can light up someone’s face and help the other person know that he or she is appreciated.
It opens the doors to our hearts and allows us to feel connected.

Let’s spend as many moments as we can every day being grateful for all the good that’s in our lives.

~ ❤ ~ Daniel Peralta
5/2/23