Marks in the sky - A Very Personal Web-log

The Ship of Fools

2008-09-21T19:25:00.007+02:00

is the title of my favorite novel by Katherine Ann Porter and it is also the title of the painting by 15th century artist Hieronymus Bosch.

"In The Ship of Fools, Bosch is imagining that the whole of mankind is voyaging through the seas of time on a ship, a small ship, that is representative of humanity. Sadly, every one of the representatives is a fool.
This is how we live, says Bosch--we eat, drink, flirt, cheat, play silly games, pursue unattainable objectives. Meanwhile our ship drifts aimlessly and we never reach the harbor. The fools are not the irreligious, since prominent among them are a monk and a nun, but they are all those who live ``in stupidity''. Bosch laughs, and it is sad laugh.
Which one of us does not sail in the wretched discomfort of the ship of human folly? Eccentric and secret genius that he was, Bosch not only moved the heart but scandalized it into full awareness. The sinister and monstrous things that he brought forth are the hidden creatures of our inward self-love: he externalizes the ugliness within, and so his misshapen demons have an effect beyond curiosity. We feel a hateful kinship with them. The Ship of Fools is not about other people, it is about us."

The Salt of The Sea

2008-08-30T16:01:00.003+02:00

"All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea -- whether it is to sail or to watch it -- we are going back from whence we came. " JFK

ONE MOMENT OF PERFECT OBLIVION

2008-08-05T22:20:00.003+02:00

To achieve this rare moment one needs to dive as deep as he can, not less then 2 m deep, preferably on the day when the sea is at its clearest. After reaching the limit one has to let go, not just of the body but also of at least half of all the air in the lungs. As the body slowly ascends towards the surface and bubbles pierce blue silence, rushing ahead of the body, this moment will surely come.

And then it can be done again, and again, and again...

The Call

2008-07-21T00:46:00.005+02:00

From the Wave:

"It is impossible to be a True STO being in an STS world. For me, it was such a pity, such a sadness that, once I penetrated the Illusion, I found nothing but Darkness. I could see that real Truth and Beauty just simply could not be found in our reality once one began to peel away the layers of lies and deception and illusion. To realize that Love given to someone or something in order to change it was clearly a judgment, and that nearly all love that was practiced in our world was clearly done because it was a manipulation designed to gain, whether it was salvation or to be loved in return or to feel good, *all of which feed Fear/Nonbeing* , produced in me such a sensation of sadness and Love for the Dream of the Creator that, in that moment, the choice to manifest love and truth within, despite the fact that I could know nothing of it through my five senses and 3rd density experience, was a choice to make a possibility real."

Regina Spektor - The Call

It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word

And then that word grew louder and louder
Til it was a battle cry

I'll come back
When you call me
No need to say goodbye

Just because everything's changing
Doesn't mean it's never
Been this way before

All you can do is try to know
Who your friends are
As you head off to the war

Pick a star on the dark horizon
And follow the light

You'll come back
When it's over
No need to say good bye

You'll come back
When it's over
No need to say good bye..

Now we're back to the beginning
It's just a feeling and no one knows yet
But just because they can't feel it too
Doesn't mean that you have to forget

Let your memories grow stronger and stronger
Til they're before your eyes

You'll come back
When they call you
No need to say good bye..

BAD JOKE

2008-07-19T16:15:00.002+02:00

You remember the spider that lived in a bush outside your window?
Orange body green legs...watched her build the web all summer...then one day there was a big egg in it...the egg hatched...

The egg hatched..
and
and hundred baby spiders came out...and they ate her
Implants! Those aren't your memories they are somebody else's, Tyrel's niece's...
Okay! Bad joke,
I made a bad joke...you are not a replicant
Go home, okay?
No really, I am sorry...go home

IN BBM GRIND: Calling ...

2008-07-04T15:05:00.005+02:00

Calling all angels

I need you near to the ground
I miss you dearly
Can you hear me on your cloud?

Calling all angels
I need you near to the ground
I have been kneeling
And praying to hear a sound

Day by day
Through the years
Day by day
Make my way

Tunguska, Psychopathy and the Sixth Extinction -- Signs of the Times News

2008-07-01T00:29:00.001+02:00

Tunguska, Psychopathy and the Sixth Extinction -- Signs of the Times News

One more night on Earth

2008-06-28T22:40:00.004+02:00

EVOCATIVE DREAMSCAPE : Caught betwen two worlds

2008-06-24T09:30:00.010+02:00

I've fallen from a distant star,
Came back, compelled because I love.
I'm caught between two different worlds,
I longed for one more night on earth... FALLEN - Blank&Jones ft.Rani

On a Grail Quest : Glimpsing Chrysopoeia

2008-06-22T08:48:00.008+02:00

And then I saw a man in terrible suffering, hung by one leg, head downward, to a high tree. And I heard the voice:

--"Look! This is a man who saw Truth.
Suffering awaits the man on earth, who finds the way to eternity and to the understanding of the Endless.

"He is still a man, but he already knows much. And the incommensurableness of the small and the great in his soul constitutes his pain and his Golgotha.

"In his own soul appears the gallows on which he hangs in suffering, feeling that he is indeed inverted. He chose this way himself. For this he went over a long road from trial to trial, from initiation to initiation, through failures and falls.

"And now he has found Truth and knows himself."

From Alchemy by M.L von Franz:

"It is a strange thing, if we look at it naively, that in alchemy the end product is something which in the order of nature we look upon as very low, namely a stone, something whose quality is just to be there.
A stone neither eats nor drinks nor sleeps, it just remains there for all eternity. If you kick it, then it stays where you kicked it and does not move.

But in alchemy this despised thing is the symbol of the goal. We have to go deep into the mystical language of the East and of alchemy and of certain other Christian mystiques to get an idea of what this means.

If through fighting and meeting the unconscious one has suffered long enough, a kind of objective personality is established; a nucleus forms in the person which is at peace, quiet even in the midst of the greatest life storms, intensely alive but without action and without participation in the conflict.

That peace of mind often comes to people when they have suffered long enough: one day something breaks and the face acquires a quiet expression, for something has been born which remains in the centre, outside or beyond the conflict, which does not go on any more as it did.
Naturally, two minutes later it begins again, for the conflict has not been solved, but the experience that one thing is just quietly beyond the conflict remains, and from then on the process becomes different.
People no longer search, they know the thing exists, they have experienced it for a moment.

Thereafter the opus has a goal, that of finding this moment again and slowly being able to keep it, so that it becomes something constant. In all the struggles of life there is always that one thing which is beyond the struggle; as Dr. Jung describes it so beautifully in his comment on The Secret of the Golden Flower, it is as though you were standing on the mountain above the thunderstorm.
One sees the black clouds and the lightning and the falling rain, but something in one is above it all and one can just look at it. In one way you are in it too, but in another way you are out of it.
On a humbler or more minor scale, you have reached it if in a storm of despair or in a destructive dissolving attack of a conflict you can keep a sense of humour for a second-or perhaps you are swept away once more by a negative animus, and then suddenly say to yourself that you have heard that kind of talk before.
You may not be able to get out of your destructive animus, it may still be too strong, but something in you smiles and says it has heard that silly song before; you would like to laugh at yourself, but pride will not allow that, and you go on with the negative animus and he gets you again.

Those are the divine moments when something is clear and moving beyond the opposites and the suffering. Usually they are only brief moments, but if you continue working on yourself long enough, the stone slowly grows and becomes more and more the solid nucleus of the personality which no longer participates in the ape-circus of life."

A PLACE CALLED HELL

2008-05-11T12:45:00.002+02:00

Here comes the woman

With the look in her eye
Raised on leather
With flesh on her mind
Words as weapons sharper than knives
Makes you wonder how the other half die
Other half die...

Here come the man
With the look in his eye
Fed on nothing
But full of pride
Look at them go
Look at them kick
Makes you wonder how the other half live

The devil inside
The devil inside
Every single one of us, the devil inside

Here come the world
With the look in its eye
Future uncertain but certainly slight
Look at the faces
Listen to the bells
It's hard to believe we need a place called hell

COSMIC GAME - BBM Edition

2008-04-18T23:43:00.017+02:00

Congratulations! You are participating in the amazing Cosmic Game, special Big Blue Marble Edition. This may be your blessing but it can also be your curse, it is up to you.

It is always up to you. Real YOU that is.

Nobody really knows how and when the game begun but BBM is considered to be the trickiest edition ever. Actually some of your fellow players have been playing the game for quite some time now, they wasted hundreds of lives to no avail -they are still stuck on the same level. Normally the game is played throughout BBM Kingdom and it starts on 3D level.
Which level of BBM kingdom is ruled by the Perpetual Slumber. The state also known as The Big Sleep, in it the players dream they have a purpose, some dream of love, some lust while other dream noble deeds and creation, some wage wars and annihilate. While some dream of God the others dream of Satan....
Well, the possibilities are virtually endless, nevertheless all this is still nothing but a dream. A dream within a dream.
Of course all these dreamed achievements simply don't count from the game point of view. Gamers can squander lifetimes, hundreds of them sleepwalking like this, but still - they will always start on the same level where they started the game for the first time. Scary eh?

The only possible role to start Cosmic Game in BBM edition is a Zombie, there is no other option or role. But there are two distinctions within the Zombie rank, each of them with entirely different possibilities.
Based on individual DNA pattern and vibrational frequency the player can get to play either in the role of a Frozen Corpse, or in the role of Warmblooded Zombie. Being Warmblooded Zombie is definitely an advantage from the game's final point of view but this gives player no guaranties whatsoever as many Warmblooded Zombies never get to the final and can easily turn into Frozen Corpses at any stage of the game. Playing the game as a Warmblooded Zombie is much more difficult then playing it as a Frozen Corpse. Halil Gibran describes this difficulty:

"It is said that unsophistication makes a man empty and that emptiness makes him carefree. This may be true among those who were born dead and who exist like frozen corpses, but the sensitive boy who feels much and knows little is the most unfortunate creature under the sun because he is torn by two forces. The first force elevates him and shows him the beauty of existence through a cloud of dreams; the second ties him down to the earth and fills his eyes with dust and overpowers him with fears and darkness..."

All players begin with much life force, but as soon as the game clock starts ticking this life force starts to dissipate, eventually it is all spent and the player dies.
Then he can come and play again, generally. There are some instances where this is not possible.
Most of the players will turn into Vampyres at the very begining of the game. They are deluded into thinking that they can prolong their game time by sucking the life force of other players. This is of course wrong but it comes naturally at Zombie level, such is the design of the game. Though some of the Vampires can become pretty powerfull we must never forget this is a trap and game's dead end.

The only real chance Warmblooded Zombie has in BBM Game , is to wake up and stay awake. Depending on their individual frequency and pure chance Warmblooded Zombies will be hit at least once in their lifetime with a Beam of Light. This beam of light is rolling across the BBM Kingdom, originating from few lighthouses randomly scattered across the Kingdom. These lighthouses are always lit thanks to the Keepers of Eternal Flame. To make things more difficult there are also many false beacons in the Kingdom. The Keepers of The Eternal Flame are the busiest creatures in the Kingdom, but they can only do so much for the darkness in the Kingdom is thick and sticky while false beacons shine in myriad of dazzling colors.
Encountering the beam of Eternal Flame can precipitate Awakening. Unfortunately Awakening can last only few moments before the player goes back to slumber. Such is the BBM Kingdom, Perpetual Slumber is like the force of gravity and players have to spend considerable amounts of life force in order to stay awake. Most of the Kingdom is riddled with Oblivion Flowers which blossom practically everywhere. They don luscious and sweet but intoxicating scent which will numb the player back into the sleep.
In addition BBM Kingdom is populated with the host of strange and different creatures.
Syrens, mermaids and mermen, with their beautiful song, Bluebeards and des belles dames sans merci to name just a few. Players have to master each of these creatures in order to progress on to the next level of the game. Many players remain forever in the embrace of such creatures, turned to stone.

After awakening, the best chance to stay awake is to start collecting little flames and little mirrors which can be found along the way. These represent the level of awareness applied in various emotional states and self observational skills. Both are difficult to collect and if they are not collected constantly along the way even those acumulated over long period of time will slowly disappear.
After certain number of collected flames and mirrors the gamer may become a Vampire Slayer and his or her life force will no longer be endangered by vampires encountered along the way. But Vampire Slaying is tricky business and has large requirement in flames and mirror supply.
After he has been awaken and accomplished the Vampire Slayer level it is imperative player pretends he is still asleep. This is especially true when in presence of other Zombies. Otherwise the Game automatically resets to the hardest mode possible which can bring much suffering and usually results in player loosing all hard eraned powers and succumbing again to the Perpetual Slumber.

A very big number of flames and mirrors can open the the Door of Conscious Love. This is probably the biggest achievement in the entire Game and very few players have ever reached this level. For being attained by only chosen few The Door of Conscious Love become the myth giving incentive and inspiration to the weary players .

Finding the Bee Hive is another blessing one can receive in BBM Edition. This is the step that should, but rarely does, follow the awakening and same as the awakening it is determined mostly by vibrational frequency of the player.
The Bee Hive is the symbol for the group of other awakened players who are connected based on the 4th Way Teachings. The Bee Hive can provide powerful protection throughout the entire 3 D level, and it does not only help to accumulate large number of flames and mirrors but can also significantly increase the life force of the player. There is only one prerequisite - the player must enter Bee Hive in their birthday suit otherwise they will never reap the benefits of everything the Bee Hive has to offer. Those who enter in any other way leave the Bee Hive sooner or later. Players that once leave the Bee Hive stand very little chance in finding their way back.
These are all the rules of the game I managed to gather so far.
How does 3D level end and what are the next challenges?!
Well I don't have the answers, I still haven't even figured out all the challenges of this level. It has been rumored that completion of 3D level puts you at the begning of 4D level as a Dragon Slayer . But something tells me it is useless to contemplate Dragon Slayer Level without all necessary tools that need to be collected. It also seems to me collecting the flames and mirrors, patiently and diligently will definitely bring some new tools.

So far I mapped the following:

Successfully finding your way through The Dungeons of Unholy Hungers (designed by Dame Barbara Hort) will bring you a big bunch of flames.
Then there is The Hall of Mirrors built by knight Golomb where you can stay Trapped forever or emerge on the other side also with hefty number of flames.
Crossing the vast Field of Jonquil Cousins once mapped by Pressman Spouses can bring you many flames but beware -many of the players are still sleeping in the Cousins embrace.
Also, Every serious player should try to find The Cave of Poneros...

but wait I am already giving away too much, I don't wont to spoil the game for anyone! If you give your best I am sure you will succeed...
Onward ... into the night!

YOU, BUT ON A REALLY GOOD DAY

2008-04-17T14:49:00.000+02:00

GOODNIGHT AND GO

2008-04-13T10:48:00.003+02:00

You get me every time.

Why'd ya have to be so cute?
It's impossible to ignore you..
Must you make me laugh so much?
It's bad enough we get along so well..
Say goodnight and go.

Follow you home,
You've got your headphones on
And you're dancing
Got lucky;
Beautiful shot:
You're taking everything off
Watch the curtains wide open
And you're following the same routine;
Flicking through the TV, relaxed and reclining
And you think you're alone..

Oh, why'd ya have to be so cute?
It's impossible to ignore you,
Must you make me laugh so much?
It's bad enough we get along so well..
Say goodnight and go.

One of these days,
You'll miss your train,
And come stay with me...
{It's always say goodnight and go}
We'll have drinks,
And talk about things and,
Any excuse to stay awake with you...
You'd sleep here,
I'd sleep there,
But then the heating may be down again,
At my convenience...
We'd be good,
We'd be great together...

You did it again!

2008-04-12T01:20:00.005+02:00

The stars are blazing like rebel diamonds cut out of the sun
When you read my mind

Harry Houdini

2008-04-10T12:44:00.003+02:00

I wanna be like Harry Houdini
And be the one to make the great escape
I wanna be where no one will see me
You've gotta learn a lesson give and take.
I wanna be where loving is easy....

I wanna be like Harry Houdini
Where there ain't nothing that'll keep me in
I wanna be where no one will see me
Can't find a way to say I can't begin.

DOUBLE HUMANITY

2008-04-06T11:51:00.002+02:00

'But we'll take our chances... Because God stopped keeping score
I guess somewhere along the way
He must have let us all out to play
Turned his back and all gods children
Crept out the back door'
Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou

Double humanity and extraterrestrial intrusion

CROSS COUNTRY

2008-04-05T00:09:00.008+02:00

From Marsalforn Salt Pans to Maestro e' Fresco ....WHAT A DAY !

JUST LIKE YOU SAID IT WOULD BE...

2008-03-28T21:08:00.009+01:00

GOOD OLD FASHIONED LOVERBOY

2008-03-24T11:09:00.022+01:00

☼~☼~☼

☼~☼
☼

ON LOVE
freely adapted from Tibetan
A. R. Orage

First published in The New Republic (New York) in December 1924, then as a 24 page book by The Unicorn Press in 1932, this has became Orage's most anthologized essay. It is said that Orage wrote On Love after a late night conversation with Gurdjieff.

You must learn to distinguish among at least three kinds of love (though there are seven in all): instinctive love, emotional love, and conscious love. There is not much fear that you cannot learn the first two, but the third is rare and depends upon effort as well as intelligence.

Instinctive love has chemistry as its base. All biology is chemistry, or perhaps we should say al-chemistry; and the affinities of instinctive love, manifesting in the attractions, repulsions, mechanical and chemical combinations we call love, courtship, marriage, children and family, are only the human equivalents of a chemist's laboratory. But who is the chemist here? We call it Nature. But who is Nature? As little do we suspect as the camphor which is married to the banyan suspects a gardener. Yet there is a gardener. Instinctive love, being chemical, is as strong, and lasts as long, as the substances and qualities of which it is the manifestation. . . .
These can be known and measured only by one who understands the alchemical progression we call heredity. Many have remarked that happy or unhappy marriages are hereditary. So, too, are the number of children, their sex, longevity, etc. The so-called science of astrology is only the science (when it is) of heredity over long periods. Emotional love is not rooted in biology. It is, in fact, as often anti-biological in its character and direction. Instinctive love obeys the laws of biology, that is to say, chemistry, and proceeds by affinities. But emotional love is often the mutual attraction of disaffinities and biological incongruities. Emotional love, when not accompanied by instinctive love (as it seldom is), rarely results in offspring; and when it does, biology is not served. Strange creatures arise from the embraces of emotional love, mermen and mermaids, Bluebeards and des belles dames sans merci.

Emotional love is not only short-lived, but it evokes its slayer. Such love creates hate in its object, if hatred is not already there. The emotional lover soon becomes an object of indifference and quickly there after of hatred. These are the tragedies of love emotional.

Conscious love rarely obtains between humans; but it can be illustrated in the relations of man to his favourites in the animal and vegetable kingdoms.
The development of the horse and the dog from their original state of nature; the cultivation of flowers and fruit-these are examples of a primitive form of conscious love, primitive because the motive is still egoistic and utilitarian. In short, Man has a personal use for the domesticated horse and the cultivated fruit; and his labour upon them cannot be said to be for love alone. The conscious love motive, in its developed state, is the wish that the object should arrive at its own native perfection, regardless of the consequences to the lover. 'So she become perfectly herself, what matter I?' says the conscious lover. 'I will go to hell if only she may go to heaven'. And the paradox of the attitude is that such love always evokes a similar attitude in its object. Conscious love begets conscious love.
It is rare among humans because, in the first place, the vast majority are children who look to be loved but not to love; secondly, because perfection is seldom conceived as the proper end of human love-though it alone distinguishes adult human from infantile and animal love; thirdly, because humans do not know, even if they wish, what is good for those they love; and fourthly, because it never occurs by chance, but must be the subject of resolve, effort, self-conscious choice. As little as Bushido or the Order of Chivalry grew up accidentally does conscious love arise by nature. As these were works of art, so must conscious love be a work of art. Such a lover enrolls himself, goes through his apprenticeship, and perhaps one day attains to mastery. He perfects himself in order that he may purely wish and aid the perfection of his beloved.

Would one enrol in this service of conscious love? Let him forswear personal desire and preconception. He contemplates his beloved. What manner of woman (or man) is she (or he)? A mystery is here: a scent of perfection the nascent air of which is adorable. How may this perfection be actualised-to the glory of the beloved and of God her Creator? Let him think, is he fit? He can only conclude that he is not. Who cannot cultivate flowers, or properly treat dogs and horses, how shall he learn to reveal the perfection still seedling in the beloved?

Humility is necessary, and then deliberate tolerance. If I am not sure what is proper to her perfection, let her at least have free way to follow her own bent. Meanwhile to study- what she is, and may become; what she needs, what her soul craves and cannot find a name, still less a thing, for. To anticipate today her needs of tomorrow. And without a thought all the while of what her needs may mean to me. You will see, sons and daughters, what self-discipline and self- education are demanded here. Enter these enchanted woods, ye who dare. The gods love each other consciously. Conscious lovers become gods.

Without shame people will boast that they have loved, do love or hope to love. As if love were enough, or could cover any multitude of sins. But love, as we have seen, when it is not conscious love-that is to say, love that aims to be both wise and able in the service of its object-is either an affinity or a disaffinity, and in both cases equally unconscious, that is, uncontrolled. To be in such a state of love is to be dangerous either to oneself or to the other or to both.
We are then polarized to a natural force (which has its own objects to serve regardless of ours) and charged with its force; and events are fortunate if we do not damage somebody in consequence of carrying dynamite carelessly.

Love without knowledge and power is demoniac. Without knowledge it may destroy the beloved. Who has not seen many a beloved made wretched and ill by her or his 'lover' ?

Without power the lover must become wretched, since he cannot do for his beloved what he wishes and knows to be for her delight. Men should pray to be spared the experience of love without wisdom and strength. Or, finding themselves in love, they should pray for knowledge and power to guide their love. Love is not enough.

'I love you', said the man. 'Strange that I feel none the better for it', said the woman.

The truth about love is shown in the order in which religion has been introduced into the world. First came the religion of Power, then came the religion of Knowledge, and last came the religion of Love. Why this order? Because Love without the former qualities is dangerous. But this is not to say that the succession has been anything more than discretion: since Power alone, like Knowledge alone, is only less dangerous than Love alone.

Perfection demands simultaneity in place of succession. The order is only evidence that since succession was imperative (man being subject to the dimension of Time which is succession), it was better to begin with the less dangerous dictators and leave Love to the last.

A certain prudent man, when he felt himself to be in love, hung a little bell round his neck to caution women that he was dangerous. Unfortunately for themselves they took too much notice 0f it; and he suffered accordingly.
Until you have wisdom and power equal to your love, be ashamed, my sons and daughters, to avow that you are in love. Or, since you cannot conceal it, love humbly and study to be wise and strong. Aim to be worthy to be in love.
All true lovers are invulnerable to everybody but their beloved. This comes about not by wish or effort but by the fact of true, i.e. whole, love alone.
Temptation has not to be overcome: it is not experienced. The invulnerability is magical. Moreover, it occurs more often than is usually supposed. Because 'unfaithfulness' is manifested, the conclusion is drawn that invulnerability does not exist. But 'infidelity' is not necessarily due to temptation, but possibly and often to indifference; and there is no Fall where there is no Temptation.

Men should learn to discriminate in themselves and in women real and assumed invulnerability. The latter, however eloquent, is due to fear. Only the former is the fruit of love.

Another prudent man, desiring, as all men and women do in their hearts, invulnerability in himself and in the woman he loved, set about it in the following way. He tasted of many women and urged his beloved to taste of many men. After a few years he was satisfied that nothing now could tempt him. She, on the other hand, had had no doubt of herself from the beginning. She had been born invulnerable; he had attained it.

The state of being in love is not always defined in relation to one object. One person has the talisman of raising another to the plane of love (that is, of polarizing him or her with the natural energy of love); but he or she may not be then either the sole beloved or, indeed, the beloved at all.
There are, among people as among chemical substances, agents of catalysis which make possible interchanges and combinations into which the catalysts themselves do not enter. Frequently they are unrecognized by the parties affected, and usually by themselves as well. In the village of Borna, not far from Lhassa, there once lived a man who was such a catalyst.
People who spoke to him instantly fell in love, but not with him, or, indeed, immediately with anybody in particular. All that they were aware of was that they had, after conversation with him, an active spirit of love which was ready to pour itself out in loving service. The European troubadours were perhaps such people.

There is no necessary relation between love and children; but there is a necessary relation between love and creation. Love is for creation; and if creation is not possible, then for procreation; and if even that is not possible, then for creations of which, perhaps fortunately, we are unconscious. Take it, however, as the fundamental truth about Love: that it always creates. Love created the world: and not all its works are beautiful!

The procreation of children is the particular function of instinctive love: that is its plane. But above and below this plane, other kinds of love have other functions.
Emotional love is usually instinctive love out of place; and its procreations are in consequence misfits in the world. The higher forms of love, on the other hand, either exclude procreation, not artificially but naturally, or include it only as a by-product. Neither the purpose nor the function of conscious love is children; unless we take the word in the mystic sense of becoming as little children. For briefly, the aim of conscious love is to bring about rebirth, or spiritual childhood.

Everybody with perceptions beyond those of male and female must be aware of the change that comes over the man or woman, however old in years, who loves. It is usually instinctive; yet it symbolizes the still more marvelous change occurring when a man or woman loves consciously or is aware of being consciously loved. The youth in such cases has all the air of eternity; and it is, indeed, the divine youth. The creations of such a spiritual child in each of the two lovers is the peculiar function of conscious love; and it depends neither upon marriage nor upon children. There are other creations proper to still higher degrees of love; but they must remain until we have become as little children.

We are not one but three in one; and the fact is represented in our physiological make-up. The three main systems, cerebral, nervous, and instinctive, exist side by side, sometimes appearing to co-operate, but more often failing, and usually at cross-purposes. In relation to the external world it depends upon the system in charge of the organism at the moment what the response to any given stimulus will be. If the cerebral system is on duty-that is temporarily in charge of the organism-the response will be one. If the nervous or instinctive system is alone awake, the replies will be different. Three quite different people, each with his own ideas of how his organism should act, exist in us at once: and usually they refuse to co-operate with each other, and, in fact, get in each other's way.

Now imagine such an organism, tenanted by three squabbling persons, to 'fall in love'. What has fallen in love; or, rather, which of the three? It seldom happens that all three are in love at the same time or with the same object. One is in love, the others are not; and either they resist, or, when the lover is off guard, make his organism unfaithful (driving the poor lover to lies and deceit or self-reproach); or they are forced into submission, battered into acquiescence.

In such circumstances, which every candid reader will recognize, what is a lover? You imagine that you are continent because you have refrained from sex-relations; but continence is of the senses as well as of the organs, and of the eyes chiefly. From each of the senses there streams energy-energy as various as the man himself. It is not only possible but it is certain that we can expend ourselves intellectually, emotionally or sexually through any one of the senses.

To look with lust is much more than simply to look: it is to expend one of the finer substances of which complete sex-energy is composed: something passes in the act of vision which is irrecoverable; and for the want of it the subsequent sex-life is incomplete. It is the same with the other senses, though less easily realised. In short, it is possible to become completely impotent by means of the senses alone-yes, by the eyes alone-while remaining continent in the ordinary meaning of the word.
The chastity of the senses is natural in a few people; but by the many it must be acquired if it is to become common. Under the greatest civilization human history has yet known, the capital of which was the city whose poor remains are Bagdad, the chastity of the senses was taught from early childhood. Each sense was carefully trained; and exercises were devised to enable pupils to discriminate the different emanations arriving from the sense perceptions intellectually, emotionally, instinctively or erotically motivated. From this education people acquired the power of directing their senses, with the result that chastity was at least possible, since it was under control. Eroticism thereby became an art, in the highest form the world has seen. Its faint echoes are to be found in Persian and Sufi literature today. Bluebeard and La Belle Dame are the male and female types respectively of the same sychology-inspirers of hopeless because unrequitable passion. The decapitated ladies who hung about Bluebeard's chamber were really about his neck; and they had only to let go to be free.
Similarly the pale warriors and princes in the cave of La Belle Dame were there by choice; if an irresistible attraction can be called choice. The legends present Bluebeard and La Belle Dame from the point of view of their escaped victims, that is to say, as monsters delighting in erotic sacrifice. But both were as much victims as their titular victims; and both suffered as much, if not more.
In such cases of uncontrolled attraction, power passes through the medium,who thus becomes formidably magnetic; and men and women in sympathetic relation are drawn towards him or her like filings towards a magnet. At first, no doubt, the experiences of a Bluebeard or La Belle Dame are pleasant and fortifying to self-pride and self-vanity. The other sex is at their feet.
But when, having realised that the power is neither their own nor under their control, they discover that they too are victims, the early satisfaction is dearly paid for. The cure for all parties is difficult. It consists in the re-education of the body and the senses.

Love without divination is elementary. To be in love demands that the lover shall divine the wishes of the beloved long before they have come into the beloved's own consciousness. He knows her better than she knows herself; and loves her more than she loves herself; so that she becomes her perfect self without her own conscious effort. Her conscious effort, when the love is mutual, is for him. Thus each delightfully works perfection in the other.
But this state is not ordinarily attained in nature: it is the fruit of art, of self-training. All people desire it, even the most cynical; but since it seldom occurs by chance, and nobody has published the key to its creation, the vast majority doubt even its possibility.
Nevertheless it is possible, provided that the parties can learn and teach humbly. How to begin? Let the lover when he is about to see his beloved think what he should take, do, or say so as to give her a delightful surprise. At first it will probably be a surprise that is not a complete surprise: that is to say, she will have been aware of her wish, and only delighted that her lover had guessed it. Later the delightful surprise may really surprise her; and her remark will be: 'How did you know I should be pleased, since I should never have guessed it myself?' Constant efforts to anticipate the nascent wishes of the beloved while they are still unconscious are the means to conscious love.

Take hold tightly; let go lightly. This is one of the great secrets of felicity in love. For every Romeo and Juliet tragedy arising from the external circumstances of the two parties, a thousand tragedies arise from the circumstances created by the lovers themselves. As they seldom know the moment or the way to 'take hold' of each other, so they even more rarely know the way or the moment to let go.
The ravines of Mount Meru (i.e. Venusberg) are filled with lovers who cannot leave each other.
Each wishes to let go, but the other will not permit it.
There are various explanations of this unhappy state of affairs. In most instances the approach has been wrong: that is to say, the parties have leapt into union without thought of the way out.

Often the first five minutes of the lovers' first meeting are decisive of the whole future of the relations. In some instances the original relation has been responsible for the subsequent difficulty of' 'letting go': it should never have been; or not have been in the precise circumstances of its occurrence. Mistimed relations always cause trouble. In other cases the difficulty is due to difference in age, education, or 'past'. One is afraid to 'let go' because it appears to be the last hope, or because too much time has already been spent on it, or because it has been the best up to date, or because his 'ideal', created by education, demands eternal fidelity even where it is not possible, because it is not desired by both; or because one is over-sensitive from past experience and cannot face another failure, or because the flesh being willing the spirit is weak, i.e. neither party can use a knife; or because circumstances are unfavourable, i.e. the parties must continue to see each other; or because of imagination, as when one or the other pictures the happiness of the other without him or her.

There are a thousand explanations, and every one of them, while sufficient as a cause, is quite inadequate as reason, the fact being that when one of the parties desires to separate, the other's love- duty is to 'let go'.
Great love can both let go and take hold. Jealousy is the dragon in paradise; the hell of heaven; and the most bitter of the emotions because associated with the sweetest. There is a specific against jealousy, namely, conscious love; but this remedy is harder to find than the disease is to endure. But there are palliatives of which the first therapeutic condition is the recognition of the disease and the second the wish to cure oneself.

In these circumstances let the sufferer deliberately experiment. Much may be forgiven him or her during this process. He may, for instance, try to forward the new plans of his former beloved-but this is difficult without obvious hypocrisy. Or he may plunge into new society. Or he may engage himself in a new work that demands all his energy. Or he may cast a spell on his memory and regard his former beloved as dead; or as having become his sister; or as having gone away on a long journey; or as having become enchanted. Best, however, if he 'let go' completely with no lingering hope of ever meeting her again.

Be comforted. Our life is but one day of our Life. If not today,tomorrow ! Let go !

Be greeted psychoneurotics!

2008-03-14T21:10:00.002+01:00

A poem by K. Dabrowski.

Be greeted psychoneurotics!

For you see sensitivity in the insensitivity of the world,
uncertainty among the world's certainties.

For you often feel others as you feel yourselves.

For you feel the anxiety of the world, and
its bottomless narrowness and self-assurance.

For your phobia of washing your hands from the dirt of the world,
for your fear of being locked in the world’s limitations.
for your fear of the absurdity of existence.

For your subtlety in not telling others what you see in them.

For your awkwardness in dealing with practical things, and
for your practicalness in dealing with unknown things,
for your transcendental realism and lack of everyday realism,
for your exclusiveness and fear of losing close friends,
for your creativity and ecstasy,
for your maladjustment to that "which is" and adjustment to that which "ought to be",
for your great but unutilized abilities.

For the belated appreciation of the real value of your greatness
which never allows the appreciation of the greatness
of those who will come after you.

For your being treated instead of treating others,
for your heavenly power being forever pushed down by brutal force;
for that which is prescient, unsaid, infinite in you.

For the loneliness and strangeness of your ways.

Be greeted!

From: Dabrowski, K. (1972) Psychoneurosis is not an illness, London: GRYF Publications.

Think

2008-03-14T00:51:00.001+01:00

First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

TROLLS AT MY DOOR

2008-02-24T19:19:00.005+01:00

Is there a White Wizard in da house?!

BLOOD OF EDEN

2008-02-18T22:12:00.008+01:00

Has the Eden bled dry or is the blood all its left from Eden?

When do I get to sing My Way?!

2008-02-15T21:45:00.002+01:00

This little video candy definitely deserves to be raised from the oblivion: