Life brings many things our way, ups and downs of all sorts. Some challenges are minor, some major. Some times we are devastated. At times it may be difficult to keep our hearts open and our optimism in tact. Many who have traveled this path of dark and light intermingled, report that no matter what the circumstance, healing begins with acknowledgement of the problem or issue and of feelings, attitudes and beliefs connected with the issue. Such acknowledgement often leads to a realization of how we have, often subconsciously, devalued ourselves, judged ourselves unworthy, even set ourselves up as deserving of punishment or retribution. It is a common pattern, to subconsciously punish or undermine ourselves for having fallen short of some standard that we've bought into.
It is only when we become aware of what we are doing to ourselves that we have a real opportunity of releasing . The mind would love to have us think that healing is therefore our personal responsibility and that if we don't awaken to what we are doing to ourselves, it's our fault and we're doomed to continued suffering. Don't let the mind play such pointless tricks on you. Northrop Frye notes that the great visionary poet, William Blake, honed in on one of the nastiest mental patterns by means of which much human suffering is unconsciously generated and regenerated. Personifying that pattern, Blake called it "The Accuser", defined as "that in us which forces us to do what it condemns as sinful." Think about that for a minute. You could found a punitive, moralistic religion on that insight alone. How many times have you said to yourself,"I always do the exact opposite of what I intend to do or what I know is the right/healthy/appropriate/required thing to do?"
I am NOT suggesting that you empower The Accuser by viewing it as a formidable presence in your psyche. It's a pattern founded on falsehood, and it's a waste of your time and energy to focus on denying what isn't true. To persist in doing so only reanimates the bogus drama. It is not necessary to push the darkness out of a room before turning the light on. The light here is self-acceptance.
Everything good and true begins with giving oneself permission to be wonderfully imperfect.
Let go of the impossible standards you somehow believed you had to live up to, the parental voices that remind you of your shortcomings, the tragic breakup you can't get over. Almost everyone experiences these challenges in life. A story of the Buddha relates how there was a young woman in the village where he was residing whose baby died shortly after birth. The poor woman became so distraught that she walked the town, holding the baby in her arms as though hoping beyond hope that it would somehow come to life. When villagers told the Buddha how deranged this woman had become, he asked that she be brought to him. He gave her one task, to knock on each door in the village and ask the inhabitants if they had ever suffered the loss of a loved one. By the time the woman was half way through the village, she had heard so many tales of woe that she became sane and her child was buried.
It can be heartbreaking to discover how much we have devalued ourselves or shut down our energies with negative self-judgments or with feelings that we might have unconsciously deemed too overwhelming to face. If you need the help of someone skilled to face the pain or the horror, go for it. There are many skilled therapists these days who deal with these issues without busting one's bank account in the process. Grieve over how you have unwittingly hurt yourself, scared yourself or sabotaged yourself. Feeling your feelings as they are is is a surprisingly effective form of self acceptance and is step one in resolving patterns of suffering that otherwise hang around like those vicious circles in which self-critical voices spin. Notice, I did not recommend feeling your feelings in order to heal them or make them go away. Feel them as they are, on their terms. Let them be. Let yourself be as you are. Come home free of the dread harm of judgment.
No matter who tells you, directly or subtly, that you're not good enough, no matter how short you fall of your own self imposed standards or goals, no matter how unlovable you are made to feel, the way clear begins with self acceptance. Do not hang the hat of your being on others' approval of you. Believe me, every single one of us who has traveled this human path with eyes even half open, is with you in the sacred task of reclaiming your life through self-acceptance. Rub your belly in clockwise circles with your hand and say to yourself out loud several times, "I love myself very, very much." and mean it. It's not Narcissism. It's just love.
For valuable instruction on mind-body healing, check out the work of Dr. Jerry Epstein. He's a New York Psychiatrist whose integrative approach to healing offers easy to learn mind-body exercises that might just surprise you with their effectiveness.
It is only when we become aware of what we are doing to ourselves that we have a real opportunity of releasing . The mind would love to have us think that healing is therefore our personal responsibility and that if we don't awaken to what we are doing to ourselves, it's our fault and we're doomed to continued suffering. Don't let the mind play such pointless tricks on you. Northrop Frye notes that the great visionary poet, William Blake, honed in on one of the nastiest mental patterns by means of which much human suffering is unconsciously generated and regenerated. Personifying that pattern, Blake called it "The Accuser", defined as "that in us which forces us to do what it condemns as sinful." Think about that for a minute. You could found a punitive, moralistic religion on that insight alone. How many times have you said to yourself,"I always do the exact opposite of what I intend to do or what I know is the right/healthy/appropriate/required thing to do?"
I am NOT suggesting that you empower The Accuser by viewing it as a formidable presence in your psyche. It's a pattern founded on falsehood, and it's a waste of your time and energy to focus on denying what isn't true. To persist in doing so only reanimates the bogus drama. It is not necessary to push the darkness out of a room before turning the light on. The light here is self-acceptance.
Everything good and true begins with giving oneself permission to be wonderfully imperfect.
Let go of the impossible standards you somehow believed you had to live up to, the parental voices that remind you of your shortcomings, the tragic breakup you can't get over. Almost everyone experiences these challenges in life. A story of the Buddha relates how there was a young woman in the village where he was residing whose baby died shortly after birth. The poor woman became so distraught that she walked the town, holding the baby in her arms as though hoping beyond hope that it would somehow come to life. When villagers told the Buddha how deranged this woman had become, he asked that she be brought to him. He gave her one task, to knock on each door in the village and ask the inhabitants if they had ever suffered the loss of a loved one. By the time the woman was half way through the village, she had heard so many tales of woe that she became sane and her child was buried.
It can be heartbreaking to discover how much we have devalued ourselves or shut down our energies with negative self-judgments or with feelings that we might have unconsciously deemed too overwhelming to face. If you need the help of someone skilled to face the pain or the horror, go for it. There are many skilled therapists these days who deal with these issues without busting one's bank account in the process. Grieve over how you have unwittingly hurt yourself, scared yourself or sabotaged yourself. Feeling your feelings as they are is is a surprisingly effective form of self acceptance and is step one in resolving patterns of suffering that otherwise hang around like those vicious circles in which self-critical voices spin. Notice, I did not recommend feeling your feelings in order to heal them or make them go away. Feel them as they are, on their terms. Let them be. Let yourself be as you are. Come home free of the dread harm of judgment.
No matter who tells you, directly or subtly, that you're not good enough, no matter how short you fall of your own self imposed standards or goals, no matter how unlovable you are made to feel, the way clear begins with self acceptance. Do not hang the hat of your being on others' approval of you. Believe me, every single one of us who has traveled this human path with eyes even half open, is with you in the sacred task of reclaiming your life through self-acceptance. Rub your belly in clockwise circles with your hand and say to yourself out loud several times, "I love myself very, very much." and mean it. It's not Narcissism. It's just love.
For valuable instruction on mind-body healing, check out the work of Dr. Jerry Epstein. He's a New York Psychiatrist whose integrative approach to healing offers easy to learn mind-body exercises that might just surprise you with their effectiveness.
Calcium is the number one most important mineral for bones and teeth. However, recent research well documented in Rheaume-Bleue's book, reveals important things you should know about using calcium properly to build stronger, healthier bones and fangs. Taking calcium supplements just by themselves does not seem like a good idea. It gets laid down in plaques in the arteries and can cause heart and circulation problems. As well, people taking calcium supplements only have been shown to lose calcium from their bones! (see 'the calcium paradox' part of Rheaume-Bleue's book for details and sources). When you take vitamins A, D and especially K2 (MK-7 form) with the calcium, things change for the better, both in the arteries and in the bones.
Still, recent research strongly suggests that you are best off to meet your requirements for this important mineral by ingestion of natural whole foods high in calcium. Dr. Joseph Mercola M.D., writes:
"It has been estimated... that your body excretes as little as 100 mg a day, making the current recommendations by the National Osteoporosis Foundation for women over 50 to take 1,200 mg a day a bit troubling. When we compare our calcium-rich diet to the traditional calcium-poor Chinese peasant diet, which was free of cow's milk and calcium supplements, approximately 250 mg a day of plant-based calcium was all that was needed to fulfill their bodily needs – and this is a culture with no word for "osteoporosis" in its 3,000+ year old language!"
source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/07/11/calcium-turmeric-and-resveratrol-benefits.aspx
According to Mercola, good food sources of food-based calcium include:
- Organic grass fed and finished raw milk and cheese from pasture-raised cows
- Leafy green vegetables
- The pith of citrus fruits (the white pulpy inner skin we often throw away)
- Carob
- Sesame seeds and wheatgrass
Please keep in mind that I have no personal or financial interest in any product or service mentioned on this site. This Healthy By Nature segment of Free Range Egos includes the disclaimer:
"This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Discussion of health related issues on this website is for information and education purposes only and is in no way intended to substitute for the services of a licensed health care professional."
Calcium -- get it in food, not in supplement form (Aug 2015 update)
Osteoporosis, Arthritis and the fat soluble vitamins
MK-7... sounds like a covert branch of British intelligence, doesn't it? Truth is, it could be one of the most welcome nutrients you could hope for in the quest for osteoporosis and arthritis remedies. A brilliant, exhaustively researched book on the subject is now available:
Rheaume-Bleue, Kate: Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox: How a Little-Known Vitamin Could Save Your Life (Kindle Locations 2778-2782).
Rheaume-Bleue presents compelling evidence that supplementation with fat soluble vitamins A, D and K2 can prove to be a real treasure for those seeking to ameliorate or even reverse the pain and ravages of bone related diseases. Of course, no vitamin or set of supplements means much on its own. Healing is holistic, meaning one's whole lifestyle needs to move in the direction of healthier food choices, exercise and inner peace in order for true healing to occur, and the author offers a wealth of useful and pertinent information in these areas. That said, a little research into the MK-7 form of Vitamin K2 will prove to be truly eye opening and possibly life changing.
Rheaume-Bleue, Kate: Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox: How a Little-Known Vitamin Could Save Your Life (Kindle Locations 2778-2782).
Rheaume-Bleue presents compelling evidence that supplementation with fat soluble vitamins A, D and K2 can prove to be a real treasure for those seeking to ameliorate or even reverse the pain and ravages of bone related diseases. Of course, no vitamin or set of supplements means much on its own. Healing is holistic, meaning one's whole lifestyle needs to move in the direction of healthier food choices, exercise and inner peace in order for true healing to occur, and the author offers a wealth of useful and pertinent information in these areas. That said, a little research into the MK-7 form of Vitamin K2 will prove to be truly eye opening and possibly life changing.
Three Stages of Meditation
selected at random from among the few of which I'm aware.
Beginner's Stage: Attending to Distraction
The great majority of us, equipped with standard issue, conditioned, socialized mindsets, are easily distracted by almost everything all the time. We generally have no idea how distracted we are until we take up a meditation practice and attempt to follow a simple instruction like 'Pay attention to your breath. Do not be swept away by passing thoughts.'
Those passing thoughts, a.k.a., distractions, make it almost impossible to focus full attention on one's breath for more than a minute or, in most cases, three to five seconds. How come we never knew how easily distracted we are? Beginning stages of meditation are a great way to discover this simple fact about one's casino mind. Frustrating as hell, yes. Beneficial beyond belief to make this discovery, yes. And I say that not without irony, for beliefs are a major distraction. If distracting thoughts are clouds passing through the clear sky of mind, beliefs are turmeric stains on mind's white cotton sheet.
Intermediate Stage: Attending to Tension
Once we develop some capacity for focusing and maintaining undistracted, non-entranced attention, meditation deepens. We can ask ourselves 'What am I experiencing right now?" and then pay enough non-distracted attention to accurately investigate our thoughts, feelings, sensations and intuitions. Not uncommonly, people at this stage notice all kinds of hitherto unnoticed things about themselves.
some examples:
-- underneath my anger, I seem to be afraid -- and under the fear, terrible sadness. Why have I not noticed this before?
-- this tension in my belly, is this normal? It doesn't feel normal, but it's been there off and mostly on for decades. What if I experience it on its own terms, without judging it, trying to fix it or make it go away? Huh, my body just heaved a big sigh of relief. What's up with that?
Strange thing about how we humans are psycho-physically wrought -- seems that the things we carry around inside us inevitably become problematical if we remain unconscious of them. As the Nazarene put it over two thousand years ago, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." (Gospel of Thomas).
Advanced Stage: Attending to Attention
This is where things get interesting. It's not really possible to attend to attention without some proficiency in the paradoxically effortless ability to abide in non-distraction. Remaining non-distracted in the midst of changing outer and inner terrains is not achieved by thinking the right thoughts. Rights thoughts are just more changing 'stuff.'
"In real meditation, a bare state of awareness is necessary, so that the meditation has a spacious quality, a clarity and transparency of experience." -- Kalu Rinpoche
The Clear Mind of Light, ground of all arising, subsiding and distraction, is non-conceptual.
A concept, ANY concept, is something the mind generates. That which generates the concept is where Shelley's deep "imageless" truth abides. Concepts, no matter how brilliant, can, at best, but dimly reflect that which enables the gesture of attention itself.
"If thoughts arise, remain present in that state; if no thoughts arise, remain present in that state; there is no difference in the presence in either state." -- Garab Dorje
Big concepts that become the basis of entire belief systems are worse than a proliferation of vermin in the attic. The Buddha's Middle Way vision, attending to both subject and object(s) of experience, beholds both
as distinct without being separate. In this nondual vision, no separate self can be found. Sounds scary at first egoic glance, but those who have realized this vision universally (and joyfully) refer to it as the 'cessation of suffering.'
"Dharmakaya is the universal, aware empty space of reality that knows.
There is no other cognitive awareness or knowing sentience." -- Jackson Peterson
Awakening isn't happening somewhere else
Samsara and Nirvana. In conversation, many non-Buddhist friends have indicated that they don't know exactly what those terms mean, but they have a rough idea.... (continue)
make link for above Samsara and Nirvana for this ...
Samsara is the problematic, everyday real world where shit happens and Nirvana is either paradise or a rock band. During his forty years of teaching after awakening under the Bodhi tree, the Buddha was often asked about Nirvana. Many seekers also asked him about life after death, reincarnation, heaven worlds, hell worlds and all kinds of metaphysical stuff. The Buddha's most common response, particularly to questions about Nirvana, was silence. Why silence? Is it not possible to say anything about Nirvana?
According to the brilliant German scholar, Heinrich Zimmer, who penned his thoughts way back in 1942 during the dark days of WW2, the Awakened One, a.k.a. the Buddha, saw clearly that there are no separate beings bound in Samsara.
Samsara is a kind of optical - slash- visceral illusion wherein separate suffering beings appear to be real... and separate.... and suffering.
It is precisely all of THAT which is 'blown out' in the occasion of awakening. Buddha Nature is the reality of all beings and any Dharma teacher who proceeds on the basis of treating beings as though they were real, separate, independently existing sufferers, simply does not see the real as it is.
Little can be said about the real situation that would make much sense to one still convinced of the reality of the Samsaric world because the very language of that world reifies its limitations and misunderstandings. Hence, the seemingly outlandish, cryptic pronouncements the Buddha sometimes made when gesturing toward the Nirvanic.
I.E., Once, when his followers were rejoicing at what they saw as the Buddha turning the Wheel of Dharma for the second time... "the Buddha, turning stealthily to Subhuti, whispered something that he would not tell the gods for it was beyond their power of understanding.... "There is no setting in motion of anything, nor any stopping of the motion of anything. Knowing just that is the perfection of wisdom (prajna-paramita) which is characteristic of the beings whose essence is enlightenment."
One suspects the Buddha would have been equally silent in response to the question, "What is Samsara?" Why and/or how does form appear at all? Most of us think we know or that we will know a few scientific discoveries down the road. Awakened sages know better. They know that no one has the slightest clue. The difference between the sages and the rest of us is that they see clearly that we don't know and do so without fear.
Only in knowing our total ignorance
do we overcome it.
-- Douglas Harding
thinking about awareness... is not awareness. Imagine thinking about the taste of honey without once tasting it. How satisfying is all that conceptual surmising going to be?
A mirage is a good metaphor for the universe.
When I was a young yogi, full of proselytizing intensity about things like peace and serenity, I once found myself seated next to a teen male on a driftwood log at the ocean's edge. It was a starry summer night. The teen was high on LSD. For some reason, I felt an overwhelming urge to explain to him the purpose of the universe, the meaning of life and everything wondrous I could recall or invent on the spot. I held forth, summoning up sutras, philosophy and modern science to convince him that life was indeed a miracle beyond our comprehension. I thought I was doing great. I was dazzling myself and that intensified the didacticism masquerading as revelation, until the young man looked up in the light of the crackling beach fire and said, "Where's the music, man? You can't dance without music."
Ears ringing from the absence of music, I left the young man to the primal comforts of burning driftwood and made my way up from the beach to an intersection where a pop song spilled from a passing car. All I heard were the lyrics,"... a taste of honey, tasting much sweeter than wine." In my mind, I heard "whine".
Samsara is the problematic, everyday real world where shit happens and Nirvana is either paradise or a rock band. During his forty years of teaching after awakening under the Bodhi tree, the Buddha was often asked about Nirvana. Many seekers also asked him about life after death, reincarnation, heaven worlds, hell worlds and all kinds of metaphysical stuff. The Buddha's most common response, particularly to questions about Nirvana, was silence. Why silence? Is it not possible to say anything about Nirvana?
According to the brilliant German scholar, Heinrich Zimmer, who penned his thoughts way back in 1942 during the dark days of WW2, the Awakened One, a.k.a. the Buddha, saw clearly that there are no separate beings bound in Samsara.
Samsara is a kind of optical - slash- visceral illusion wherein separate suffering beings appear to be real... and separate.... and suffering.
It is precisely all of THAT which is 'blown out' in the occasion of awakening. Buddha Nature is the reality of all beings and any Dharma teacher who proceeds on the basis of treating beings as though they were real, separate, independently existing sufferers, simply does not see the real as it is.
Little can be said about the real situation that would make much sense to one still convinced of the reality of the Samsaric world because the very language of that world reifies its limitations and misunderstandings. Hence, the seemingly outlandish, cryptic pronouncements the Buddha sometimes made when gesturing toward the Nirvanic.
I.E., Once, when his followers were rejoicing at what they saw as the Buddha turning the Wheel of Dharma for the second time... "the Buddha, turning stealthily to Subhuti, whispered something that he would not tell the gods for it was beyond their power of understanding.... "There is no setting in motion of anything, nor any stopping of the motion of anything. Knowing just that is the perfection of wisdom (prajna-paramita) which is characteristic of the beings whose essence is enlightenment."
One suspects the Buddha would have been equally silent in response to the question, "What is Samsara?" Why and/or how does form appear at all? Most of us think we know or that we will know a few scientific discoveries down the road. Awakened sages know better. They know that no one has the slightest clue. The difference between the sages and the rest of us is that they see clearly that we don't know and do so without fear.
Only in knowing our total ignorance
do we overcome it.
-- Douglas Harding
thinking about awareness... is not awareness. Imagine thinking about the taste of honey without once tasting it. How satisfying is all that conceptual surmising going to be?
A mirage is a good metaphor for the universe.
When I was a young yogi, full of proselytizing intensity about things like peace and serenity, I once found myself seated next to a teen male on a driftwood log at the ocean's edge. It was a starry summer night. The teen was high on LSD. For some reason, I felt an overwhelming urge to explain to him the purpose of the universe, the meaning of life and everything wondrous I could recall or invent on the spot. I held forth, summoning up sutras, philosophy and modern science to convince him that life was indeed a miracle beyond our comprehension. I thought I was doing great. I was dazzling myself and that intensified the didacticism masquerading as revelation, until the young man looked up in the light of the crackling beach fire and said, "Where's the music, man? You can't dance without music."
Ears ringing from the absence of music, I left the young man to the primal comforts of burning driftwood and made my way up from the beach to an intersection where a pop song spilled from a passing car. All I heard were the lyrics,"... a taste of honey, tasting much sweeter than wine." In my mind, I heard "whine".
When it comes to online health related testimonials, I'm inclined to give most credence to those written by people who aren't selling anything, for obvious reasons. My attention was peaked, to say the least, when I recently discovered large numbers of testimonials spread across several sites, reporting remarkable recoveries from the torments of arthritic pain and debility as a result of eliminating nightshade vegetables from one's diet. These are written by people who have nothing to gain by making such claims. They just stopped eating potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, chili peppers, paprika and eggplants. Not easy to do, certainly, but among those who carefully avoided ALL nightshade foods, the huge number of reports of pain relief, plus increased flexibility and mobility is massively impressive.
Of course, one may argue that millions of people eat nightshade vegetables every day without suffering from arthritis. However, a closer look at the data reveals that an alarming percentage of people do, in fact, thus suffer. Rheumatoid and Osteoarthritis afflict millions. Check out these alarming stats from the U.S.Center for Disease Control and Prevention:
An estimated 52.5 million adults in the United States reported being told by a doctor that they have some form of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, lupus, or fibromyalgia.
MMWR 2013; 62 (44) 869- 873. [Data Source: 2010- 2012 NHIS]
One in five (22.7%) adults in the United States report having doctor diagnosed arthritis.
MMWR 2013; 62 (44) 869- 873. [Data Source: 2010- 2012 NHIS]
In 2010-2012, 49.7% of adults 65 years or older reported an arthritis diagnosis.
MMWR 2013; 62 (44) 869- 873. [Data Source: 2010- 2012 NHIS]
By 2030, an estimated 67 million Americans ages 18 years or older are projected to have doctor-diagnosed arthritis.
Arthritis & Rheumatism 2006;54(1):226-229 [Data Source: 2003 NHIS]
An estimated 294,000 children under age 18 have some form of arthritis or rheumatic condition; this represents approximately 1 in every 250 children in the U.S.
(source: http://www.cdc.gov/arthritis/data_statistics/arthritis_related_stats.htm):
And these are the people who have been diagnosed by a physician. The list doesn't include all those experiencing morning stiffness, joint pain and inflammation who haven't gotten around to securing a formal diagnosis.
It's interesting to note that, according to the American Journal of Epidemiology, "International comparisons suggest that Asian populations have a consistently low prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis. "
(source: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/152/5/442.long ).
Asians, generally, don't eat potatoes. They eat rice. The journal continues, "The results reported in this study corroborate other recent studies (3, 22-25) that indicate that being an Asian may be truly associated with reduced risk of having arthritis. The finding suggests that further etiologic epidemiologic studies might be rewarding."
Indeed.
According to Dr. Norman Childers, a retired Emeritus professor of Horticulture, Univ. of Florida, glycoalkaloids found in nightshade vegetables remove calcium from the bones, causing aches, pains, and even deformation. Dr. Childers' website (see below) contains testimonials from many former arthritis sufferers whose symptoms dramatically abated after elimination of all nightshade foods.
So, if nightshades are so debilitating, why isn't everyone consuming them adversely affected? The answers put forward in the sources cited below offer a number of explanations, including the hypothesis that compounds in nightshades increase permeability of the intestines, leading to the leaking of toxic glycoakaloids into the bloodstream to the detriment of calcium metabolism. For a variety of dietary, genetic and other health related factors, some peoples' alimentary tracts are more resistant to permeability than others. Hormonal factors may play a role as well, which might account for increased susceptibility to glycoalkaloid toxicity as the body ages and protective hormone production decreases. The health issues involved in this leaky gut epidemiology express not only as arthritis, but as a number of other auto-immune disorders, as well. Google the connection between nightshades and lupus, an auto immune disease characterized by extreme tissue inflammation. You may be surprised at the extent of postings on the subject.
For ease of reference, I cite the following sources. The first grouping consists of sites that offer information on the biochemistry of the nightshade-arthritis connection.
http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/nightshades
http://www.noarthritis.com/nightshades.htm
http://www.greatlifeglobal.com/services/health-a-wellness-consultations/29.html
http://haydeninstitute.com/additional-resources/additional-resources-diet-and-nutrition/inflammatory-foods-nightshades
This second grouping consists of forums and testimonial sites where people report results they have achieved by eliminating nightshades from their dietary. This list is by no means exhaustive, though the large number of positive reports here certainly beckons us to pay some attention:
http://arthritis.about.com/b/2006/09/25/nightshade-vegetables-should-people-with-arthritis-avoid-nightshade-foods.htm
http://noarthritis.com/testimonial.htm
http://skustes.hubpages.com/hub/nightshades
healing of a difficult disease, unrelated to arthritis, but not to nightshades...
http://www.patient.co.uk/forums/discuss/hidradenitis-suppurativa-you-can-have-your-life-back--38578
Of course, one may argue that millions of people eat nightshade vegetables every day without suffering from arthritis. However, a closer look at the data reveals that an alarming percentage of people do, in fact, thus suffer. Rheumatoid and Osteoarthritis afflict millions. Check out these alarming stats from the U.S.Center for Disease Control and Prevention:
An estimated 52.5 million adults in the United States reported being told by a doctor that they have some form of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, lupus, or fibromyalgia.
MMWR 2013; 62 (44) 869- 873. [Data Source: 2010- 2012 NHIS]
One in five (22.7%) adults in the United States report having doctor diagnosed arthritis.
MMWR 2013; 62 (44) 869- 873. [Data Source: 2010- 2012 NHIS]
In 2010-2012, 49.7% of adults 65 years or older reported an arthritis diagnosis.
MMWR 2013; 62 (44) 869- 873. [Data Source: 2010- 2012 NHIS]
By 2030, an estimated 67 million Americans ages 18 years or older are projected to have doctor-diagnosed arthritis.
Arthritis & Rheumatism 2006;54(1):226-229 [Data Source: 2003 NHIS]
An estimated 294,000 children under age 18 have some form of arthritis or rheumatic condition; this represents approximately 1 in every 250 children in the U.S.
(source: http://www.cdc.gov/arthritis/data_statistics/arthritis_related_stats.htm):
And these are the people who have been diagnosed by a physician. The list doesn't include all those experiencing morning stiffness, joint pain and inflammation who haven't gotten around to securing a formal diagnosis.
It's interesting to note that, according to the American Journal of Epidemiology, "International comparisons suggest that Asian populations have a consistently low prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis. "
(source: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/152/5/442.long ).
Asians, generally, don't eat potatoes. They eat rice. The journal continues, "The results reported in this study corroborate other recent studies (3, 22-25) that indicate that being an Asian may be truly associated with reduced risk of having arthritis. The finding suggests that further etiologic epidemiologic studies might be rewarding."
Indeed.
According to Dr. Norman Childers, a retired Emeritus professor of Horticulture, Univ. of Florida, glycoalkaloids found in nightshade vegetables remove calcium from the bones, causing aches, pains, and even deformation. Dr. Childers' website (see below) contains testimonials from many former arthritis sufferers whose symptoms dramatically abated after elimination of all nightshade foods.
So, if nightshades are so debilitating, why isn't everyone consuming them adversely affected? The answers put forward in the sources cited below offer a number of explanations, including the hypothesis that compounds in nightshades increase permeability of the intestines, leading to the leaking of toxic glycoakaloids into the bloodstream to the detriment of calcium metabolism. For a variety of dietary, genetic and other health related factors, some peoples' alimentary tracts are more resistant to permeability than others. Hormonal factors may play a role as well, which might account for increased susceptibility to glycoalkaloid toxicity as the body ages and protective hormone production decreases. The health issues involved in this leaky gut epidemiology express not only as arthritis, but as a number of other auto-immune disorders, as well. Google the connection between nightshades and lupus, an auto immune disease characterized by extreme tissue inflammation. You may be surprised at the extent of postings on the subject.
For ease of reference, I cite the following sources. The first grouping consists of sites that offer information on the biochemistry of the nightshade-arthritis connection.
http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/nightshades
http://www.noarthritis.com/nightshades.htm
http://www.greatlifeglobal.com/services/health-a-wellness-consultations/29.html
http://haydeninstitute.com/additional-resources/additional-resources-diet-and-nutrition/inflammatory-foods-nightshades
This second grouping consists of forums and testimonial sites where people report results they have achieved by eliminating nightshades from their dietary. This list is by no means exhaustive, though the large number of positive reports here certainly beckons us to pay some attention:
http://arthritis.about.com/b/2006/09/25/nightshade-vegetables-should-people-with-arthritis-avoid-nightshade-foods.htm
http://noarthritis.com/testimonial.htm
http://skustes.hubpages.com/hub/nightshades
healing of a difficult disease, unrelated to arthritis, but not to nightshades...
http://www.patient.co.uk/forums/discuss/hidradenitis-suppurativa-you-can-have-your-life-back--38578
Arthritis, Pain & Nightshades -- too simple to be true, right?
Pearls From The Font: Ganoosh Ji's
"Questions That Disturb My Meditations"
A baby grows in the womb without being able to think. What does this imply about how much we are in control of the whole process of living in a world?
When we hear sound, vibrations travel along neural pathways. We mentally interpret what those vibrations mean. Is the interpreter an entity or an activity? Does the receiver in a radio know what it is receiving? Does it make up what it is receiving? Does it identify itself with what it is receiving? Can you find the announcer inside the radio? May seem like stupid questions, but a famous British surgeon once pronounced that in the course of some three thousand autopsies he had performed during his long career, he never found one single trace of a human soul. Wonder if he found a single thought, feeling or hunch.
How would your search for enlightenment change if you discovered there is nothing from which you have to free yourself?
Can we experience anything beyond the limits of what we know? How would we know? Limits are our boundaries. Can we be without them and still be human? It requires great humility and clarity to be at ease with not knowing.
Is there such a thing as consciousness without memory? If not, would this make consciousness a mirage produced by memory retrieval?
If we are the pinnacle of creation, why are we such destructive assholes?
What does it mean that when you are born into this world, you cry. And when you leave it, everyone else cries?
If there is a Supreme Being who is All Loving, All Wise, Omnipresent and Omniscient, why would He bother to create a world in which it is possible to keep losing one's keys?
Wisdom Insights Sri Ganoosh Wishes He Could Take Back
We keep making problems until we discover we are already free or that we prefer bondage.
What if the only freedom we have is the freedom to screw up?
No two people are exactly alike. Three or more are alike enough to form a mob.
Unenlightenment is Narcissism. You either get over yourself now or wait for the bell curve of embodied life to do the job.
Nothing ever dies. Only the form changes. But, if you identify with the form, things could get a little unpleasant in the impermanence department.
Life is like a camera. You need to get it in focus before the battery runs out.
Stop judging if you want peace. Judge like Jehovah if you want all the drama you can handle.
Last night while watching TV with my bud, Nasruddin, the TV set caught fire and burned to a crisp during a football game in a stadium packed with 90,000 fans. Nasruddin began beating his breast, lamenting, "Who is going to pay for all those funerals?" I said, "Nazz, it is only the TV that is alight." He said, "Wake up, Ganoosh. The whole world is on fire!" We argued over this point for hours until sleep claimed us and the world disappeared as easily as it came.
What if the only freedom we have is the freedom to screw up?
No two people are exactly alike. Three or more are alike enough to form a mob.
Unenlightenment is Narcissism. You either get over yourself now or wait for the bell curve of embodied life to do the job.
Nothing ever dies. Only the form changes. But, if you identify with the form, things could get a little unpleasant in the impermanence department.
Life is like a camera. You need to get it in focus before the battery runs out.
Stop judging if you want peace. Judge like Jehovah if you want all the drama you can handle.
Last night while watching TV with my bud, Nasruddin, the TV set caught fire and burned to a crisp during a football game in a stadium packed with 90,000 fans. Nasruddin began beating his breast, lamenting, "Who is going to pay for all those funerals?" I said, "Nazz, it is only the TV that is alight." He said, "Wake up, Ganoosh. The whole world is on fire!" We argued over this point for hours until sleep claimed us and the world disappeared as easily as it came.
Baba Ganoosh's: Questions that Generate Questions
How -- and certainly why -- did Universal Oneness transform itself into countless trillions of befuddled lost souls? Maybe it didn't. Maybe none of this time bound befuddlement actually exists, but only appears to do so. If it's only an appearance (a.k.a. Maya, Illusion) why does it hurt so much? On the other hand, without pain, what would nudge us into using our free will? But that still doesn't address the question as to why. Mr. Blake put the why question best. "Why this little curtain of flesh upon the bed of our desire?"
One of these days, I might even formulate something quasi-Buddhist with these questions... The Four Unanswerables.
Have you ever noticed that we can't ignore, reject or grasp awareness? Why is it that thinking we can generates so much suffering? You know thinking - that smart thing we do. And 'smart' also means pain.
What kind of stories would we tell if we viewed story making as a way of worshiping time?
Why is it we so seldom notice that our acquired human knowledge is comprised of mental constructs based on self-limiting parameters that occlude direct perception of What Is? Do we have to pretend to be ignorant in order to lend illusion an air of reality? It sure SEEMS so.
Which is more judgmental -- thinking that differences matter more than similarities, or the converse?
Sheer existence is such a hoot! How interesting that four things traditionally conceived to be cornerstones of reality, Space, Time, God and Your Present Awareness.... are all totally invisible. The big mystery is, what the hell is all this lumpy, noisy, massy, visible stuff?
One of these days, I might even formulate something quasi-Buddhist with these questions... The Four Unanswerables.
Have you ever noticed that we can't ignore, reject or grasp awareness? Why is it that thinking we can generates so much suffering? You know thinking - that smart thing we do. And 'smart' also means pain.
What kind of stories would we tell if we viewed story making as a way of worshiping time?
Why is it we so seldom notice that our acquired human knowledge is comprised of mental constructs based on self-limiting parameters that occlude direct perception of What Is? Do we have to pretend to be ignorant in order to lend illusion an air of reality? It sure SEEMS so.
Which is more judgmental -- thinking that differences matter more than similarities, or the converse?
Sheer existence is such a hoot! How interesting that four things traditionally conceived to be cornerstones of reality, Space, Time, God and Your Present Awareness.... are all totally invisible. The big mystery is, what the hell is all this lumpy, noisy, massy, visible stuff?
Ganoosh's Annoying True or False Quiz
A great relationship is one that serves my concept of happiness. T _ F_
It makes sense to try to change the world for the better, unless it means working for the benefit of others without recognition or reward. T _ F _
Seeking happiness is more futile than trying to avoid disaster. T _ F _
Mediocrity takes tons of energy while being oneself is effortless. T _ F _
Mental projections are projected without ever locating a projector. T_ F_
One has to release the desire to be free of conditioning before one can be free of conditioning T _ F _
Our natural state is one of not knowing, while delusion is a widening sphere of empirical knowledge that encounters ever more ignorance at its expanding edge. T _ F _
The saving grace of life is that it has no direction or purpose. T_ F _
Religions impose direction and purpose on life, making religions inherently violent. T _ F _
It makes sense to try to change the world for the better, unless it means working for the benefit of others without recognition or reward. T _ F _
Seeking happiness is more futile than trying to avoid disaster. T _ F _
Mediocrity takes tons of energy while being oneself is effortless. T _ F _
Mental projections are projected without ever locating a projector. T_ F_
One has to release the desire to be free of conditioning before one can be free of conditioning T _ F _
Our natural state is one of not knowing, while delusion is a widening sphere of empirical knowledge that encounters ever more ignorance at its expanding edge. T _ F _
The saving grace of life is that it has no direction or purpose. T_ F _
Religions impose direction and purpose on life, making religions inherently violent. T _ F _
What is it the enables the encounter between subject and object to take place?
Whatever it is, would it also have to be present for meaning to occur?
What is that turns events into experiences?
If an electron in its wave phase can be anywhere in the universe prior to 'showing up' as a locatable particle, where might we be, subjectively speaking, before waking up in the morning?
Do you think of your brain as a container carrying around certain concepts that you employ to size up what you encounter in the outside world? How has that notion been serving you so far?
Can any meaning reveal itself without simultaneously concealing something?
If we really pay attention to what is going on, is interpretation even necessary?
"Trying to achieve something indicates that you're seeing from the wrong perspective, from the erroneous point of view of having left perfection, your original nature." -- Jean Klein, The Ease of Being
Klein's statement may seem utterly naive. On what basis does he propose that our natural state is perfection? Look at all the evidence we have accumulated to prove beyond doubt that we are bumbling, guilty and prone to entropy. One could fill Wikipedias and Wikisauruses with that evidence. And yet, that is just Klein's point. The trumpet blast of the erroneous does not alter what is so.
Cue the Robert Anton Wilson dog and cat koan:
CAT: I have ten thousand proofs that we are not free.
DOG: I have one proof that we are free.
CAT: What's that?
DOG: Who asks 'What's that?'
Klein's statement may seem utterly naive. On what basis does he propose that our natural state is perfection? Look at all the evidence we have accumulated to prove beyond doubt that we are bumbling, guilty and prone to entropy. One could fill Wikipedias and Wikisauruses with that evidence. And yet, that is just Klein's point. The trumpet blast of the erroneous does not alter what is so.
Cue the Robert Anton Wilson dog and cat koan:
CAT: I have ten thousand proofs that we are not free.
DOG: I have one proof that we are free.
CAT: What's that?
DOG: Who asks 'What's that?'
Being and Trying
The word 'meditation' can be an obstacle to meditating at all. Many people associate the word with all kinds of 'mumbo jumbo' that they can't buy into. Most active, responsible, mortgaged grownups dismiss meditation as irrelevant without ever inspecting it. Unfortunately, many of us in that boat don't have a clue what our life process is about and are shocked and overwhelmed when things go bad.
This is where meditation, not the mumbo jumbo version, but real meditation, can prove so valuable. It can give one's life a context that frees it from religious dogma and secular distraction into living spirit. It is particularly effective at revealing that, where it matters most, my life is not about what I think it's about. In fact, what I think it's about often turns out to confirm the cliche that "life is what happens while you're making other plans."
There is a much deeper life available to all. It is where nothing is happening, even while everything appears to continue with or without you. It is where you are simply present; where you tacitly notice that the self-defining constructs of your personal story are both yours AND do not define the whole of who you are. One glimpse of who you are beyond your personal story will break your heart. It's a most secret place where the guardians of the threshold are the pet that opened your heart and that paraplegic beggar woman in Calcutta to whom you gave your last twelve bucks.
Meditation reveals something that thought cannot touch; that awareness, that no-thing within which all thoughts, feelings and perceptions arise and fade away, is alone truly alive. Everything else adds up to one heck of a convincing appearance of aliveness. "Counterfeit exists because there is such a thing as real gold" is how one Swami put it.
Let meditation be the one time of the day when, as in deep sleep, you don't have to be anyone or anything in particular. Allow the ocean of Being to bless you with non-separation, which happens every night in deep sleep anyway. There is nowhere else to fall but into your prior natural state. Those who met Anandamayi Ma said she effortlessly manifested that state. Nice story, I thought. And then I saw this picture.
ANANDAMAYI MA
(1896 - 1982)
Big D In Funhouse Mirrors
Have you noticed how the majority of people carry on as though they're going to live forever? In the face of how transient life is, it's fascinating how most people, most of the time, live as though any day now science is going to find a way to keep us enduring climate change forever. I'd like to suggest that one or a combination of the following factors might explain what's going on here:
1.) Denial and Compensation: Deep down, everyone is scared shitless of being mortal and vulnerable to pain and death. Going insane with worry over that fact hardly seems a viable option. Why not just eat, drink and hunt for the perfect combination of great sex, mutual respect and platinum career prospects instead.
2.) The Chronos Factor: On average, we live so long these days that it would probably get quite boring to obsess about death all the time. I mean, if you're twenty and averages say you'll make it to the 79-85 span, for petesake, postpone the damn fretting for at least another fifty years and have some fun.
3.) Rebuttal to # 2: Foreign correspondent journalists and travel writers visiting poor and/or devastated parts of the world, make a point of noting, usually with some surprise, how happy the local people are, even with an average life expectancy of 48. Of course, this does not apply to cases of extreme famine and hunger, but generally, the very poor, with just enough to eat to keep body and soul together, seem happier than much richer, driven, career shackled humans whose far greater material comfort seems to burden them so much that booze, pills and destroyed septums are not uncommon.
4.) Subconscious Recognition: Deep down, we know that we don't die. Everyone does. Sounds abstruse, I know -- until you start to notice that the part of you that notices the coming and going of everything (including your own body-mind), does not itself come or go. The fact that nothing whatsoever may be predicated of this 'part' is cause for humility, not for despair, nor for arrogantly ignoring it.
5.) Napoleon Complex: Many of us think we are these meat bodies and that, as such, we can nevertheless refuse to go gentle in that good night. Nay, more, we can bluster against reality itself and make speeches like this gem from good old Bonaparte, "You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy's ranks."
Paratactic Reveries
Direct experience is a miracle that belief systems turn into dogmatic mush.
The conceptual, you may have noticed, is always ABOUT-- never the thing itself.
Language is the axe that split Zeus's forehead open, out of which sprang Athena, skilled in practical reason and war strategy.
The structure of relational syntax, bedrock of equations grammatical and mathematical, keeps us treading imagined water
fearful of drowning in the Sea of Being.
Syros, Greece Sept 2012
Within Without Doubt
Constantly reacting to outer objects to the point of defining ourselves in terms of our reaction patterns, we become slaves of the outer. In moments when we abide in the home base of our being, free from attachment and aversion to the outer, we tend, spontaneously, to act appropriately and creatively. Anything sound slavish about that?
Spontaneous action, emanating from genuine inspiration, outshines conditioned reaction almost every time. This is an immense issue. In action alone does true creativity blossom.
Consider Blake's ominous equation, "Hope plus Fear equals Death." Hope and Fear are always tied up with the outer. The outer, as here defined, includes our thoughts and feelings. Being is prior to thoughts and feelings, as well as to all sensory input. At home in our natural being, there is a freedom that cannot be explained. Not ever. Our greatest philosophers, Kant, Hegel and Heidegger, among others, have tried.
You don't have to believe in anything to experience this miracle of finding out who you already are. It's about trusting yourself enough to stand in your own light and fall into non-local source. The clamoring forces of the outer world make us fearful of exploring too radically within. We find ourselves constantly turned to the outer in the hope that someone or some thing 'out there' can save us. Where does that leave us? Where has that ever left us?
There is no right or wrong way to go within. There is only the way that opens before you. Within you. As you. The great invitation is, as my Buddhist mentor has noted, to "abide in not knowing." Then, alone, do true seeing and true listening become possible.
Spontaneous action, emanating from genuine inspiration, outshines conditioned reaction almost every time. This is an immense issue. In action alone does true creativity blossom.
Consider Blake's ominous equation, "Hope plus Fear equals Death." Hope and Fear are always tied up with the outer. The outer, as here defined, includes our thoughts and feelings. Being is prior to thoughts and feelings, as well as to all sensory input. At home in our natural being, there is a freedom that cannot be explained. Not ever. Our greatest philosophers, Kant, Hegel and Heidegger, among others, have tried.
You don't have to believe in anything to experience this miracle of finding out who you already are. It's about trusting yourself enough to stand in your own light and fall into non-local source. The clamoring forces of the outer world make us fearful of exploring too radically within. We find ourselves constantly turned to the outer in the hope that someone or some thing 'out there' can save us. Where does that leave us? Where has that ever left us?
There is no right or wrong way to go within. There is only the way that opens before you. Within you. As you. The great invitation is, as my Buddhist mentor has noted, to "abide in not knowing." Then, alone, do true seeing and true listening become possible.
possible truths the mind skillfully avoids pondering
Disclaimer: "All truth restated is a lie." -- J. Krishnamurti
Great is the sacrifice of those who renounce all for the prize of self-realization, this all know, but greater still is the sacrifice of those who live and die in ignorance.
Conceptual mind is anti-life. Direct perception beholds the mutual dependence of contraries.
Did you make a world where life feeds on life and every living thing dies? Of course not. Then how can you be held to blame for any of it?
We must enjoy suffering. We're so good at it. We spend hundreds of times more on weapons than on relieving poverty.
Look at our dictators and elected leaders. We follow ignorant men full of confidence and ignore geniuses filled with inspiration.
We are hard wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Such conditioning makes the vast majority of us selfish, greedy and lacking in compassion. We didn't create that conditioning, either. It comes with this biological apparatus that has to be fed every day.
If we truly encountered life as it is in the moment, it would blow us to smithereens.
Self-imposed limitations dissolve in Life's Clear Light. Who's ready for that? What we call history might also be called the avoidance of that encounter at all costs. We are as afraid of our greatness as we are of our worst tendencies.
There is nothing one can do to awaken. There is nothing one has to do. In Gurdjieff's words, "If you truly want to awaken, nothing will stand in your way. If you do not truly want to awaken, you will stand in your way."
Great is the sacrifice of those who renounce all for the prize of self-realization, this all know, but greater still is the sacrifice of those who live and die in ignorance.
Conceptual mind is anti-life. Direct perception beholds the mutual dependence of contraries.
Did you make a world where life feeds on life and every living thing dies? Of course not. Then how can you be held to blame for any of it?
We must enjoy suffering. We're so good at it. We spend hundreds of times more on weapons than on relieving poverty.
Look at our dictators and elected leaders. We follow ignorant men full of confidence and ignore geniuses filled with inspiration.
We are hard wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Such conditioning makes the vast majority of us selfish, greedy and lacking in compassion. We didn't create that conditioning, either. It comes with this biological apparatus that has to be fed every day.
If we truly encountered life as it is in the moment, it would blow us to smithereens.
Self-imposed limitations dissolve in Life's Clear Light. Who's ready for that? What we call history might also be called the avoidance of that encounter at all costs. We are as afraid of our greatness as we are of our worst tendencies.
There is nothing one can do to awaken. There is nothing one has to do. In Gurdjieff's words, "If you truly want to awaken, nothing will stand in your way. If you do not truly want to awaken, you will stand in your way."
Is There Life Before Death?
Forget life after death speculation. Are you alive NOW? How would you know? Do you think moving round from Point A to Point Q constitutes real life? Asteroids move around. Crystals growing by accretion move around.
Wait a minute. You're different. You've got free will, right? How meaningful is that free will when you have no way of knowing the consequences of your actions and decisions? Fess up. Like me, most of the time you have no idea whether or not you're doing the right thing. Alive without an instruction manual, we keep inventing paths to salvation without practicing the kindness that alone liberates.
Bear with me in this gnarly maelstrom of ontological intransigence.
What if animated physicality is as dead as it gets?
This a crazy idea I'm making up? No. It's one of the bedrocks of NeoPlatonism. A bucket of cold water in the face of mainstream presumptions that this one life is all you've got, so get pissed a lot and secretly resent the dubious Demiurge who designed this mortal meat show. The basic NeoPlatonic idea here being that showing up in a dense meat body is as dead as it is possible for a soul to get.
But there is some good news...
There's nowhere to go but up! or better! or brighter! Well, you get the idea.
Check in with your dense meat bodily self and tell me if this doesn't feel true to the core, unless you truly believe you are the meat body only.
Human memory is organic recording. It appears to be non-robotic due to how faulty it is. How's that for subtle programming? It gives us the conviction of actually being our personal stories. Like Isis who found the 14 pieces of her mate, Osiris, after he had been hacked up and scattered around the countryside by Seth, god of confusion, we spend most of our waking time re-membering a self that is a mental construct only.
'Form is the only evidence of unenlightenment'
-- DFJ
Nagarjuna lived in the 2nd Century C.E. The founder of the Madhyamika or "Middle Way" school of Buddhism, his deconstruction of the foundations of conceptual thought produced a literature that keeps bevies of university scholars engrossed to this day. Some of them go to annual conferences in cool places like Honolulu, Hawaii, to work on their tans and toss the sand particles of their intellects onto the Nagarjunian shores. Here in handy dandy condensed form...
Nagarjuna (and Shankaracharya) in 3 sentences
"The world is an illusion. Brahman alone is real. Brahman is the world."
Think of this as a 2nd Century way of describing what 20 century physicists call the 'Copenhagen Interpretation' and the participant observer phenomenon.
For easy reference, here is a brilliant comment on the former:
"While the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics says that what we know is only our interpretation of reality, the interpretation does not, however, doubt the reality of the scientist who makes such an assertion."
-- Prof. B.S. Sarma, Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
In the 2nd Century, Nagarjuna had already doubted the reality of the observer; that is, of the observer as an independent entity. When we seriously try to locate ourselves, there is only Oneness... er, Brahman. Like the label matters (insert smiley mask).
the beauty of not knowing
How to Read the Enlightened Parts of the Bible
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. -- Matthew 6:33
"The kingdom of God is within you." -- Luke 17: 20-21
OBVIOUS CONCLUSION:
The kingdom of God, viz, Heaven, is not a place, a location, an address, a dimension or an UP THERE unto which the rapture is waiting to lift you.
It's a State of Consciousness.
When Christ says no man comes unto the Father except through me, he means except through an enlightened State of Consciousness... and that Father, that God and his Kingdom, are WITHIN YOU. Don't get all inflated, that Kingdom is also in every grain of sand. God, so called, has nothing to do with our anthropomorphic projections.
'Man has no body distinct from his soul: for that
called the body is a portion of soul discerned by
the five senses . . . .'
-- William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
'That which we call 'physical' is but that portion of
spirit we are presently capable of perceiving.'
-- Northrop Frye, commenting on Blake's vision.
"The kingdom of God is within you." -- Luke 17: 20-21
OBVIOUS CONCLUSION:
The kingdom of God, viz, Heaven, is not a place, a location, an address, a dimension or an UP THERE unto which the rapture is waiting to lift you.
It's a State of Consciousness.
When Christ says no man comes unto the Father except through me, he means except through an enlightened State of Consciousness... and that Father, that God and his Kingdom, are WITHIN YOU. Don't get all inflated, that Kingdom is also in every grain of sand. God, so called, has nothing to do with our anthropomorphic projections.
'Man has no body distinct from his soul: for that
called the body is a portion of soul discerned by
the five senses . . . .'
-- William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
'That which we call 'physical' is but that portion of
spirit we are presently capable of perceiving.'
-- Northrop Frye, commenting on Blake's vision.
The most difficult questions are the simple ones
Where is place? In what is it situated?
Can you know anything without first separating yourself from it? Does this obviate forever the possibility of truly knowing it?
Do we know what anything IS or only what anything IS LIKE by comparison to other things? Is this how artists discovered negative space?
How does one pay attention to attention? Can you separate yourself from attention in order to know it as an object?
When will NOW be over? When will NOW come? Can coming and going ever BE?
Can we be sure that what Appears is What Is?
What can it possibly mean that all one's intellectual cleverness might not help one to give up a bad habit?
Can I will to let go? Or does willing make it impossible?
Does the relational syntax of language condemn us to surf the moebius strip of dualism, tangential to the non-dual truth of What Is? How do we awaken from what one Buddhist scholar termed "the coma of conceptual thought?"
Knowledge is a wonderful thing. We've used it to improve sanitation, send tons of metal flying through the air, unravel the DNA code and look into the furthest reaches of the universe. Problem is, knowledge is a double edged sword. The more we know, the more we become aware of how much we don't know. For all the knowledge based advances we make, we seem to get ourselves into more and more trouble, producing ever more difficult problems to solve. We live longer than our ancestors, but not without a hell of a lot of chronic suffering. Television commercials for new drugs are a sorry joke, with the first 10 seconds of a 30 second spot extolling a new drug's benefits and the remaining 20 warning of horrific side effects. Billions of us drive around in cars now, but the aggregate effect on earth's atmosphere (see the documentary Carbon Nation) threatens to turn us into a global convection oven within fifty years.
There is a commonly cited aphorism which defines insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We use the knowledge tool as though it's the only hammer we have with which to pound the mystery of existence into readable shape.
Humanity's sages, on the other hand, including the Buddha, highly recommend an alternative to knowledge gathering; an alternative not meant as a substitute for knowledge, but as a complementary adjunct. We can learn, if only very briefly at first, to abide in not knowing. Sure, it's scary to not know, but the glorious upside is that we may then encounter the world process with what the Buddha called "beginner's mind." In place of the plodding, grueling gathering of information and jostling concepts, not knowing opens us to inspiration.
Many of the world's great inventors, scientists and artists claim that their most profound and original insights came in moments when they were relaxed, open and silent within. Hard work usually preceded these moments and may have been essential for their realization, but nonetheless, it was in the openness of not knowing that the eureka moments spontaneously occurred.
I would even go so far as to suggest that the more comfortable we become with not knowing, the less inclined might we become to imposing our dull ideological certainties on others. What a global relief that would be.
"Relax", said the kind old monk on the knoll, "The reason enlightenment seems so difficult to achieve is that who you already are is so extraordinary. Ego tends to view such a statement with doubt and cynicism, hence the self-imposed difficulty."
TIMMY: But, uncle Bob, even insects can see light!
BOB: That's right , Timmy. As Gautama noted, "All beings possess Buddha nature."
BOB: That's right , Timmy. As Gautama noted, "All beings possess Buddha nature."
'the great chain of bling' -- sung by 1% Annie & the Master Spider
Do you have any idea what these chains are worth? Granted, I can't move. Small price to pay, sucker! I'm rich, richer than you'll ever be. Sure, it would be nice to be able to move, but let's stare down the barrel of some cold hard facts here. When it comes to a choice between movement and wealth, it's a no brainer, my friend. Movement is fleeting. Gold is... is...
stationary!
www.freerangeegos.com
Meanwhile, back at the participant observer interface...
Here, William Blake depicts a naked Sir Isaac Newton, scientific observer nonpareil, measuring out a tidy cause and effect universe that obeys all kinds of observable laws. The two quotes below the picture point to deeper laws that subsume the Newtonian universe and save us from what Blake termed, "single vision and Newton's sleep."
WILLIAM BLAKE'S "NEWTON"
"The incredibly powerful and muscular body of the human form in the Newton drawing is rolling itself into the very shape which that figure is measuring with dividers."
-- Donald Ault, Visionary Physics
"Questioner: Scientists have discovered that... the very act of observation brings about a change in what is being observed.
Nisargadatta: What is being observed also brings about a change in the observer, and unless that change is brought about in the observer, the observer cannot observe the object; therefore, one can never get to the depth of spirituality."
-- Nisargadatta Maharaj, Consciousness and the Absolute
-- Donald Ault, Visionary Physics
"Questioner: Scientists have discovered that... the very act of observation brings about a change in what is being observed.
Nisargadatta: What is being observed also brings about a change in the observer, and unless that change is brought about in the observer, the observer cannot observe the object; therefore, one can never get to the depth of spirituality."
-- Nisargadatta Maharaj, Consciousness and the Absolute
