unity of mind and heart
Training the intellect does not result in intelligence. Rather, intelligence comes into being when one acts in perfect harmony, both intellectually and emotionally. There is a vast distinction between intellect and intelligence. Intellect is merely thought functioning independently of emotion. When intellect, irrespective of emotion, is trained in any particular direction, one may have great intellect, but one does not have intelligence, because in intelligence there is the inherent capacity to feel as well as to reason; in intelligence both capacities are equally present, intensely and harmoniously.Now modern education is developing the intellect, offering more and more explanations of life, more and more theories, without the harmonious quality of affection. Therefore we have developed cunning minds to escape from conflict; hence we are satisfied with explanations that scientists and philosophers give us. The mind -- the intellect -- is satisfied with these innumerable explanations, but intelligence is not, for to understand there must be complete unity of mind and heart in action.
The Book of Life, Daily Meditations with J. Krishnamurti, ©1995 by Krishnamurti Foundation of America,
Pub: HarperSanFrancisco
principle #8 - There are three sides to every conflict
Every conflict has three sides: The "right side," the "wrong side," and the lifeful side.But aren't the right side and the lifeful side the same thing? Often, unfortunately, they are not. Too often, once we've decided which side of a conflict is the right side, we go on to defend this side in deathful ways. Many may not actually do physical violence, but still are deathful in more socially acceptable ways - directing spiritual violence, verbal/emotional abuse, and hatred toward those on the other side.
Yet it's also true that on either side of every conflict there are people who have chosen the lifeful side. These people are actually all on the same side, even though they are at odds about a given issue. They agree on a bigger issue: No matter what people do or think, it is most important to treat them with respect and dignity - even while opposing their view of an issue. They do not treat people as enemies, but as fellow human beings with whom they happen to be at odds. This is the lifeful side and it is distinctly different from the "right side."
from Ten Principles, The Lifeful Way - Troy Chapman -
visit their website: ....lifefulway.org
the amateur vs irony
... approach the art of seeing... in the spirit of an amateur... in the original sense of the word, as a lover, someone who does something for the love of it, wholeheartedly. The best amateur has the skills of a professional but true professionals stay amateurs at heart, keeping a lid on the cynicism and irony that can pass for sophistication in some circles. Skepticism is useful, and for critics, necessary. But in .The Dehumanization of Art, in a section aptly titled "Doomed to Irony," the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset laments how our aversion to pathos and dependence on irony "imparts to modern art a monotony that must exasperate patience itself."
The beautiful is a promise of happiness," wrote Stendhal... Some years ago, I was walking around the Pompidou museum in Paris with Henri Cartier-Bresson. We came to a self-portrait by Bonnard, whom Cartier-Bresson photographed not long before the painter's death, in 1947, at seventy-nine... [in the painting he is] an old man before the mirror, shadowy against a brilliantly colored backdrop, his head a pulpy, sunburned blob on a skinny naked torso, the face slightly out of focus, the eyes recessed in the skull. It is one of the humblest, most unsettling self-portraits in modern art. Cartier- Bresson looked at it for a moment, turned to me, and said, "You know, Picasso didn't like Bonnard and I can imagine why, because Picasso had no tenderness. It is only a very flat explanation to say that Bonnard is looking in a mirror in this painting. He's looking far, far beyond. To me he is the greatest painter of the century. Picasso was a genius, but that is something quite different."
Michael Kimmelman, .The Accidental Masterpiece - On the Art of Life and Vice Versa,
© 2005, The Penguin Press
mannerism vs spiritWe read the complaints of great men in every century about the customs of their age. They always sound as if they referred to our own age, for the race is always the same. At every time and in every art, mannerisms have taken the place of the spirit, which was always the possession of a few individuals, but mannerisms are just the old cast-off garments of the last manifestation of the spirit that existed and was recognized.
arthur schopenhauer
relation to cosmic law
Abstract painting leaves behind the "skin" of nature, but not its laws. Let me use the "big words" .cosmic laws. Art can only be great if it relates directly to cosmic laws and is subordinated to them.
wassily kandinsky
egoless
I don't express myself in painting. I express my not-self. The dictum "Know thyself" is only valuable if the ego is removed from the process in search for truth.
mark rothko
From .An Artist's Book of Inspiration, by Astrid Fitzgerald © 1996, Lindisfarne Press
See her art on walls
the personality
What I find horrible nowadays is that people are always trying to find a personality for themselves. Nobody bothers about what you might call a painter's ideal .... the kind that's always existed (I say ideal because that's what comes nearest to it). No. They couldn't care less about that. All they're trying to do is make the world a present of their personality. It's horrible. Besides, if you're trying to find something, it means you haven't got it. And if you find it simply by looking for it, that means it's false. For my part, I can't do anything else but what I am doing.
pablo picasso, circa 1965
eckhart tolle wrote that the personality is the false sense of self that our ego convinces us is who we really are - the personality is exactly what is put aside when one connects with the real self, the spirit, in order to produce authentic art -
(see quote below for may 2005 - 'the power of now')
'Leaves of Grass' at 150: As Exuberant and Encompassing as Ever
By Verlyn KlinkenborgImagine Walt Whitman as he imagines himself, stretched atop a load of hay, one leg reclined on the other, seizing the clover and timothy, rolling head over heels, tangling his hair full of wisps. And then imagine the farmers - puzzled Long Islanders perhaps - and the oxen at the wagons watching that ecstatic performance. "What is that you express in your eyes?" Whitman asks the oxen, which might ask the same of him. "More than all the print I have read in my life" is his answer.
The untitled poem from which these lines come - later called "Song of Myself" - was first published in "Leaves of Grass," which appeared for sale on the Fourth of July 150 years ago. It's a poem, I'm tempted to say, that still surprises, all the compliment being contained in the word "still," as if America had outrun Whitman long ago and left him breathing hard along the side of the road. But wherever we pull up in our own race, breathing hard ourselves, there is Whitman, as loose-limbed and joyous as ever, moved more by the ecstasy of perception and empathy than by any physical effort. There is no catching up with him. He is always ahead of us.
The Whitman of that great poem is a holy fool, a sprite, a personification able to be everywhere at once, thanks to its immaterial nature. But there has never been a spirit so aware of his sinews and veins, so good at loafing and river-bathing and arousal. The body Whitman inhabits is as inclusive as his mind and feelings. "I find I incorporate gneiss and coal and long-threaded moss and fruits and grains and esculent roots,/And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over," he writes, as though he were the subject of a strange Renaissance portrait.
We read in all this the largess of the man, who turned himself from a mild-mannered journalist - Walter Whitman - into a superman of sorts. It is one of the most profoundly successful acts of self-characterization in all of literature. But in the largess of the man we are also supposed to read - and still do, I think - the exuberance of America itself. The Whitman who celebrates himself finds it easy enough to stay ahead of us, who perhaps sometimes feel that life, as he puts it, is "a suck and a sell, and nothing remains at the end but threadbare crape and tears." That is what really keeps Whitman out in front after 150 years: the America he inhabits in "Leaves of Grass." We have not gotten to it yet.
The place is as real as the poet can make it, peopled with figures like the butcher boy who "puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market," before breaking into a shuffle and breakdown. It is crowded with canal boys and one-year wives, with machinists and slaves and drovers. Missourians cross the plains, and patriarchs sit at supper with their progeny, and trappers and hunters rest under the shade of canvas or adobe. Whitman is among them all, touching them, drinking and sleeping with them, waking in the night to speed, as he says, "with tailed meteors." And he decides, as he reports in the prose introduction to "Leaves of Grass," that "the Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth have probably the fullest poetical nature."
It is our feeble illusion that there have only been Americans since the continent was first settled by Europeans and only here and that they have not necessarily had the fullest poetical nature. Whitman sets us right. There have been Americans everywhere and at all times, he announces. But how are we to know them? One way is by their resemblance to the poet, free-spirited, frank, afraid of neither the flesh nor the spirit. The Americans Whitman means are like the animals themselves. "They do not sweat and whine about their condition,/They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins." The sensuous energy they embody harmonizes perfectly with their practical energy.
They also believe that the great poets extend an invitation to them, as Whitman does. "Come to us on equal terms," he writes, "Only then can you understand us, We are no better than you, What we enclose you enclose, What we enjoy you may enjoy." The very manner of Whitman's verse reinforces that invitation. It turns no one away. "You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle," he urges, and it's true. We should have been. We would know something about the boatmen and clam diggers even Whitman cannot tell us. We would know something more about the poet and ourselves.
One hundred and fifty years on, this poem has not even begun to tire. It wakes us to the moment of our being and to the place in which that moment is passing. It halts us in our haste and makes us look down at our bodies without reluctance. It leads us to a country whose genius "is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors ... but always most in the common people." Up the road, we can always glance Whitman ahead of us. "I stop some where waiting for you," he writes. "If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles."
©2005 The New York Times Company, Editorial Page, Sunday, July 3, 2005
Deepak Chopra on Transformation
In his classic work, the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali sets the goal of yoga as nothing short of total freedom from suffering. [He described methods to help] you shift your internal reference point from constricted to expanded consciousness. ... [it] spontaneously transforms from ego to spirit, which enables you to see the bigger picture when facing any challenge.According to Patanjali, whenever we are solely identified with our ego, we bind ourselves to things that do not have permanent reality. This may be attachment to a relationship, a job, a body, or a material possession. ... to a belief or an idea of the way things should be. Whatever the object of attachment is, the binding of your identity to something that resides in the world of forms and phenomena is the seed cause of distress, unhappiness, and illness. Remembering that the real you is not trapped in the volume of a body for the span of a lifetime is the key to genuine freedom and joy. ... to give you a glimpse of your essential self by taking you from deep silence into dynamic action and back again to profound stillness. ... [the] full range of yoga-stillness to activity and back to stillness.
... Getting in touch with your spirit is the true goal of yoga. It occurs naturally when your mind quiets and you are able to access the inner wisdom that emerges from the deepest aspect of your being. One way to connect with your soul is by consciously asking yourself questions that go to the heart of the human experience. There are three key questions that help shift your internal reference point from ego to spirit. They are:Who am I? What do I want? How can I serve?
Whether or not you are aware of it, these questions are directing your choices in life. Regularly bringing your current answers to conscious awareness enables you to be alert to the opportunities that resonate with the needs of your soul.
When asked the question, Who are you? most people usually identify themselves in terms of their positions and possessions. You might say, "I am the chief financial officer of a software company," or "I am a high school math teacher." You may identify with where you live, saying, "I am a New Yorker," or "I'm Canadian." You may identify yourself in terms of a relationship by responding, "I am the assistant to the president," or "I am a mother." Although we all have the tendency to identify ourselves with roles, objects, and relationships in our lives, yoga encourages us to go deeper into our being and find the inner place that is beyond external anchors. This is the source of all energy and creativity in life. When you begin to recognize that your essential nature is unbounded and eternal, life becomes joyful, meaningful, and carefree.
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga, by Deepak Chopra, MD, and David Simon, MD, © 2004, pub. John Wiley & Sons
The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, pub 1999, New World Library
Q: What is the greatest obstacle to experiencing this reality?...[of being in the Now]A: Identification with your mind, which causes thought to become compulsive. Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being. It also creates a false mind-made self that casts a shadow of fear and suffering.
The philosopher Descartes believed that he had found the most fundamental truth when he made his famous statement: "I think, therefore I am." He had, in fact, given expression to the most basic error to equate thinking with Being and identity with thinking. The compulsive thinker, which means almost everyone, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in an insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflict, a world that reflects the ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind. Enlightenment is a state of wholeness, of being "at one" and therefore at peace. At one with life in its manifested aspect, the world, as well as with your deepest self and life unmanifested - at one with Being. Enlightenment is not only the end of suffering and of continuous conflict within and without, but also the end of the dreadful enslavement to incessant thinking. What an incredible liberation this is!
Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God [or whatever term you prefer]. It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you and a totally separate "other." You then forget the essential fact that, underneath the level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that is. By "forget," I mean that you can no longer feel this oneness as self-evident reality. You may believe it to be true, but you no longer know it to be true. A belief may be comforting. Only through your own experience, however, does it become liberating.
Thinking has become a disease. Disease happens when things get out of balance. For example, there is nothing wrong with cells dividing and multiplying in the body, but when this process continues in disregard of the total organism, cells proliferate and we have disease.
The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly - you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease. You believe that you. are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over. [end quote]
The dogmatism of most religions obscures their original spiritual foundations to the point where they usually are almost completely lost. Religions should give up the idea of being 'better' than other faiths and replace it with 'different' - different only in the details - the spiritual foundations are universal. TK
People Connected to the Field of Intention -
These people, whom I call .connectors to signify their harmonious connection with the field of intention, are individuals who have made themselves available for success. It's impossible to get them to be pessimistic about achieving what they desire in their lives. Rather than using language that indicates that their desires may not materialize, they speak from an inner conviction that communicates their profound and simple knowing that the universal Source supplies everything.
Connectors tell you without hesitation that they choose to feel good regardless of what's going on around them or how others might judge them. They know that feeling bad is a choice, and that it isn't useful for correcting unpleasant situations in the world. So they use their emotions as a guidance system to determine how attuned they are to the power of intention. If they feel bad in any way, they use this as an indicator that it's time to change their energy level so that it matches up with the peaceful, loving energy of the Source. They'll repeat to themselves: I want to feel good, and they'll bring their thoughts into harmony with this desire.
If the world is at war, they still opt to feel good. If the economy takes a nosedive, they still want to feel good. If crime rates go up or hurricanes rage somewhere on the planet, they still choose to feel good. If you ask them why they don't feel bad when so many bad things are happening in the world, they'll smile and remind you that the world of spirit from which all is intended works in peace, love, harmony, kindness, and abundance, and that is where I choose to reside within myself. My feeling bad will only ensure that I attract more of feeling bad into my life.
Connectors simply don't allow their well-being to be contingent on anything external to themselves - not the weather, not the wars someplace on the globe, not the political landscape, not the economy, and certainly not anyone else's decision to be low energy. They work with the field of intention, emulating what they know is the creative Source of all.
from p. 245-6, and 250, The Power of Intention, © 2004 by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer,
pub. Hay House, Inc.
Albert Einstein
There are only two ways to live your life.One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Lakota Sioux Native Americans
Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell.
Spirituality is for those who have already been there.
Jon Kabat-Zinn - Coming to Our Senses
It is time to choose life, and to reflect on what such a choice is asking of us. This choice is a nitty-gritty, moment-to-moment one, not some colossal or intimidating abstraction. It is very close to the substance and substrate of our lives unfolding in whatever ways they do, inwardly in our thoughts and feelings, and outwardly in our words and deeds moment by moment by moment.The world needs all its flowers, just as they are, and even though they bloom for only the briefest of moments, which we call a lifetime. It is our job to find out one by one and collectively what kind of flowers we are, and to share our unique beauty with the world in the precious time that we have, and to leave the children and grandchildren a legacy of wisdom and compassion embodied in the way we live, in our institutions, and in our honoring of our interconnectedness, at home and around the world. Why not risk standing firmly for sanity in our lives and in our world, the inner and the outer a reflection of each other and of our genius as a species?
The creative and imaginative efforts and actions of every one of us count, and nothing less than the health of the world hangs in the balance. We could say that the world is literally and metaphorically dying for us as a species to come to our senses, and now is the time. Now is the time for us to wake up to the fullness of our beauty, to get on with and amplify the work of healing ourselves, our societies, and the planet, building on everything worthy that has come before and that is flowering now. No intention is too small and no effort insignificant. Every step along the way counts. And ... every single one of us counts.
from p.16, Coming to Our Senses - healing ourselves and the world through mindfulness
© 2005 by Jon Kabat-Zinn, published by Hyperion, New York
Jack Gilbert - excerpts from some poems
from Tear It Down
We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
......................................................... Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within that body.
from The Abnormal Is Not Courage
....................... But I say courage is not the abnormal.
Not the marvellous act, but the evident conclusion of being...
The thing steady and clear............
The real form. The culmination. And the exceeding.
Not the surprise. The amazing understanding. The marriage,
... That is of many days. Steady and Clear.
It is the normal excellence, of long accomplishment.
two poems from The World's Poetry Archive - www.PoemHunter.com
from A Brief For The Defense
.......... Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before dawn would not
be made so fine...
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
..................................To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil...
from The New Yorker, © November 15, 2004
more quotes ...... 2000...... 2001...... 2002...... 2003...... 2004...... 2006...... 2007
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