http://ponyxpress.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/thom-puckey/
http://www.thompuckey.com/
Quotes from "A People's History of the United States"
"Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big beat…the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts."
"With fifty men we could subjugate them all"
- Christopher Columbus
"When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone..."
- Christopher Columbus
"Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."
- Christopher Columbus
http://www.filebox.vt.edu/users/burket/apeopleshistory.htm
"With fifty men we could subjugate them all"
- Christopher Columbus
"When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone..."
- Christopher Columbus
"Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."
- Christopher Columbus
http://www.filebox.vt.edu/users/burket/apeopleshistory.htm
I remove myself and my own from the cycle of death
"To the Editor: Thirty-six years ago I stood in front of the crematorium. The ugliest force in the world had promised itself that I should be removed from the cycle of life – that I should never know the pleasure of giving life. With great guns and great hatred, this force thought itself the equal of the force of life. I survived the great guns, and with every smile of my son, they grow smaller. It is not for me, sir, to offer my son’s blood as lubricant for the next generation of guns. I remove myself and my own from the cycle of death."
- Isabella Leitner, letter to NYT
http://www.filebox.vt.edu/users/burket/apeopleshistory.htm
- Isabella Leitner, letter to NYT
http://www.filebox.vt.edu/users/burket/apeopleshistory.htm
Ah POOK IS HERE
William S. Burroughs, William Mc Neill
http://www.burroughsmcneillart.com/artwork.html
http://www.burroughsmcneillart.com/history.html
http://www.burroughsmcneillart.com/other.html
http://www.burroughsmcneillart.com/artwork.html
http://www.burroughsmcneillart.com/history.html
http://www.burroughsmcneillart.com/other.html
Walter Robinson
Hybrid:
http://claytoncubitt.tumblr.com/post/104274329
http://www.walterrobinsonart.com/sculpture_1.html
http://www.walterrobinsonart.com/installations_1.html
http://www.walterrobinsonart.com/text_work_1.html
http://www.walterrobinsonart.com
http://claytoncubitt.tumblr.com/post/104274329
http://www.walterrobinsonart.com/sculpture_1.html
http://www.walterrobinsonart.com/installations_1.html
http://www.walterrobinsonart.com/text_work_1.html
http://www.walterrobinsonart.com
Osho
A professor of philosophy, he travelled throughout India in the 1960s as a public speaker, raising controversy by speaking against socialism, Mahatma Gandhi, and institutionalised religion. He advocated a more open attitude towards sexuality, a stance that earned him the sobriquet "sex guru" in the Indian and later the international press.[1] In 1970, he settled for a while in Mumbai. He began initiating disciples (known as neo-sannyasins) and took on the role of a spiritual teacher. In his discourses, he reinterpreted writings of religious traditions, mystics and philosophers from around the world. Moving to Pune in 1974, he established an ashram that attracted increasing numbers of Westerners. The ashram offered therapies derived from the Human Potential Movement to its Western audience and made news in India and abroad, chiefly because of its permissive climate and Osho's provocative lectures. By the end of the 1970s, there were mounting tensions with the Indian government and the surrounding society.
In 1981, Osho relocated to the United States, and his followers established an intentional community, later known as Rajneeshpuram, in the state of Oregon. Within a year, the leadership of the commune became embroiled in a conflict with local residents, primarily over land use, which was marked by bitter hostility on both sides. In this period Osho attracted notoriety for his large collection of Rolls-Royce motorcars. The Oregon commune collapsed in 1985, when Osho revealed that the commune leadership had committed a number of serious crimes, including a bioterror attack on the citizens of The Dalles. Shortly after, Osho was arrested and charged with immigration violations. He was deported from the United States in accordance with a plea bargain.[2][3][4] Following an enforced world tour during which twenty-one countries denied him entry, Osho returned to Pune, where he died in 1990. His ashram is today known as the Osho International Meditation Resort.
Osho's syncretic teachings emphasise the importance of meditation, awareness, love, celebration, creativity and humour – qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition and socialisation. His teachings have had a notable impact on Western New Age thought,[5][6] and their popularity has increased markedly since his death.[7][8]
Ego and the mind
Osho's view is of man as a machine that is limited to acting out of unconscious, neurotic patterns, and reflects the viewpoint of Gurdjieff and Freud.[154][155] His vision of the "new man" who transcends the constraints of convention is reminiscent of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil.[156] His views on sexual liberation bear comparison to the thought of D. H. Lawrence.[157] And while his contemporary Jiddu Krishnamurti did not approve of Osho, there are clear similarities between their respective teachings.[154]
Osho taught that every human being is a potential Buddha, with the capacity for enlightenment.[158][159] He believed that everyone is capable of experiencing unconditional love; and in so doing, responding rather than reacting to life: "You are truth. You are love. You are bliss. You are freedom.".[158] He suggested that it is possible to experience innate divinity and to be conscious of one's true identity, even though the ego usually prevents this from happening: "When the ego is gone, the whole individuality arises in its crystal purity.".[158]
The ego, according to Osho, represents the social conditioning and constraints a person has accumulated since birth, creating false needs that are in conflict with one's true self.[160] "The whole of religion is nothing but that: dropping the ego, disappearing as your own master ... Then life becomes such a grace; because all tension arises out of ego ... all anxiety, anguish, despair, frustration. All illness of the mind is because we have taken this wrong attitude ... Dissolve yourself as a separate entity. Become part of the cosmic whole."[160] Osho believed that the ego stands in the way of self-discovery.[158][160]
Osho viewed the mind primarily as a mechanism for survival, replicating behavioural strategies that have proved successful in the past.[158][160] However, he felt that the mind's appeal to the past deprived people of the ability to live authentically in the present.[158][160] As a result, individuals continually repressed their genuine emotions, shutting themselves off from joyful experiences that arise naturally when embracing the present moment.[160][161] The result, he stated, was that people poison themselves with all manner of neuroses, jealousies and insecurities.[162]
In the case of sexual feelings, Osho believed that repression only makes these feelings re-emerge in another guise, and that the final result was a society that was obsessed with sex.[162] Instead of suppressing, Osho argued, people should trust and accept themselves unconditionally. "We have been repressing anger, greed, sex [...] And that's why every human being is stinking. [...] Let it become manure, [...] and you will have great flowers blossoming in you."[160][161] This unconditional acceptance was not a matter to be understood intellectually, he said, as the mind would only assimilate it as another piece of information; instead, he suggested meditation as a practical solution.[162]
Meditation
According to Osho, meditation is not just a practice, but a state of awareness that can be maintained in every moment.[160][162] He taught that this total awareness awakens an individual from sleep and mechanical responses to stimuli, conditioned by beliefs and expectations.[160] Osho employed Western psychotherapy as a means of preparing for meditation, and also introduced his own meditation techniques, which he referred to as "Active Meditations".[163][164] These meditation techniques are characterised by alternating stages of physical activity and silence.[163] In all, he suggested over a hundred meditation techniques.[163][164]
The most famous of these is his first, referred to as OSHO Dynamic Meditation.[163][164] It comprises five stages that are accompanied by music (except for stage 4).[165] In the first, the person engages in ten minutes of rapid breathing through the nose.[165] The second ten minutes are for catharsis: "[L]et whatever is happening happen. ... Laugh, shout, scream, jump, shake – whatever you feel to do, do it!"[163][165] For the next ten minutes, the person jumps up and down with their arms raised, shouting Hoo! each time they land on the flats of their feet.[165][166] In the fourth, silent stage, the person freezes, remaining completely motionless for fifteen minutes, and witnessing everything that is happening to them.[165][166] The last stage of the meditation consists of fifteen minutes of dancing and celebration.[165][166]
There are other "active meditation" techniques, like "OSHO Kundalini Meditation" and "OSHO Nadabrahma Meditation", which are less animated, although they also include physical activity.[163] His final formal technique is called "OSHO Mystic Rose", comprising three hours of laughing every day for the first week, three hours of weeping each day for the second, with the third week for silent meditation.[167] The result of these processes is said to be the experience of "witnessing", enabling the "jump into awareness".[163] Osho believed such cathartic methods were necessary, since it was very difficult for people of today to just sit and be in meditation.
Another key ingredient of his teaching is his own presence as a master: "A Master shares his being with you, not his philosophy. ... He never does anything to the disciple."[152] He delighted in being paradoxical and engaging in behaviour that seemed entirely at odds with traditional images of enlightened individuals.[152] All such behaviour, however capricious and difficult to accept, was explained as "a technique for transformation" to push people "beyond the mind."[152] The initiation he offered his followers was another such device: "... if your being can communicate with me, it becomes a communion. ... It is the highest form of communication possible: a transmission without words. Our beings merge. This is possible only if you become a disciple."[152] Ultimately though, Osho even deconstructed his own authority.[168] He emphasised that anything and everything could become an opportunity for meditation.[152]
Renunciation and the "New Man"
Osho saw his neo-sannyas as a new form of spiritual discipline, or one that had once existed but since been forgotten.[169] He felt that the traditional Hindu sannyas had turned into a mere system of social renunciation and imitation.[169] His neo-sannyas emphasised complete inner freedom and responsibility of the individual to himself, demanding no superficial behavioral changes but a deeper, inner transformation.[169]
Osho hoped to create what he called "a new man", combining the spirituality of Gautama Buddha with the zest for life embodied by Zorba the Greek (from the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis).[152] It was Osho's view that "Zorba the Buddha" should reject neither science nor spirituality, but embrace them both.[152] It was his intention that the "new man" should be "all for matter, and all for spirit."[170]
“He should be as accurate and objective as a scientist [...] as sensitive, as full of heart, as a poet [...] [and as] rooted deep down in his being as the mystic.[152][171]”
His term the "new man" applied to men and women equally, whose roles he saw as complementary; most of his movement's leadership positions were held by women.[151] He said that the "new man" would no longer be trapped in institutions such as family, marriage, political ideologies, or religions.[151][153] In this respect, Osho has much in common with other counter-culture gurus, as well as postmodern and deconstructional thinkers.[153]
Osho said that he was "the rich man's guru" and taught that material poverty was not a genuine spiritual value.[172] He had himself photographed wearing sumptuous clothing and hand-made watches,[173] and while in Oregon drove a different Rolls-Royce each day.[90] His followers had reportedly wanted to buy him 365 of them, one for each day of the year.[90] Publicity shots of the Rolls-Royces (93 in the end) were sent to the press.[172][174] As a conscious display of wealth, they reflected both Osho's acceptance of the material world and his desire to provoke American sensibilities, much as he had enjoyed offending Indian sensibilities earlier.[170][172]
Osho's "Ten Commandments"
In 1970, when he was still known as Acharya Rajneesh, Osho was asked about his "Ten Commandments".[175][176] In his letter of reply, Osho noted that it was a difficult matter, because he was against any kind of commandment, but "just for fun" agreed to set out the following:[175]
“
1. Never obey anyone's command unless it is coming from within you also.
2. There is no God other than life itself.
3. Truth is within you, do not search for it elsewhere.
4. Love is prayer.
5. To become a nothingness is the door to truth. Nothingness itself is the means, the goal and attainment.
6. Life is now and here.
7. Live wakefully.
8. Do not swim – float.
9. Die each moment so that you can be new each moment.
10. Do not search. That which is, is. Stop and see.
”
He underlined numbers 3, 7, 9 and 10.[175] The ideas expressed in these Commandments have remained a constant leitmotif in his movement.[175]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho
http://www.ashejournal.com/index.php?id=151
http://truthaboutosho.blogspot.com/2007/09/christopher-calderkrishna-christ-and.html
http://samdjordison.blogspot.com/2006/04/osho.html?showComment=1150847220000#c115084723263539843
Meditations for Contemporary People:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-613021187886978268
Marriage and Children:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ocbZhRQS9I
Osho - Bhagwan, The Movie:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1916549395176220097&ei=pAmESvCfLZrQ-Abej5TgDw&q=osho
"There are two types of love. One is the love that happens when you are feeling lonely: as a need, you go to the other. The other love arises when you are not feeling lonely, but alone. In the first case you go to get something; in the second case you go to give something. A giver is an emperor."
"Hindus say, Anam Brahma, food is divine, a gift from God. With deep respect you eat, and while eating you forget everything else, because eating is prayer. It is existential prayer. You are eating God, and God is going to give you nourishment. It is a gift to be accepted with deep love and gratitude."
In 1981, Osho relocated to the United States, and his followers established an intentional community, later known as Rajneeshpuram, in the state of Oregon. Within a year, the leadership of the commune became embroiled in a conflict with local residents, primarily over land use, which was marked by bitter hostility on both sides. In this period Osho attracted notoriety for his large collection of Rolls-Royce motorcars. The Oregon commune collapsed in 1985, when Osho revealed that the commune leadership had committed a number of serious crimes, including a bioterror attack on the citizens of The Dalles. Shortly after, Osho was arrested and charged with immigration violations. He was deported from the United States in accordance with a plea bargain.[2][3][4] Following an enforced world tour during which twenty-one countries denied him entry, Osho returned to Pune, where he died in 1990. His ashram is today known as the Osho International Meditation Resort.
Osho's syncretic teachings emphasise the importance of meditation, awareness, love, celebration, creativity and humour – qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition and socialisation. His teachings have had a notable impact on Western New Age thought,[5][6] and their popularity has increased markedly since his death.[7][8]
Ego and the mind
Osho's view is of man as a machine that is limited to acting out of unconscious, neurotic patterns, and reflects the viewpoint of Gurdjieff and Freud.[154][155] His vision of the "new man" who transcends the constraints of convention is reminiscent of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil.[156] His views on sexual liberation bear comparison to the thought of D. H. Lawrence.[157] And while his contemporary Jiddu Krishnamurti did not approve of Osho, there are clear similarities between their respective teachings.[154]
Osho taught that every human being is a potential Buddha, with the capacity for enlightenment.[158][159] He believed that everyone is capable of experiencing unconditional love; and in so doing, responding rather than reacting to life: "You are truth. You are love. You are bliss. You are freedom.".[158] He suggested that it is possible to experience innate divinity and to be conscious of one's true identity, even though the ego usually prevents this from happening: "When the ego is gone, the whole individuality arises in its crystal purity.".[158]
The ego, according to Osho, represents the social conditioning and constraints a person has accumulated since birth, creating false needs that are in conflict with one's true self.[160] "The whole of religion is nothing but that: dropping the ego, disappearing as your own master ... Then life becomes such a grace; because all tension arises out of ego ... all anxiety, anguish, despair, frustration. All illness of the mind is because we have taken this wrong attitude ... Dissolve yourself as a separate entity. Become part of the cosmic whole."[160] Osho believed that the ego stands in the way of self-discovery.[158][160]
Osho viewed the mind primarily as a mechanism for survival, replicating behavioural strategies that have proved successful in the past.[158][160] However, he felt that the mind's appeal to the past deprived people of the ability to live authentically in the present.[158][160] As a result, individuals continually repressed their genuine emotions, shutting themselves off from joyful experiences that arise naturally when embracing the present moment.[160][161] The result, he stated, was that people poison themselves with all manner of neuroses, jealousies and insecurities.[162]
In the case of sexual feelings, Osho believed that repression only makes these feelings re-emerge in another guise, and that the final result was a society that was obsessed with sex.[162] Instead of suppressing, Osho argued, people should trust and accept themselves unconditionally. "We have been repressing anger, greed, sex [...] And that's why every human being is stinking. [...] Let it become manure, [...] and you will have great flowers blossoming in you."[160][161] This unconditional acceptance was not a matter to be understood intellectually, he said, as the mind would only assimilate it as another piece of information; instead, he suggested meditation as a practical solution.[162]
Meditation
According to Osho, meditation is not just a practice, but a state of awareness that can be maintained in every moment.[160][162] He taught that this total awareness awakens an individual from sleep and mechanical responses to stimuli, conditioned by beliefs and expectations.[160] Osho employed Western psychotherapy as a means of preparing for meditation, and also introduced his own meditation techniques, which he referred to as "Active Meditations".[163][164] These meditation techniques are characterised by alternating stages of physical activity and silence.[163] In all, he suggested over a hundred meditation techniques.[163][164]
The most famous of these is his first, referred to as OSHO Dynamic Meditation.[163][164] It comprises five stages that are accompanied by music (except for stage 4).[165] In the first, the person engages in ten minutes of rapid breathing through the nose.[165] The second ten minutes are for catharsis: "[L]et whatever is happening happen. ... Laugh, shout, scream, jump, shake – whatever you feel to do, do it!"[163][165] For the next ten minutes, the person jumps up and down with their arms raised, shouting Hoo! each time they land on the flats of their feet.[165][166] In the fourth, silent stage, the person freezes, remaining completely motionless for fifteen minutes, and witnessing everything that is happening to them.[165][166] The last stage of the meditation consists of fifteen minutes of dancing and celebration.[165][166]
There are other "active meditation" techniques, like "OSHO Kundalini Meditation" and "OSHO Nadabrahma Meditation", which are less animated, although they also include physical activity.[163] His final formal technique is called "OSHO Mystic Rose", comprising three hours of laughing every day for the first week, three hours of weeping each day for the second, with the third week for silent meditation.[167] The result of these processes is said to be the experience of "witnessing", enabling the "jump into awareness".[163] Osho believed such cathartic methods were necessary, since it was very difficult for people of today to just sit and be in meditation.
Another key ingredient of his teaching is his own presence as a master: "A Master shares his being with you, not his philosophy. ... He never does anything to the disciple."[152] He delighted in being paradoxical and engaging in behaviour that seemed entirely at odds with traditional images of enlightened individuals.[152] All such behaviour, however capricious and difficult to accept, was explained as "a technique for transformation" to push people "beyond the mind."[152] The initiation he offered his followers was another such device: "... if your being can communicate with me, it becomes a communion. ... It is the highest form of communication possible: a transmission without words. Our beings merge. This is possible only if you become a disciple."[152] Ultimately though, Osho even deconstructed his own authority.[168] He emphasised that anything and everything could become an opportunity for meditation.[152]
Renunciation and the "New Man"
Osho saw his neo-sannyas as a new form of spiritual discipline, or one that had once existed but since been forgotten.[169] He felt that the traditional Hindu sannyas had turned into a mere system of social renunciation and imitation.[169] His neo-sannyas emphasised complete inner freedom and responsibility of the individual to himself, demanding no superficial behavioral changes but a deeper, inner transformation.[169]
Osho hoped to create what he called "a new man", combining the spirituality of Gautama Buddha with the zest for life embodied by Zorba the Greek (from the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis).[152] It was Osho's view that "Zorba the Buddha" should reject neither science nor spirituality, but embrace them both.[152] It was his intention that the "new man" should be "all for matter, and all for spirit."[170]
“He should be as accurate and objective as a scientist [...] as sensitive, as full of heart, as a poet [...] [and as] rooted deep down in his being as the mystic.[152][171]”
His term the "new man" applied to men and women equally, whose roles he saw as complementary; most of his movement's leadership positions were held by women.[151] He said that the "new man" would no longer be trapped in institutions such as family, marriage, political ideologies, or religions.[151][153] In this respect, Osho has much in common with other counter-culture gurus, as well as postmodern and deconstructional thinkers.[153]
Osho said that he was "the rich man's guru" and taught that material poverty was not a genuine spiritual value.[172] He had himself photographed wearing sumptuous clothing and hand-made watches,[173] and while in Oregon drove a different Rolls-Royce each day.[90] His followers had reportedly wanted to buy him 365 of them, one for each day of the year.[90] Publicity shots of the Rolls-Royces (93 in the end) were sent to the press.[172][174] As a conscious display of wealth, they reflected both Osho's acceptance of the material world and his desire to provoke American sensibilities, much as he had enjoyed offending Indian sensibilities earlier.[170][172]
Osho's "Ten Commandments"
In 1970, when he was still known as Acharya Rajneesh, Osho was asked about his "Ten Commandments".[175][176] In his letter of reply, Osho noted that it was a difficult matter, because he was against any kind of commandment, but "just for fun" agreed to set out the following:[175]
“
1. Never obey anyone's command unless it is coming from within you also.
2. There is no God other than life itself.
3. Truth is within you, do not search for it elsewhere.
4. Love is prayer.
5. To become a nothingness is the door to truth. Nothingness itself is the means, the goal and attainment.
6. Life is now and here.
7. Live wakefully.
8. Do not swim – float.
9. Die each moment so that you can be new each moment.
10. Do not search. That which is, is. Stop and see.
”
He underlined numbers 3, 7, 9 and 10.[175] The ideas expressed in these Commandments have remained a constant leitmotif in his movement.[175]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho
http://www.ashejournal.com/index.php?id=151
http://truthaboutosho.blogspot.com/2007/09/christopher-calderkrishna-christ-and.html
http://samdjordison.blogspot.com/2006/04/osho.html?showComment=1150847220000#c115084723263539843
Meditations for Contemporary People:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-613021187886978268
Marriage and Children:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ocbZhRQS9I
Osho - Bhagwan, The Movie:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1916549395176220097&ei=pAmESvCfLZrQ-Abej5TgDw&q=osho
"There are two types of love. One is the love that happens when you are feeling lonely: as a need, you go to the other. The other love arises when you are not feeling lonely, but alone. In the first case you go to get something; in the second case you go to give something. A giver is an emperor."
"Hindus say, Anam Brahma, food is divine, a gift from God. With deep respect you eat, and while eating you forget everything else, because eating is prayer. It is existential prayer. You are eating God, and God is going to give you nourishment. It is a gift to be accepted with deep love and gratitude."
Mariana Fernandes
Where did the shots come from?
http://vimeo.com/1343380
http://vimeo.com/731811
http://vimeo.com/731835
http://vimeo.com/731861
http://vimeo.com/1343380
http://vimeo.com/731811
http://vimeo.com/731835
http://vimeo.com/731861
Ferdinand Waldo Demara
Ferdinand Waldo Demara (1921-1982), known as "The great impostor", who masqueraded many people from monks to surgeons to prison wardens.
Demara was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1921. A steadfast Roman Catholic, he tried unsuccessfully to enter a Trappist monastery in 1935. Two attempts later it seemed that the cloistered life did not agree with him and he joined the US Army in 1941.
The following year Demara began his new lives by borrowing the name of Anthony Ignolia, an army buddy, and went AWOL. After two more tries in monasteries he joined the Navy. He did not reach the position he wanted, faked his suicide and borrowed another name, Robert Linton French, and became a religiously oriented psychologist. Both Navy and Army caught him eventually and he served 18 months in prison studying for his next job, of course. A string of pseudo-academic careers followed.
During his "careers", he was among other things civil engineer, sheriff's deputy, assistant prison warden, doctor of applied psychology, hospital orderly, lawyer, child-care expert, Benedictine and Trappist monk, editor, cancer researcher, and teacher. One teaching job led to a six months in prison. He never seemed to get much monetary gain in what he was doing just temporary respectability.
Many of his unsuspecting employers would have been satisfied in other circumstances. He was apparently able to memorize necessary techniques from textbooks. He worked on two cardinal rules: The burden of proof is on the accuser and When in danger, attack. He described his own motivation as "Rascality, pure rascality".
His most famous exploit, and the one that exposed him to public, was to masquerade as surgeon Joseph Cyr in the Canadian Navy during the Korean War. He managed to improvise successful surgeries and fend off infection with generous amounts of penicillin. Apparent removal of a bullet from a wounded man ended up in the papers back home and the real Joseph Cyr got suspicious. Demara was apparently honorably discharged and moved back to the USA.
After that he sold his tale to Life magazine and worked in short-time jobs but he was now widely known. He resorted to drinking. Only after he resorted to his old tricks and got faked credentials could he get another job in Huntsville prison. And yet again past caught up to him. He continued to use new aliases but now it was harder than before.
Demara died 1982 due to heart failure. At the time he was a hospital priest in California.
http://knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Ferdinand_Waldo_Demara/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Waldo_Demara
Demara was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1921. A steadfast Roman Catholic, he tried unsuccessfully to enter a Trappist monastery in 1935. Two attempts later it seemed that the cloistered life did not agree with him and he joined the US Army in 1941.
The following year Demara began his new lives by borrowing the name of Anthony Ignolia, an army buddy, and went AWOL. After two more tries in monasteries he joined the Navy. He did not reach the position he wanted, faked his suicide and borrowed another name, Robert Linton French, and became a religiously oriented psychologist. Both Navy and Army caught him eventually and he served 18 months in prison studying for his next job, of course. A string of pseudo-academic careers followed.
During his "careers", he was among other things civil engineer, sheriff's deputy, assistant prison warden, doctor of applied psychology, hospital orderly, lawyer, child-care expert, Benedictine and Trappist monk, editor, cancer researcher, and teacher. One teaching job led to a six months in prison. He never seemed to get much monetary gain in what he was doing just temporary respectability.
Many of his unsuspecting employers would have been satisfied in other circumstances. He was apparently able to memorize necessary techniques from textbooks. He worked on two cardinal rules: The burden of proof is on the accuser and When in danger, attack. He described his own motivation as "Rascality, pure rascality".
His most famous exploit, and the one that exposed him to public, was to masquerade as surgeon Joseph Cyr in the Canadian Navy during the Korean War. He managed to improvise successful surgeries and fend off infection with generous amounts of penicillin. Apparent removal of a bullet from a wounded man ended up in the papers back home and the real Joseph Cyr got suspicious. Demara was apparently honorably discharged and moved back to the USA.
After that he sold his tale to Life magazine and worked in short-time jobs but he was now widely known. He resorted to drinking. Only after he resorted to his old tricks and got faked credentials could he get another job in Huntsville prison. And yet again past caught up to him. He continued to use new aliases but now it was harder than before.
Demara died 1982 due to heart failure. At the time he was a hospital priest in California.
http://knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Ferdinand_Waldo_Demara/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Waldo_Demara
Near-Death Experiences
The Case of Pam Reynolds
The case of Pam Reynolds has been widely acclaimed as the “single best instance we now have in the literature on NDEs to confound the skeptics”4 and as the one coming “closest to providing solid, scientific evidence suggestive of the post-mortem survival of consciousness.”5 Pam was wheeled into the operating room at 7:15 a.m. on 8 August 1991 for repair of the first of two giant cerebral aneurysms by Robert Spetzler, chief of neurosurgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. A weakness in the walls of two arteries in her brain had caused the arteries to swell, and rupture was considered imminent. Anesthesia was induced. Both ear canals were occluded with a small, molded ear speaker designed to monitor brainstem function; an electroencephalogram (EEG) was set up to monitor cortical brain waves; and a unique electrical device was affixed to test the function of her cerebral hemispheres.6
At 8:40 a.m., Pam’s NDE began with the buzzing noise of the bone saw motor:
It was a natural D. As I listened to the sound, I felt it was pulling me out of the top of my head.…I remember seeing several things in the operating room when I was looking down.…I was meta-phorically sitting on Spetzler’s shoulder. It was not like normal vision. It was brighter and more focused and clearer than normal vision.…There was so much in the operating room that I didn’t recognize, and so many people.… The saw thing that I hated the sound of looked like an electric toothbrush and it had a dent in it, a groove at the top where the saw appeared to go into the handle, but it didn’t.…And the saw had interchangeable blades, too, but these blades were in what looked like a socket wrench case.… I remember the heart-lung machine. I didn’t like the respirator.…I remember a lot of tools and instruments that I didn’t readily recognize.7
After cutting open the skull, Spetzler isolated the aneurysm. At 10:50 a.m., Pam was placed on cardiopulmonary bypass to quickly cool her core body temperature. As her temperature fell to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, her heart stopped, her EEG flattened into complete electrocerebral silence, and her brainstem and cerebral hemispheres became unresponsive. The head of the operating room table was then tilted up, the cardiopulmonary bypass machine turned off, and the blood drained from her body. Pam’s NDE progressed:
There was a sensation like being pulled, but not against your will. I was going on my own accord because I wanted to go.…It was like a tunnel but it wasn’t a tunnel.
At some point very early in the tunnel vortex I became aware of my grandmother calling me.…The feeling was that she wanted me to come to her, so I continued with no fear down the shaft. It’s a dark shaft that I went through, and at the very end there was this very little tiny pinpoint of light that kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. The light was incredibly bright, like sitting in the middle of a lightbulb.…
I noticed that as I began to discern different figures in the light — and they were all covered with light, they were light, and had light permeating all around them — they began to form shapes I could recognize and understand.… They would not permit me to go further.…
I wanted to go into the light, but I also wanted to come back. I had children to be reared.8
After the blood had been drained from her body, the aneurysm collapsed, which allowed Spetzler to safely excise the empty sac. The cardiopulmonary bypass machine was turned back on, and the blood was rewarmed. Her vital signs and brain function returned with no evidence of a seizure. Still in her NDE, Pam recalls being led down the tunnel by her deceased uncle and reentering her chilled physical body as her heart was shocked back to normal rhythm. The operation ended at 2:10 p.m.
http://www.internet-grocer.net/nde.htm
Medical Evidence for Near-Death Experiences
It is important to mention that there is a well documented report of a patient with constant registration of the EEG during cerebral surgery for an gigantic cerebral aneurysm at the base of the brain, operated with a body temperature between 10 and 15 degrees, she was put on the heart-lung machine, with VF, with all blood drained from her head, with a flat line EEG, with clicking devices in both ears, with eyes taped shut, and this patient experienced an NDE with an out-of-body experience, and all details she perceived and heard could later be verified. (8)
(...)
For decades, extensive research has been done to localize memories inside the brain, so far without success. In connection with the hypothesis that consciousness and memories are stored inside the brain the question also arises how a non-material activity such as concentrated attention or thinking can correspond with a visible (material) reaction in the form of a measurable electrical, magnetic and chemical activity at a certain place in the brain. Different mental activities give rise to changing patterns of activity in different parts of the brain. This has been shown in neurophysiology through EEG, magneto-encephalogram (MEG) and at present also through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET-scan). (9-11) Also an increase in cerebral blood flow is observed during such a non-material activity like thinking (12). It is also not well understood how it is to be explained that in a sensory experiment following a physical sensation the person involved in the test stated that he was aware (conscious) of the sensation a few thousands of a second following the stimulation, while the subject’s brain showed that neuronal adequacy wasn’t achieved until after a full 500 msec. following the sensation. This experiment has led to the so-called delay-and-antedating hypothesis (13).
(...)
In trying to understand this concept of mutual interaction between the “invisible and not measurable” consciousness, with its enormous amount of information, and our visible, material body it seems wise to compare it with modern worldwide communication.
There is a continuous exchange of objective information by means of electromagnetic fields (real photons) for radio, TV, mobile telephone, or laptop computer. We are unaware of the innumerable amounts of electromagnetic fields that constantly, day and night, exist around us and through us as well as through structures like walls and buildings. We only become aware of these electromagnetic informational fields the moment we use our mobile telephone or by switching on our radio, TV or laptop. What we receive is not inside the instrument, nor in the components, but thanks to the receiver the information from the electromagnetic fields becomes observable to our senses and hence perception occurs in our consciousness. The voice we hear in our telephone is not inside the telephone. The concert we hear in our radio is transmitted to our radio. The images and music we hear and see on TV is transmitted to our TV set. The internet is not located inside our laptop. We can receive at about the same time what is transmitted with the speed of light from a distance of some hundreds or thousands of miles. And if we switch off the TV set, the reception disappears, but the transmission continues. The information transmitted remains present within the electromagnetic fields. The connection has been interrupted, but it has not vanished and can still be received elsewhere by using another TV set. Again, we do not realize us the thousands of telephone calls, the hundreds of radio and TV transmissions, as well as the internet, coded as electromagnetic fields, that exist around us and through us.
Could our brain be compared with the TV set that electromagnetic waves (photons) receives and transforms into image and sound, as well as with the TV camera that image and sound transforms into electromagnetic waves (photons)? This electromagnetic radiation holds the essence of all information, but is only conceivable to our senses by suited instruments like camera and TV set.
(...)
To quote Michael Shermer: it is the job of science to solve those puzzles with natural, rather than supernatural, explanations. But one has to be aware of the progress of science, and to study recent literature, to know what is going on in current science. For me science is asking questions with an open mind, and not being afraid to reconsider widely accepted but scientifically not proven concepts like the concept that consciousness and memories are a product of the brain. But also we should realize that we need a functioning brain to receive our consciousness into our waking consciousness. There are still a lot of mysteries to solve, but one has not to talk about paranormal, supernatural or pseudoscience to look for scientific answers on the intriguing relation between consciousness and memories with the brain.
http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/whoswho/vanLommel.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
The case of Pam Reynolds has been widely acclaimed as the “single best instance we now have in the literature on NDEs to confound the skeptics”4 and as the one coming “closest to providing solid, scientific evidence suggestive of the post-mortem survival of consciousness.”5 Pam was wheeled into the operating room at 7:15 a.m. on 8 August 1991 for repair of the first of two giant cerebral aneurysms by Robert Spetzler, chief of neurosurgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. A weakness in the walls of two arteries in her brain had caused the arteries to swell, and rupture was considered imminent. Anesthesia was induced. Both ear canals were occluded with a small, molded ear speaker designed to monitor brainstem function; an electroencephalogram (EEG) was set up to monitor cortical brain waves; and a unique electrical device was affixed to test the function of her cerebral hemispheres.6
At 8:40 a.m., Pam’s NDE began with the buzzing noise of the bone saw motor:
It was a natural D. As I listened to the sound, I felt it was pulling me out of the top of my head.…I remember seeing several things in the operating room when I was looking down.…I was meta-phorically sitting on Spetzler’s shoulder. It was not like normal vision. It was brighter and more focused and clearer than normal vision.…There was so much in the operating room that I didn’t recognize, and so many people.… The saw thing that I hated the sound of looked like an electric toothbrush and it had a dent in it, a groove at the top where the saw appeared to go into the handle, but it didn’t.…And the saw had interchangeable blades, too, but these blades were in what looked like a socket wrench case.… I remember the heart-lung machine. I didn’t like the respirator.…I remember a lot of tools and instruments that I didn’t readily recognize.7
After cutting open the skull, Spetzler isolated the aneurysm. At 10:50 a.m., Pam was placed on cardiopulmonary bypass to quickly cool her core body temperature. As her temperature fell to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, her heart stopped, her EEG flattened into complete electrocerebral silence, and her brainstem and cerebral hemispheres became unresponsive. The head of the operating room table was then tilted up, the cardiopulmonary bypass machine turned off, and the blood drained from her body. Pam’s NDE progressed:
There was a sensation like being pulled, but not against your will. I was going on my own accord because I wanted to go.…It was like a tunnel but it wasn’t a tunnel.
At some point very early in the tunnel vortex I became aware of my grandmother calling me.…The feeling was that she wanted me to come to her, so I continued with no fear down the shaft. It’s a dark shaft that I went through, and at the very end there was this very little tiny pinpoint of light that kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. The light was incredibly bright, like sitting in the middle of a lightbulb.…
I noticed that as I began to discern different figures in the light — and they were all covered with light, they were light, and had light permeating all around them — they began to form shapes I could recognize and understand.… They would not permit me to go further.…
I wanted to go into the light, but I also wanted to come back. I had children to be reared.8
After the blood had been drained from her body, the aneurysm collapsed, which allowed Spetzler to safely excise the empty sac. The cardiopulmonary bypass machine was turned back on, and the blood was rewarmed. Her vital signs and brain function returned with no evidence of a seizure. Still in her NDE, Pam recalls being led down the tunnel by her deceased uncle and reentering her chilled physical body as her heart was shocked back to normal rhythm. The operation ended at 2:10 p.m.
http://www.internet-grocer.net/nde.htm
Medical Evidence for Near-Death Experiences
It is important to mention that there is a well documented report of a patient with constant registration of the EEG during cerebral surgery for an gigantic cerebral aneurysm at the base of the brain, operated with a body temperature between 10 and 15 degrees, she was put on the heart-lung machine, with VF, with all blood drained from her head, with a flat line EEG, with clicking devices in both ears, with eyes taped shut, and this patient experienced an NDE with an out-of-body experience, and all details she perceived and heard could later be verified. (8)
(...)
For decades, extensive research has been done to localize memories inside the brain, so far without success. In connection with the hypothesis that consciousness and memories are stored inside the brain the question also arises how a non-material activity such as concentrated attention or thinking can correspond with a visible (material) reaction in the form of a measurable electrical, magnetic and chemical activity at a certain place in the brain. Different mental activities give rise to changing patterns of activity in different parts of the brain. This has been shown in neurophysiology through EEG, magneto-encephalogram (MEG) and at present also through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET-scan). (9-11) Also an increase in cerebral blood flow is observed during such a non-material activity like thinking (12). It is also not well understood how it is to be explained that in a sensory experiment following a physical sensation the person involved in the test stated that he was aware (conscious) of the sensation a few thousands of a second following the stimulation, while the subject’s brain showed that neuronal adequacy wasn’t achieved until after a full 500 msec. following the sensation. This experiment has led to the so-called delay-and-antedating hypothesis (13).
(...)
In trying to understand this concept of mutual interaction between the “invisible and not measurable” consciousness, with its enormous amount of information, and our visible, material body it seems wise to compare it with modern worldwide communication.
There is a continuous exchange of objective information by means of electromagnetic fields (real photons) for radio, TV, mobile telephone, or laptop computer. We are unaware of the innumerable amounts of electromagnetic fields that constantly, day and night, exist around us and through us as well as through structures like walls and buildings. We only become aware of these electromagnetic informational fields the moment we use our mobile telephone or by switching on our radio, TV or laptop. What we receive is not inside the instrument, nor in the components, but thanks to the receiver the information from the electromagnetic fields becomes observable to our senses and hence perception occurs in our consciousness. The voice we hear in our telephone is not inside the telephone. The concert we hear in our radio is transmitted to our radio. The images and music we hear and see on TV is transmitted to our TV set. The internet is not located inside our laptop. We can receive at about the same time what is transmitted with the speed of light from a distance of some hundreds or thousands of miles. And if we switch off the TV set, the reception disappears, but the transmission continues. The information transmitted remains present within the electromagnetic fields. The connection has been interrupted, but it has not vanished and can still be received elsewhere by using another TV set. Again, we do not realize us the thousands of telephone calls, the hundreds of radio and TV transmissions, as well as the internet, coded as electromagnetic fields, that exist around us and through us.
Could our brain be compared with the TV set that electromagnetic waves (photons) receives and transforms into image and sound, as well as with the TV camera that image and sound transforms into electromagnetic waves (photons)? This electromagnetic radiation holds the essence of all information, but is only conceivable to our senses by suited instruments like camera and TV set.
(...)
To quote Michael Shermer: it is the job of science to solve those puzzles with natural, rather than supernatural, explanations. But one has to be aware of the progress of science, and to study recent literature, to know what is going on in current science. For me science is asking questions with an open mind, and not being afraid to reconsider widely accepted but scientifically not proven concepts like the concept that consciousness and memories are a product of the brain. But also we should realize that we need a functioning brain to receive our consciousness into our waking consciousness. There are still a lot of mysteries to solve, but one has not to talk about paranormal, supernatural or pseudoscience to look for scientific answers on the intriguing relation between consciousness and memories with the brain.
http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/whoswho/vanLommel.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
A Message From the Hopi Elders
A Message From the Hopi Elders
We have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour...
Now you must go back and tell 'the people' that this is the Hour!
Here are the things that must be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing in your life?
How are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know our garden earth.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Help create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for a leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel like they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off toward the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.
See who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves!
For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lonely wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
The Elders,
Oraibi, Arizona, June 8, 2000
Hopi Nation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopi
We have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour...
Now you must go back and tell 'the people' that this is the Hour!
Here are the things that must be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing in your life?
How are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know our garden earth.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Help create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for a leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel like they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off toward the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.
See who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves!
For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lonely wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
The Elders,
Oraibi, Arizona, June 8, 2000
Hopi Nation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopi
Masaru Emoto
Masaru Emoto is a Japanese author known for his controversial claim that if human speech or thoughts are directed at water droplets before they are frozen, images of the resulting water crystals will be beautiful or ugly depending upon whether the words or thoughts were positive or negative. Emoto claims this can be achieved through prayer, music or by attaching written words to a container of water. These claims have been strongly criticized as "pseudoscience."
http://www.adhikara.com/water.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto
http://www.adhikara.com/water.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto
Kundalini
Kundalini in the World's Religions
Kundalini is mainly associated with Hinduism. However, Kundalini as a spiritual experience is thought to have parallels in many of the mystical and gnostic traditions of the world's great religions.
Many factors point to the universality of the phenomenon. The early Christians might have referred to the concept as 'pneuma', and there are some recent parallels in contemporary Christian Charismatic 'Holy Ghost' phenomena. Religious studies also note parallels in Quakerism, Shakerism, Judaic Shuckling (torso-rocking prayer), the swaying zikr and whirling dervish of Islam, the quiverings of the Eastern Orthodox hesychast, the flowing movements of tai chi, the ecstatic shamanic dance, the ntum trance dance of the Bushman, Tibetan Buddhist tummo heat as practised by Milarepa, and the Indically-derived Andalusian flamenco (Sovatsky, 1998). Kundalini practice is centerfold in Japan's Aum Shinrikyo group and Kundalini-yoga is also one of the stages the practitioner is able to achieve.
Kundalini in the World's Religions
Kundalini is mainly associated with Hinduism. However, Kundalini as a spiritual experience is thought to have parallels in many of the mystical and gnostic traditions of the world's great religions.
Many factors point to the universality of the phenomenon. The early Christians might have referred to the concept as 'pneuma', and there are some recent parallels in contemporary Christian Charismatic 'Holy Ghost' phenomena. Religious studies also note parallels in Quakerism, Shakerism, Judaic Shuckling (torso-rocking prayer), the swaying zikr and whirling dervish of Islam, the quiverings of the Eastern Orthodox hesychast, the flowing movements of tai chi, the ecstatic shamanic dance, the ntum trance dance of the Bushman, Tibetan Buddhist tummo heat as practised by Milarepa, and the Indically-derived Andalusian flamenco (Sovatsky, 1998). Kundalini practice is centerfold in Japan's Aum Shinrikyo group and Kundalini-yoga is also one of the stages the practitioner is able to achieve.
Kundalini and Physiology
Contemporary spiritual literature often notes that the chakras, as described in the esoteric kundalini documents, bear a strong similarity in location and number to the major endocrine glands, as well as nerve bundles called ganglions.
One speculation is that the traditional practices have formalized a method for stimulating the endocrine glands to work in a different mode which has a more direct effect on consciousness, perhaps ultimately by stimulating the release of DMT by the pineal gland, which may be analogous to the 'pineal chakra'.
The late Itzhak Bentov studied Kundalini from an engineering perspective. According to Bentov (1990), the 7.5 Hz oscillation of the heart muscle rhythm induces mechanical Hz frequencies in the brain, that in turn create a stimulus equivalent of a current loop. The nerve endings in that loop correspond to the route through which the Kundalini "rises".
This current polarizes the brain part through which it flows in a homogenous way, effectively releasing tremendous amounts of stress from the body. The body then becomes an effective antenna for the 7.5 Hz frequency, which is one of the resonant frequencies of the ionosphere. In layman's terms, you then pick up information from the air.
This might account for repeated descriptions of heightened senses as a result of rising Kundalini, e.g. as described by Yogananda: "The whole vicinity lay bare before me. My ordinary frontal vision was now changed to a vast spherical sight, simultaneously all-perceptive."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9nOD6foI64
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am6qnqTVxU0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa__IDGy2mM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUWrf7cTwfM&
http://www.crystalinks.com/kundalini.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini_Syndrome
Kundalini is mainly associated with Hinduism. However, Kundalini as a spiritual experience is thought to have parallels in many of the mystical and gnostic traditions of the world's great religions.
Many factors point to the universality of the phenomenon. The early Christians might have referred to the concept as 'pneuma', and there are some recent parallels in contemporary Christian Charismatic 'Holy Ghost' phenomena. Religious studies also note parallels in Quakerism, Shakerism, Judaic Shuckling (torso-rocking prayer), the swaying zikr and whirling dervish of Islam, the quiverings of the Eastern Orthodox hesychast, the flowing movements of tai chi, the ecstatic shamanic dance, the ntum trance dance of the Bushman, Tibetan Buddhist tummo heat as practised by Milarepa, and the Indically-derived Andalusian flamenco (Sovatsky, 1998). Kundalini practice is centerfold in Japan's Aum Shinrikyo group and Kundalini-yoga is also one of the stages the practitioner is able to achieve.
Kundalini in the World's Religions
Kundalini is mainly associated with Hinduism. However, Kundalini as a spiritual experience is thought to have parallels in many of the mystical and gnostic traditions of the world's great religions.
Many factors point to the universality of the phenomenon. The early Christians might have referred to the concept as 'pneuma', and there are some recent parallels in contemporary Christian Charismatic 'Holy Ghost' phenomena. Religious studies also note parallels in Quakerism, Shakerism, Judaic Shuckling (torso-rocking prayer), the swaying zikr and whirling dervish of Islam, the quiverings of the Eastern Orthodox hesychast, the flowing movements of tai chi, the ecstatic shamanic dance, the ntum trance dance of the Bushman, Tibetan Buddhist tummo heat as practised by Milarepa, and the Indically-derived Andalusian flamenco (Sovatsky, 1998). Kundalini practice is centerfold in Japan's Aum Shinrikyo group and Kundalini-yoga is also one of the stages the practitioner is able to achieve.
Kundalini and Physiology
Contemporary spiritual literature often notes that the chakras, as described in the esoteric kundalini documents, bear a strong similarity in location and number to the major endocrine glands, as well as nerve bundles called ganglions.
One speculation is that the traditional practices have formalized a method for stimulating the endocrine glands to work in a different mode which has a more direct effect on consciousness, perhaps ultimately by stimulating the release of DMT by the pineal gland, which may be analogous to the 'pineal chakra'.
The late Itzhak Bentov studied Kundalini from an engineering perspective. According to Bentov (1990), the 7.5 Hz oscillation of the heart muscle rhythm induces mechanical Hz frequencies in the brain, that in turn create a stimulus equivalent of a current loop. The nerve endings in that loop correspond to the route through which the Kundalini "rises".
This current polarizes the brain part through which it flows in a homogenous way, effectively releasing tremendous amounts of stress from the body. The body then becomes an effective antenna for the 7.5 Hz frequency, which is one of the resonant frequencies of the ionosphere. In layman's terms, you then pick up information from the air.
This might account for repeated descriptions of heightened senses as a result of rising Kundalini, e.g. as described by Yogananda: "The whole vicinity lay bare before me. My ordinary frontal vision was now changed to a vast spherical sight, simultaneously all-perceptive."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9nOD6foI64
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am6qnqTVxU0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa__IDGy2mM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUWrf7cTwfM&
http://www.crystalinks.com/kundalini.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini_Syndrome
Meister Eckhart
"The Eye with which I see God is the same Eye with which God sees me"
The central theme of Eckhart's German sermons is the presence of God in the individual soul, and the dignity of the soul of the just man. Although he elaborated on this theme, he rarely departed from it. In one sermon, Eckhart gives the following summary of his message:
"When I preach, I usually speak of detachment and say that a man should be empty of self and all things; and secondly, that he should be reconstructed in the simple good that God is; and thirdly, that he should consider the great aristocracy which God has set up in the soul, such that by means of it man may wonderfully attain to God; and fourthly, of the purity of the divine nature."
If we turn from the forms, produced by external circumstances, and go to the root of things, we shall find that Sakyamuni and Meister Eckhart teach the same thing; only that the former dared to express his ideas plainly and positively, whereas Eckhart is obliged to clothe them in the garment of the Christian myth, and to adapt his expressions thereto.
– Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II, Ch. XLVIII
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Eckhart
The central theme of Eckhart's German sermons is the presence of God in the individual soul, and the dignity of the soul of the just man. Although he elaborated on this theme, he rarely departed from it. In one sermon, Eckhart gives the following summary of his message:
"When I preach, I usually speak of detachment and say that a man should be empty of self and all things; and secondly, that he should be reconstructed in the simple good that God is; and thirdly, that he should consider the great aristocracy which God has set up in the soul, such that by means of it man may wonderfully attain to God; and fourthly, of the purity of the divine nature."
If we turn from the forms, produced by external circumstances, and go to the root of things, we shall find that Sakyamuni and Meister Eckhart teach the same thing; only that the former dared to express his ideas plainly and positively, whereas Eckhart is obliged to clothe them in the garment of the Christian myth, and to adapt his expressions thereto.
– Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II, Ch. XLVIII
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Eckhart
Ken Wilber
Are the mystics and sages insane? Because they all tell variations on the same story, don't they? The story of awakening one morning and discovering you are one with the All, in a timeless and eternal and infinite fashion. Yes, maybe they are crazy, these divine fools. Maybe they are mumbling idiots in the face of the Abyss. Maybe they need a nice, understanding therapist. Yes, I'm sure that would help. But then, I wonder. Maybe the evolutionary sequence really is from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit, each transcending and including, each with a greater depth and greater consciousness and wider embrace. And in the highest reaches of evolution, maybe, just maybe, an individual's consciousness does indeed touch infinity—a total embrace of the entire Kosmos—a Kosmic consciousness that is Spirit awakened to its own true nature. It's at least plausible. And tell me: is that story, sung by mystics and sages the world over, any crazier than the scientific materialism story, which is that the entire sequence is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing? Listen very carefully: just which of those two stories actually sounds totally insane?
– Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, 42-3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber
Imagine if, the very day Buddha attained his enlightenment, he was taken out and hanged precisely because of his realization. and if any of his followers claimed to have the same realization, they were also hanged. Speaking for myself, I would find this something of a disincentive to practice.
But that's exactly what happened with Jesus of Nazareth. "Why do you stone me?" he asks at one point. "Is it for good deeds?" And the crowd responds, "No, it is because you, being a man, make yourself out to be God." The individual Atman is not allowed to realize that it is one with Brahman. "I and my Father are One"-among other complicated factors that realization got this gentleman crucified.
The reasons for this are involved, but the fact remains: as soon as any spiritual practitioner began to get too close to the realization that Atman and Brahman are one-that one's own mind is intrinsically one with primordial Spirit-then frighteningly severe repercussions usually followed.
Of course there were wonderful currents of Neoplatonic and other very high teachings operating in the background (and underground) in the West, but wherever the Church had political influence-and it dominated the Western scene for a thousand years-if you stepped over that line between Atman and Brahman, you were in very dangerous waters. St. John of the Cross and his friend St. Teresa of Avila stepped over the line, but couched their journeys in such careful and pious language they pulled it off, barely. Meister Eckhart stepped over the line, a little too boldly, and had his teachings officially condemned, which meant he wouldn't fry in hell but his words apparently would. Giordano Bruno stepped way over the line, and was burned at the stake. This is a typical pattern.
> You say the reasons are complicated, and I'm sure they are, but could you briefly mention a few?
Well, I'll give you one, which is perhaps the most interesting. The early history of the Church was dominated by traveling "pneumatics," those in whom "spirit was alive." Their spirituality was based largely on direct experience, a type of Christ consciousness, we might suppose ("Let this consciousness be in you which was in Christ Jesus"). We might charitably say that the nirmanakaya physical body] of each pneumatic realized the dharmakaya [absolute body] of Christ via the sambhogakaya [body of bliss] of the transformative fire of the Holy Ghost-not to put too fine a point on it. But they were clearly alive to some very real, very direct experiences.
But over a several hundred year span, with the codification of the Canon and the Apostle's Creed, a series of necessary beliefs replaced actual experience. The Church slowly switched from the pneumatics to the ekklesia, the ecclesastic assembly of Christ, and the governor of the ekklesia was the local bishop, who possessed "right dogma," and not the pneumatic or prophet, who might possess spirit but couldn't be "controlled." The Church was no longer defined as the assembly of realizers but as the assembly of bishops.
With Tertullian the relationship becomes almost legal, and with Cyprian spirituality actually is bound to the legal office of the Church. You could become a priest merely by ordination, not by awakening. A priest was no longer holy (sanctus) if he was personally awakened or enlightened or sanctified, but if he held the office. Likewise, you could become "saved" not by waking up yourself, but merely by taking the legal sacraments. As Cyprian put it, "He who does not have the Church as Mother cannot have God as Father."
Well, that puts a damper on it, what? Salvation now belonged to the lawyers. And the lawyers said, basically, we will allow that one megadude became fully one with God, but that's it! No more of that pure Oneness crap.
> But why?
This part of it was simple, raw, political power. Because, you know, the unsettling thing about direct mystical experience is that it has a nasty habit of going straight from Spirit to you, thus bypassing the middleman, namely, the bishop, not to mention the middleman's collection plate. This is the same reason the oil companies do not like solar power, if you get my drift.
And so, anybody who had a direct pipeline to God was thus pronounced guilty not only of religious heresy, or the violation of the legal codes of the Church, for which you could have your heavenly soul eternally damned, but also of political treason, for which you could have your earthly body separated into several sections.
For all these reasons, the summum bonum of spiritual awareness-the supreme identity of Atman and Brahman, or ordinary mind and intrinsic spirit-was officially taboo in the West for a thousand years, more or less. All the wonderful currents that you mention, from Neoplatonism to Hermeticism, were definitely present but severely marginalized, to put it mildly. And thus the West produced an extraordinary number of subtle-level (or sambhogakaya) mystics, who only claimed that the soul and God can share a union; but very few causal (dharmakaya) and very few nondual (svabhavikakaya) mystics, who went further and claimed not just a union but a supreme identity of soul and God in pure Godhead, just that claim got you toasted.
> As for some of these more profound currents that became marginalized, what is the relationship between Plato's concept of "remembering" and enlightenment? Ever since I read the Meno I've thought there was one. But I couldn't quite figure out what it was.
Yes, I think there is a very direct relationship. If we make the assumption, pretty safe with this crowd, that every sentient being has buddhamind, and if we agree that with enlightenment we are not attaining this mind but simply acknowledging or recognizing it, then it amounts to the same thing if we say that enlightenment is the remembering of buddhamind, or the direct recognition or re-cognition of pure Emptiness.
In other words, we can't attain buddhanature any more than we can attain our feet. We can simply look down and notice that we have feet; we can remember that we have them. It sometimes helps, if we think that we do not have feet, to have somebody come along and point to them. A Zen Master will be glad to help. When you earnestly say, "I don't have any feet," the Master, wearing these big Dr. Martens boots, will bring them stomping down on your feet and see who yells out loud, "No feet, eh?"
These "pointing out instructions" do not point to something that we do not have and need to acquire; they point to something that is fully, totally, completely present right now, but we have perhaps forgotten. Enlightenment in the most basic sense is this simple remembering, re-cognizing, or simply noticing our feet-that is, noticing that this simple, clear, everpresent awareness is primordial purity just as it is. In that sense, it is definitely a simple remembering.
> And you think Plato was actually involved in that type of recognition?
Oh, I think so. It becomes extremely obvious in the succeeding Neoplatonic teachers; in these areas, the apples rarely fall far from the tree. Plato himself says that we were once whole, but a "failure to remember"-amnesis-allows us to fall from that wholeness. And we will "recover" from our fragmentation when we remember who and what we really are. Plato is very specific. I'll read this: "It is not something that can be put into words like other branches of learning: only after long partnership in a [contemplative community] devoted to this very thing does truth flash upon the soul, like a flame kindled by a leaping spark." Sudden illumination. He then adds, and this is very important: "No treatise by me concerning it exists or ever will exist."
> Purely wordless.
Yes, I think so. Very like, "A special transmission outside the scriptures; Not dependent upon words or letters; Direct pointing to the mind; Seeing into one's Nature and recognizing buddhahood." We have to be a little careful with quick and easy comparisons, but again, if all sentient beings possess buddhamind, and if you are not yet going to be crucified for remembering it, then it is likely enough that souls of such caliber as Parmenides and Plato and Plotinus would remember who and what they are in suchness. And yes, it very much is a simply remembering, like looking in the mirror and going "Oh!" As Philosophia said to Boethius in his distress, "You have forgotten who you are."
http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2059
– Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, 42-3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber
Imagine if, the very day Buddha attained his enlightenment, he was taken out and hanged precisely because of his realization. and if any of his followers claimed to have the same realization, they were also hanged. Speaking for myself, I would find this something of a disincentive to practice.
But that's exactly what happened with Jesus of Nazareth. "Why do you stone me?" he asks at one point. "Is it for good deeds?" And the crowd responds, "No, it is because you, being a man, make yourself out to be God." The individual Atman is not allowed to realize that it is one with Brahman. "I and my Father are One"-among other complicated factors that realization got this gentleman crucified.
The reasons for this are involved, but the fact remains: as soon as any spiritual practitioner began to get too close to the realization that Atman and Brahman are one-that one's own mind is intrinsically one with primordial Spirit-then frighteningly severe repercussions usually followed.
Of course there were wonderful currents of Neoplatonic and other very high teachings operating in the background (and underground) in the West, but wherever the Church had political influence-and it dominated the Western scene for a thousand years-if you stepped over that line between Atman and Brahman, you were in very dangerous waters. St. John of the Cross and his friend St. Teresa of Avila stepped over the line, but couched their journeys in such careful and pious language they pulled it off, barely. Meister Eckhart stepped over the line, a little too boldly, and had his teachings officially condemned, which meant he wouldn't fry in hell but his words apparently would. Giordano Bruno stepped way over the line, and was burned at the stake. This is a typical pattern.
> You say the reasons are complicated, and I'm sure they are, but could you briefly mention a few?
Well, I'll give you one, which is perhaps the most interesting. The early history of the Church was dominated by traveling "pneumatics," those in whom "spirit was alive." Their spirituality was based largely on direct experience, a type of Christ consciousness, we might suppose ("Let this consciousness be in you which was in Christ Jesus"). We might charitably say that the nirmanakaya physical body] of each pneumatic realized the dharmakaya [absolute body] of Christ via the sambhogakaya [body of bliss] of the transformative fire of the Holy Ghost-not to put too fine a point on it. But they were clearly alive to some very real, very direct experiences.
But over a several hundred year span, with the codification of the Canon and the Apostle's Creed, a series of necessary beliefs replaced actual experience. The Church slowly switched from the pneumatics to the ekklesia, the ecclesastic assembly of Christ, and the governor of the ekklesia was the local bishop, who possessed "right dogma," and not the pneumatic or prophet, who might possess spirit but couldn't be "controlled." The Church was no longer defined as the assembly of realizers but as the assembly of bishops.
With Tertullian the relationship becomes almost legal, and with Cyprian spirituality actually is bound to the legal office of the Church. You could become a priest merely by ordination, not by awakening. A priest was no longer holy (sanctus) if he was personally awakened or enlightened or sanctified, but if he held the office. Likewise, you could become "saved" not by waking up yourself, but merely by taking the legal sacraments. As Cyprian put it, "He who does not have the Church as Mother cannot have God as Father."
Well, that puts a damper on it, what? Salvation now belonged to the lawyers. And the lawyers said, basically, we will allow that one megadude became fully one with God, but that's it! No more of that pure Oneness crap.
> But why?
This part of it was simple, raw, political power. Because, you know, the unsettling thing about direct mystical experience is that it has a nasty habit of going straight from Spirit to you, thus bypassing the middleman, namely, the bishop, not to mention the middleman's collection plate. This is the same reason the oil companies do not like solar power, if you get my drift.
And so, anybody who had a direct pipeline to God was thus pronounced guilty not only of religious heresy, or the violation of the legal codes of the Church, for which you could have your heavenly soul eternally damned, but also of political treason, for which you could have your earthly body separated into several sections.
For all these reasons, the summum bonum of spiritual awareness-the supreme identity of Atman and Brahman, or ordinary mind and intrinsic spirit-was officially taboo in the West for a thousand years, more or less. All the wonderful currents that you mention, from Neoplatonism to Hermeticism, were definitely present but severely marginalized, to put it mildly. And thus the West produced an extraordinary number of subtle-level (or sambhogakaya) mystics, who only claimed that the soul and God can share a union; but very few causal (dharmakaya) and very few nondual (svabhavikakaya) mystics, who went further and claimed not just a union but a supreme identity of soul and God in pure Godhead, just that claim got you toasted.
> As for some of these more profound currents that became marginalized, what is the relationship between Plato's concept of "remembering" and enlightenment? Ever since I read the Meno I've thought there was one. But I couldn't quite figure out what it was.
Yes, I think there is a very direct relationship. If we make the assumption, pretty safe with this crowd, that every sentient being has buddhamind, and if we agree that with enlightenment we are not attaining this mind but simply acknowledging or recognizing it, then it amounts to the same thing if we say that enlightenment is the remembering of buddhamind, or the direct recognition or re-cognition of pure Emptiness.
In other words, we can't attain buddhanature any more than we can attain our feet. We can simply look down and notice that we have feet; we can remember that we have them. It sometimes helps, if we think that we do not have feet, to have somebody come along and point to them. A Zen Master will be glad to help. When you earnestly say, "I don't have any feet," the Master, wearing these big Dr. Martens boots, will bring them stomping down on your feet and see who yells out loud, "No feet, eh?"
These "pointing out instructions" do not point to something that we do not have and need to acquire; they point to something that is fully, totally, completely present right now, but we have perhaps forgotten. Enlightenment in the most basic sense is this simple remembering, re-cognizing, or simply noticing our feet-that is, noticing that this simple, clear, everpresent awareness is primordial purity just as it is. In that sense, it is definitely a simple remembering.
> And you think Plato was actually involved in that type of recognition?
Oh, I think so. It becomes extremely obvious in the succeeding Neoplatonic teachers; in these areas, the apples rarely fall far from the tree. Plato himself says that we were once whole, but a "failure to remember"-amnesis-allows us to fall from that wholeness. And we will "recover" from our fragmentation when we remember who and what we really are. Plato is very specific. I'll read this: "It is not something that can be put into words like other branches of learning: only after long partnership in a [contemplative community] devoted to this very thing does truth flash upon the soul, like a flame kindled by a leaping spark." Sudden illumination. He then adds, and this is very important: "No treatise by me concerning it exists or ever will exist."
> Purely wordless.
Yes, I think so. Very like, "A special transmission outside the scriptures; Not dependent upon words or letters; Direct pointing to the mind; Seeing into one's Nature and recognizing buddhahood." We have to be a little careful with quick and easy comparisons, but again, if all sentient beings possess buddhamind, and if you are not yet going to be crucified for remembering it, then it is likely enough that souls of such caliber as Parmenides and Plato and Plotinus would remember who and what they are in suchness. And yes, it very much is a simply remembering, like looking in the mirror and going "Oh!" As Philosophia said to Boethius in his distress, "You have forgotten who you are."
http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2059
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