it will be forever

http://www.last.fm/music/Nat+King+Cole/_/When+I+Fall+in+Love?autostart=1

When I fall in love it will be forever
Or Ill never fall in love
In a restless world like this is
Love is ended before its begun
And too many moonlight kisses
Seem to cool in the warmth of the sun

When I give my heart it will be completely
Or Ill never give my heart
And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too
Is when I fall in love with you.

Change the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGnMC5mlsLU

If I could reach the stars I'd pull one down for you
Shine it on my heart so you could see the truth
That this love I have inside is everything it seems
But for now I find it's only in my dreams

CHORUS:
That I can change the world
I would be the sunlight in your universe
You will think my love was really something good
Baby if I could change the world

If I could be king even for a day
I'd take you as my queen I'd have it no other way
And our love will rule in this kingdom we have made
Till then I'd be a fool wishin' for the day

CHORUS:
That I can change the world
I would be the sunlight in your universe
You will think my love was really something good
Baby if I could change the world
Baby if I could change the world

- GUITAR SOLO -

CHORUS:
That I can change the world
I would be the sunlight in your universe
You will think my love was really something good
Baby if I could change the world
Baby if I could change the world
Baby if I could change the world

Breath in, breath out

Picture a tree. The top of the tree sways as it blows back and forth in the wind.
If you look at the top of the tree you might think it unstable.
When you look at the trunk of the tree you see it is very stable.

We are like that.
When the emotions are running through us
we can remember that is not all we are.
We are also the trunk.

- Thich Nhat Hanh

new music discoveries

Gogol Bordello
Gypsy Punk
http://www.slacker.com/?sid=stations/2157741/1214002584

Avett Brothers
Bluegrass Punk
http://www.slacker.com/?sid=stations/2157741/1213908042

slave mentality

... if we could cure ourselves of the slave mentality...
Malcolm X

Daily NASA Photo

Beautiful photos from NASA. One new one every day.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

the life force power of the universe

Who are we? We are the life force power of the universe. With manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. We have the power moment-by-moment to choose who and how we want to be in the world.

The more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner-peace circuitry of our right-hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our world will be.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

- Jill Bolte Taylor

New moon intentions

Health. Eating habits. That means cooking.

Morning ritual

When you wake up in the morning, light a candle, read a passage from a book of daily inspirational readings, meditate for two minutes. Get up, go out for a walk (blow the candle out first). Discover something new, something you've never seen before. When you get back from the walk, log onto your blog and record the new thing you discovered. Do ten sun salutations, shower in your outdoor shower, then go to your favorite cafe and have a juice.

Stay tuned

No matter what you're doing in the outer world, keep a portion of your awareness on you inner body. -- Eckhart Tolle

One thing, or two

Do I believe in one source that's all good? Or do I believe in two opposing forces, light and dark, one that is trying to help me and one that opposes me?

- Gregg Braden, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief

Work is love made visible

And what is it to work with love?

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

- Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet

Belief determines muscle capability

My massage therapist taught me to stretch my shoulders back at my desk, alternating the stretch with effort. My desk is a corner unit. I can stretch my arms wide on the edges of the desk. I was doing isometrics, pushing against the desk. After a while I realized my chair has wheels and it is a simple matter to push my chair back. And with the next push, the chair went back away from the desk. No more isometrics. My belief dramatically affected what my muscles were capable of.

Flying Car

Had a dream this morning. I was driving up a mountain road, a rocky ledge along the side of a mountain. It got steeper and more narrow, the mountainside fell away and it was just a rocky ledge barely wide enough for the car. Had to keep speed up or risk falling backward. Steeper and steeper and finally the road curved back in a loop and the car was upside down. Now we're off the road, falling to a certain death. But we're not falling. We're floating, flying, looking down on a spectacular view of a gorgeous mountain peak. Now I know it has to be a dream, become lucid for a moment, and wake up.

Balboa Park

The largest urban cultural park in the U.S. 1,200 acres. (Central Park in NYC is 847 acres.)

The Park is home to 15 museums, several art galleries, beautiful gardens, and the Old Globe Theatre. Also residing within the park are San Diego High School, Naval Medical Center San Diego, the San Diego Zoo, and two golf courses.


The Panama-California Exposition: 1910-1916
California Pacific International Exposition in 1935

Adjacent to many of San Diego's neighborhoods including Downtown San Diego, Bankers Hill, Hillcrest, North Park, South Park, and Golden Hill.

If you don't know me by now

If you don't know me by now
Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
1972
play now

If you don't know me by now
You will never never never know me

All the things that we've been through
You should understand me like I understand you
Now girl I know the difference between right and wrong
I ain't gonna do nothing to break up our happy home
Oh don't get so excited when I come home a little late at night
Cos we only act like children when we argue, fuss, and fight

If you don't know me by now
You will never never never know me

We've all got our own funny moods
I've got mine, woman you've your yours too
Just trust in me like I trust in you
As long as we've been together it should be so easy to do
Just get yourself together or we might as well say goodbye
What good is a love affair when you can't see eye to eye

If you don't know me by now
You will never never never know me

Unprocessed hurt demands attention

Debbie Ford spoke at the Seaside Center for Spirituality Friday night. She says there is no point in trying to get rid of our bad behaviors; instead we must love them, see the value in them. Jung said, "I'd rather be whole than good." She says unprocessed hurt from the past causes us to sabotage ourselves, to demand attention and resolution.
www.debbieford.com

Fear incapacitates the brain

I met this woman a couple weeks ago. She seemed intelligent and independent-minded with great ideas, fun to talk to. I met up with her again two weeks later and in the intervening period she had lost her job. She was a different person. She was unclear, thought process disorganized, unable to make good decisions. She also expressed considerable worry about finances. It occurred to me, it was the fear that incapacitated her thinking ability.

Material Beliefs

I set aside my human opinions and material beliefs.
- Ernest Holmes

The world must respond

My world must respond to my thoughts, for that is the law of mind.
- Ernest Holmes

New Moon

A burst of creative growth for MapTeam. Our Florida client gave us some new ideas: the motivation index, and the NAR convention. We've decided to aim for the NAR convention in Orlando this fall. This gives us focus and renewed vigor.

Baraka

Baraka
a film by Ron Fricke
1992

http://www.spiritofbaraka.com/baraka.aspx

Baraka, roughly translated as blessing, a common word in many middle eastern languages. Beautiful 70mm photography of spectacular scenes around the world, no plot, non-verbal. Director Ron Frick says the movie is about man's relationship with the divine. I was most taken with the rituals in diverse cultures. I still can't get over the opening scene of the monkeys in the hot springs.

Believe you have already received it.

Whatever you ask in prayer, believe you have already received it.
- Eckhart Tolle: A New Earth

Change my belief system

Heart-based belief.

The language of consciousness. The language of belief.

Changing the way we feel can literally rearrange the atoms of the stuff in the physical world around us.

The human heart creates fields of energy - the same energy that everything is made of - which extend far beyond our bodies into the world around us.

Our beliefs create the situations in our lives.

• We can transcend the laws that say we are separate from everything around us.


• We can transcend the laws that say time and space are barriers between us and our relationships and the people we love and hold dear.


• We can transcend the laws of aging.


• We can transcend the laws that tell us we are limited in this world.

Everything changes. We are no longer limited by anything other than the beliefs - the false limits of the beliefs of our conditioning from our past, our culture, our friends, our family - our subconscious beliefs.

Everything changes. Each of us has the opportunity to shatter our personal paradigm of false limits.

- Greg Bradden, new book: The Spontaneous Healing of Belief

Stand

Stand
Sly & the Family Stone
1969

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLcPNhORg_Y

Stand
In the end you'll still be you
One that's done all the things you set out to do

Stand
There's a cross for you to bear
Things to go through if you're going anywhere

Stand
For the things you know are right
It's the truth that the truth makes them so uptight

Stand
All the things you want are real
You have you to complete and there is no deal

Stand, stand, stand
Stand, stand, stand

Stand
You've been sitting much too long
There's a permanent crease in your right and wrong

Stand
There's a midget standing tall
And the giant beside him about to fall

Stand
They will try to make you crawl
And they know what you're saying makes sense and all

Stand
Don't you know that you are free
Well at least in your mind if you want to be.

Everybody
Stand, stand, stand

I am having a spiritual experience

After talking with the Eckankar lady I've taken this new affirmation (mantra): "I am having a spiritual experience. This moment is sacred." I used in the dentist's chair for an hour this morning.

Soul Travel

I met a neighbor this weekend who is into Eckankar. She had some great stories about soul travel. She says she started having out-of-body experiences spontaneously when a teenager.

http://www.eckankar.org/

As

As
Stevie Wonder
1976

http://www.last.fm/music/Stevie+wonder/_/as

As around the sun the earth knows she's revolving
And the rosebuds know to bloom in early May
Just as hate knows love's the cure
You can rest your mind assure
That I'll be loving you always
As now can't reveal the mystery of tomorrow
But in passing will grow older every day
Just as all is born is new
Do know what I say is true
That I'll be loving you always

Until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky - always
Until the ocean covers every mountain high - always
Until the dolphin flies and parrots live at sea - always
Until we dream of life and life becomes a dream

Did you know that true love asks for nothing
Her acceptance is the way we pay
Did you know that life has given love a guarantee
To last through forever and another day

Just as time knew to move on since the beginning
And the seasons know exactly when to change
Just as kindness knows no shame
Know through all your joy and pain
That I'll be loving you always
As today I know I'm living but tomorrow
Could make me the past but that I mustn't fear
For I'll know deep in my mind
The love of me I've left behind
Cause I'll be loving you always

Until the day is night and night becomes the day - always
Until the trees and seas just up and fly away - always
Until the day that 8x8x8 is 4 - always
Until the day that is the day that are no more -
Until the day the earth starts turning right to left - always
Until the earth just for the sun denies itself -
Until dear Mother Nature says her work is through - always
Until the day that you are me and I am you - always

We all know sometimes life's hates and troubles
Can make you wish you were born in another time and space
But you can bet your life times that and twice its double
That God knew exactly where he wanted you to be placed
So make sure when you say you're in it but not of it
You're not helping to make this earth a place sometimes called hell
Change your words into truths and then change that truth into love
and maybe our children's grandchildren will tell

I'll be loving you

Until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky...

Pocket Constitution

A fellow at the Veteran's for Peace demonstration handed me a pocket-sized Constitution. Good to have.

www.nccs.net

Blood for Oil

I saw the movie There Will Be Blood this weekend - a fine history of the beginnings of the oil industry in California, cloaked in a character study of the unpleasant Daniel Plainfield. I later realized Daniel was presented as a metaphor of the corporation, especially an oil corporation - no care for humanity, totally focused on short-term profit, to the point of self-destruction. Based on Upton Sinclair's book Oil!.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469494/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil!

Veterans for Peace

Yesterday I made my first trip to Balboa Park and bumped into the Veterans for Peace setting up a memorial to the 4000th soldier KIA in Iraq. They do this often. They setup a replica cemetery with crosses and candles. They put a soldier's name on each cross.

One fellow told me three years ago they were setting up on the beach in Oceanside and some kids rode up on bicycles and went running through the crosses. They found the crosses bearing the names of their uncle and cousin. Then they rode off.

He said several of their members can't do it anymore; it's too painful.

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/

The River of Dreams

The River of Dreams
Billy Joel
1993

In the middle of the night, I go walkin in my sleep
From the mountains of faith, to a river so deep.
I must be looking for something, something sacred I lost
But the river is wide, and it's too hard to cross
And even though I know the river is wide
I walk down every evening and stand on the shore
And try to cross to the opposite side
So I can finally find out what I've been looking for

In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep
Through the valley of fear, to a river so deep
And I've been searching for something, taken out of my soul
Something I would never lose, something somebody stole.
I don't know why I go walking at night
But now I'm tired and I don't want to walk anymore
I hope it doesn't take the rest of my life
Until I find what it is that I've been looking for.

In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep
Through the jungle of doubt, to a river so deep
I know I'm searching for something, something so undefined
That it can only be seen, by the eyes of the blind
In the middle of the night.
I'm not sure about life after this
God knows I've never been a spiritual man
Baptized by the fire, I wade into the river
That runs to the promised land

In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep
Through the desert of truth, to the river so deep
We all end in the ocean, we all start in the streams
We're all carried along, by the river of dreams
In the middle of the night

http://www.last.fm/music/Billy+Joel/_/The+River+of+Dreams?autostart

Create space for a miracle

An impossible situation. If it wasn't impossible, then there could be no possibility of a miracle. If I want to have a miracle, I have to start with an impossible situation. By allowing the impossible situation to be, I create space for the miraculous.

Awake within the dream

When we awake within the dream, the ego-created world of drama comes to an end and a new more benign and wondrous dream arises. This is the new earth.
- Eckhart Tolle

I sleep in peace and wake in joy and live in a consciousness of good.
- Ernest Holmes

Film Movement

The Adam's Apples DVD was distributed by Film Movement, a monthly DVD club that provides access to award-winning independent and foreign films.
http://www.filmmovement.com/

Hope where there is none

That's what I picked up from the movie Adam's Apples this weekend. Hope where there is no hope. Faith where there is no rational basis.

Found it very moving. Ivan is a priest who runs a halfway house. Adam is a neo-nazi just out of prison. Ivan tries to reform Adam.

This is a 2005 Danish movie with subtitles.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418455/

Of course, where there is a rational basis there's no need for faith.

Create space

Eckhart Tolle spoke in San Diego last night. A crowd of 3000 people. He spoke for two-hours.

We focus on the formed. There is also a formless world within us from which the formed springs.

When a negative thought appears, create space for it, and allow it to be. It won't survive for long if we don't attach to it and feed it. Recognize it for what it is, and refrain from judging it.

Most persistent thoughts are negative ones.

Ten virtuous actions

The Gaden Shartse monks have spent the last week in Encinitas. I went to a few evening rituals. One was called the Green Tara Empowerment

As part of this visualization my body is filled with blue light. The light completely fills my body so that impurities are squeezed out like urine, pus, blood.

The impurities are the ten non-virtuous actions of body speech and mind.

Body
* Killing
* Stealing
* Sexual Misconduct

Speech
* Lying
* Divisive Speech
* Harsh Words
* Gossip

Mind
* Covetousness
* Harmful Intent, Malice
* Wrong Views

An example of a wrong view is to think: there will be no consequences of my actions.

When the llama says "body" he touches the top of his head. When he says "speech" he touches his throat. And when he says "mind" he touches his heart.

Instead of thinking in the negative, we can do the opposite and practice the 10 virtuous actions.

Body
* Protect life.
* Generosity.
* Keep agreements with members of the opposite gender.

Speech
* Honesty
* Speak with the goal to bring harmony among beings
* Speak gently
* Refrain from gossip

Mind
* Be happy for others' accomplishments
* Be loving toward all
* Hold a view that includes karma.

communion

"A joining together of minds or spirits." - wiktionary

To commune with god then is to join together the individual mind and the one mind.

Affirmations, visualizations, meditation, prayer, and communion are all ways to achieve a desired state of consciousness. My individual mind tends to bounce around in states of fear, anger, sadness, and shame. The god mind is a state of bliss. By communing with god I join together my individual mind with the god mind and thus attune my own experience to one of bliss.

Last night the Gaden Shartse monks did a Green Tara Empowerment. For me this was a visualization of a divine being purifying my body, speech and mind. My body was filled with colored light that squeezed the contaminants out like charcoal, pus and blood. At this moment I saw the connection between visualization and affirmation as techniques to produce a state of consciousness in the mind.

surrender

surrender -
...completely gives up his own will and subjects his thoughts, ideas, and deeds to the will and teachings of a higher power. - wikipedia

to stop fighting the external world. - Tammy Miller

unconscious negativity

...catch yourself thinking thoughts that justify or explain your current unhappiness but in fact create it... - Eckhart Tolle

Blessing

I looked up the word "blessing" today. Wikipedia says, "the infusion of something with holiness."

What a great concept. Today I bless everything. This apple core, this software bug I'm working on, this moment. Everything is sacred.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blessing

Gaden Shartse monks

The Tibetan monks from the Gaden Shartse Monastary are touring the US. I saw them today in Encinitas at the E Street Cafe. They made a sand mandala and the llama gave a talk.

The Chinese destroyed the Gaden Shartse monastary in Tibet in 1959 and killed thousands of the monks. A few escaped, survived, and rebuilt in exile in southern India.

The Tibetans refuse to fight the Chinese. They believe fighting back is like pouring gasoline on a fire. Each war contains the seeds of the next war. Each person is the cause of everything that happens to him.

http://gadenshartsetour.org/History of Gaden Shartse.htm
map Mundgod, India