by atmara | Feb 16, 2012 | Inspiration, Love, Video
Usually on Thursdays I offer a TEDTalk video that I have found interesting. This week I’d like to share a moving piece on the Occupy movement. FierceLightFilms posted the follow about this video they put on YouTube:
“A taste of the upcoming feature documentary, Occupy Love. This is a community funded film. We are in the LAST WEEK of our crowd funding campaign at http://www.indiegogo.com/Occupy-Love Please check it out! We can’t do it without you…
“Love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says ‘more for you is less for me.’ But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings. This shift of consciousness is universal in everybody, 99% and 1%.” ~ Charles Eisenstein
*NAMED ONE OF TOP 10 MUST-WATCH OCCUPY WALL ST VIDEOS*
This short film was Directed by Ian MacKenzie http://ianmack.com
Co-produced with Velcrow Ripper http://www.velcrowripper.com
Camera: Ian Mackenzie and Velcrow Ripper
Editing: Ian Mackenzie
Interview by: Velcrow Ripper
Watch video with English/Spanish/French/Greek and many more subtitles
http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/06HYpGK1jhTJ/info/
CHARLES EISENSTEIN is a teacher, speaker, and writer focusing on themes of civilization, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution.
READ CHARLES BOOK
Visit http://sacred-economics.com to learn more about his ideas for a new economy.”
Here is the video. A transcript follows.
Transcript:
“This movement isn’t about the 99% defeating or toppling the 1%. You know the next chapter of that story, which is that the 99% create a new 1%. That’s not what it’s about.
What we want to create is the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible. A sacred world. A world that works for everybody. A world that is healing. A world of peace.
You can’t just say “We demand a world of peace. Demands have to be specific. Anything that people can articulate can only be articulated within the language of the current political discourse. And that entire political discourse is already too small. And that’s why making explicit demands reduces the movement, and takes the heart out of it. So it’s a real paradox, and I think the movement understands that.
The system isn’t working for the 1% either. You know if you were a CEO, you would be making the same choices they do. The institutions have their own logic. Life is pretty bleak at the top too – and all the baubles of the rich are this phoney compensation for the loss of what’s really important. The loss of community, the loss of connection, the loss of intimacy. The loss of meaning.
Everybody wants to live a life of meaning. And today, we live in a money economy where we don’t really depend on the gifts of anybody. But we buy everything. Therefore we don’t really need anybody, because whoever grew my food, or made my clothes, or built by house, well if they die, or if I alienate them, or if they don’t like me, that’s okay because I can just pay someone else to do it.
And it’s really hard to create community if the underlying knowledge is “we don’t need each other.” So people kind of get together and act nice, or maybe they consume together. But joint consumption doesn’t create intimacy. Only joint creativity and gifts create intimacy and connection.
You have such gifts, that are important. Just as every species has an important gift to give to an ecosystem, and the extinction of any species hurts everybody. The same is true of each person, that you have a necessary and important gift to give.
And that for a long time our minds have told us that maybe we’re crazy, that maybe we’re imagining things, that’s its crazy to live according to what you want to give. But I think now, as more and more people wake up to the truth, that we’re here to give, and wake up to that desire, and wake up to the fact that other way isn’t working anyway – the more reinforcement we have from people around us that this isn’t crazy. This is makes sense. This is how to live.
And as we get that reinforcement, then our minds and our logic no longer have to fight against the logic of the heart which wants us to be of service. This shift of consciousness that inspires such things is universal, 99% and the 1% and it’s awakening in different people in different ways.
I think love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says ‘more for you is less for me.’ But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings.
That’s love, love is the expansion of the self to include the other. And that’s a different kind of revolution. There’s no one to fight. There’s no evil to fight. There’s no other in this revolution.
Everybody has a unique calling and it’s really time to listen to that. That’s what the future is going to be. It’s time to get ready for it, and contribute to it, and help make it happen.”
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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!
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by atmara | Jan 23, 2012 | Art, Inspiration, Mandala Monday, Mandalas
“Mandala of Vajradhatu” by Anonymous Tibetan artist – scan of painting. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Author: Don Reid
Neo, in “The Matrix” movie, needed his brain to be plugged into a supercomputer, so he could learn martial arts in minutes, and Trinity in the nick of time, could fly a chopper so they could get away from the “agents”. Using encoded mandalas is the closest working model to this science fiction, that proves that old adage, there is nothing new under the sun.
Mandalas have been used as far back in time as we can remember. Most people today, when visiting ancient ruins, like pyramids, can see images, of geometric patterns and designs in the decoration, even in early Christian Churches. Or are they merely decoration?
The first time I ever seen a symbol like a mandala, it was a pentagram, and I was scared to death of it because of course it was in a horror movie and I was a small child at that time. It wasn’t until much later, that I learned in geometry, that Pythagoras, of the famous Pythagorean theorem, was also a numerologist. This numerology is all about the numbers and subtle meanings that had nothing to do with mathematical formulas, i.e. [a squared + b squared = c squared] and I did confuse me. Why wasn’t this taught as well? If his theorems worked, why wasn’t this other aspect of his contributions taught in High School math?
From Wickipedia
“In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of aspirants and adepts, as a spiritual teaching tool, for establishing a sacred , and as an aid to meditation and trance induction. According to David Fontana, its symbolic nature can help one “to access progressively deeper levels of the unconscious, ultimately assisting the meditator to experience a mystical sense of oneness with the ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its manifold forms arises.” The psychoanalyst Carl Jung saw the mandala as “a representation of the unconscious self,”[ and believed his paintings of mandalas enabled him to identify emotional disorders and work towards wholeness in personality.
In common use, mandala has become a generic term for any plan, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically, a microcosm of the Universe from the human perspective”
Take away all the esoteric stuff, and you still don’t have much you can use here. Most people are spiritual but not inclined to seek out the cosmos or metaphysics. However, something of value is here if we take the time to apply what could be a new beginning, and a transformation of human learning and understanding.
Do you remember that scene in “The Matrix” movie? when Neo learned martial arts in an instant… think about it… what would that application look like in real life?
Brain Mirror neurons, a recent discovery, are said to operate and/or fire signals through the brain.. whether the person is completing an activity or simply watching the activity. This has serious implications, to what we call learning and what is possible in regards to Matrix Style Learning (training).
Of course some variant of this is possible otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this article.
Four years ago, I was amazed at my own brain mirror neurons being trained a sequence of Chi Gung movements and instantly getting the benefit of that training.
This training would otherwise taken years of practice. Not only that, the use of Mandalas and sacred geometry was explained to me in a way I never heard before. Brain mirror neurons can actually understand like some type of computer Operating System (OS), sacred geometric shapes, images and patterns and by looking at these images… hmmm just like the ancient spiritual practicioners, suggested, esoteric or not, benefits can be derived.
Fast forward to Dec 16th, the day I launched the I Chi Power App on Itunes (www.i-chipower.com) I codesigned an app for Iphone that actually works with brain mirror neurons providing an instant benefit. I called this the I Chi Power App, because you the user get to experience what I had experienced over the years instantaneously in this App. Check out the You Tube demo to see first hand one of the benefits of this app and you might find yourself on a journey to unlocking your true potential.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/meditation-articles/the-science-and-secrets-of-mandalas-3981809.html
About the Author
Don Reid is an avid reader, sci fi junkie, and former teenage comic book junkie. Professionally he worked as a Stock Broker, and currently has spent the last few years, in small business venture capital. He has studied Chi Gung, Tai Chi and several disciplines in the martial arts. Currently a student of Shaolin ShSD based in San Francisco, he has been exposed to systems that have lead him to launch Quantum Visuals Unlimited Inc, to help unlock the human potential using these amazing training tools.
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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!
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by atmara | Jan 2, 2012 | Art, Inspiration, Mandala Monday, Mandalas
Mandala (Sanskrit mandala “essence” +”having ” or “containing” it is also translated as “circle- circumference” or “completion”, both derived from Tibetan term dkyil khor). Mandala is of Hindu origin, the term being used for the books of the Rig Veda but is also used in other Indian religions such as Buddhism. In the Tibetan branch of Vajrayana Buddhism, mandalas have been developed into sandpainting. They are also a key part of anuttarayoga tantra meditation practices.
In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of aspirants and adepts; as a spiritual teaching tool; for establishing a sacred space; and as an aid to meditation and trance induction.
its symbolic nature can help one “to access progressively deeper levels of the unconscious, ultimately assisting the meditator to experience a mystical sense of oneness with the ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its manifold forms arises.” The psychoanalyst Carl Jung saw the mandala as “a representation of the unconscious self,” and believed his paintings of mandalas enabled him to identify emotional disorders and work towards wholeness in personality.
In common use, mandala has become a generic term for any plan, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically, a microcosm of the Universe from the human perspective.
Sri Yantra
Sri yantra is called the mother of all yantras because all other yantras derive from it. The Sri Yantra is a configuration of nine interlacing triangles centred around the bindu (the central point of the yantra), drawn by the super imposition of five downward pointing triangles, representing Shakti ; the female principle and four upright triangles, representing Shiva ; the male principle. Man’s spiritual journey from the stage of material existence to ultimate enlightenment is mapped on the Sri Yantra. The spiritual journey is taken as a pilgrimage in which every step is an ascent to the center, a movement beyond one’s limited existence, and every level is nearer to the goal.
Each of the circuits of the Sri Yantra, from the outer plane to the bindu (the center), corresponds with one of the stages of the spiritual journey.
The goal of contemplating the Sri Yantra is that the adept can rediscover his primordial sources. The circuits symbolically indicate the sucessive phases in the process of becoming.
Prerna School of Inspiration – Temple of Inspiration located at : C-136, Khasra Number-198 Chattarpur Enclave New Delhi – 110074 9958710730 aartikhosla12@gmail.com http://www.prernaschoolofinspiration.com/
Image from Wikimedia Commons
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