Education XII. What is to learn from oneself and from outside?

It seems so important in education to learn about the world inside us, and the world outside......which means to "look" inside and to "look" outside.......Maybe they are not different....... it seems to me, if the looking inside and outside is the same, that is the "unifying" factor..........

This is the crucial question......how to look?

We are reading the book "on education" by J. Krishnamurti (where he is talking to young students) in the other blog, and so far there has been 3 occasions in which he describes meditation, which probably is this "looking".

Let's put these 3 pieces together to have a look at its beauty:

- "You must know fear and not escape from it so that you can look at fear. It is like going for a walk and suddenly coming upon a snake, jumping away and watching the snake. If you are very quiet, very still, unafraid, then you can look very closely, keeping a safe distance. You can look at the black tongue and the eyes that have no eyelids. You can look at the scales, the patterns of the skin. If you watch the snake very closely you see and appreciate it and perhaps have great affection for that snake. But you cannot look if you are afraid, if you run away"

- "Have you ever sat on the banks of a river and watched the water go by? You cannot do anything about the water. There is the clear water, the dead leaves, the branches. You see a dead animal go by, and you are watching all that. You see the movement of the water, the clarity of the water, the swift current of the water and the fullness of the water. But you cannot do anything. You watch and you let the water flow by"

- To learn about meditation, you have to see how your mind is working. You have to watch, as you watch a lizard going by, walking across the wall. You see all its four feet, how it sticks to the wall, and as you watch, you see all the movements. In the same way, watch your thinking. Do not correct it. Do not suppress it. Do not say, "All this is too difficult". Just watch

Education XI. Not just ideas, concepts.....

I was driving today, coming from a beautiful land, green, with a rough coastline where the sea and sky rival in beauty.
And I was listening in the car dialogue number 13th of "The ending of time" between David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti, and a section of this dialogue was something like this:

"K: So you see it is enormously difficult to be free of knowledge.

DB: We could ask, why doesn't knowledge wait until it is needed?

K: That means to be psychologically free of knowledge, but, when the need arises, to act from freedom, not from knowledge.

.........

K: That is freedom from knowledge. And being free, it is from freedom and not from knowledge that one communicates.

K:....... And if I am going to understand myself, I must be free to look."

And at that moment it flashed in my brain that we have been educated in ideas, in concepts, in opinions. A tremendous importance has been given to that, probably because this is the way our brain works...... I studied history and it was all knowledge, opinions about what had happened, who was "good" or "bad", all a virtual reality...and I realize I continue in my adult life living in a world of ideas, concepts......

Would it be possible to be aware of this and educate not giving so much importance to concepts, ideas....and educate giving importance to something real?

(No idea how, but the clarity about this need is there.....)

(photograph from the actual place described above, made yesterday by S. de Ch.)

Education X. The appreciation of beauty.

Two days ago I took my twins to the mountains. They are 10 month old. We went into a beautiful valley, there was snow, but the valley was wide and full of sun light. And it was very silent. Although both of them were at the beginning somehow agitated, slowly they quiet down, somehow they "melted" into the general quietness of the place.
I was carrying one of them in a kid carrier, on my chest. At one point I stopped to look at a small water stream. I was looking at the stream and something unexpected happened. I heard him giggling. I looked at him and he was looking at the water stream and smiling and giggling with excitement.
And I realized he was happy appreciating the beauty of the stream.

I always thought it was very important in education to educate to appreciate beauty. I did not know how. But when I heard my son giggling at the water stream, I realized the "seed" of appreciation of beauty is already there, probably in all of us. We do not need to educate for it. We just need to expose children to beauty....and in that interaction beauty will act on the "seed"...and make it germinate....
(no need to educate, no need for sophisticated approaches and educational techniques......all the material is already there....the seed and the beauty.......and, now, writing this, I have a doubt, a question: the seed and beauty, are they different, separate, things?.....)

(dedicated to N.C.D.)

Nisargadatta Maharaj's new web site

Manu Namasivayam kindly sends me his new Nisargadatta Maharaj's web site (http://nisargadatta.co.cc/ ), which looks very complete, and there are in it several quotes from Nisargadatta that I did not know, for instance, there is a section called "The last days: Last Teachings", from where I extracted these texts:

Sunday, 9 August 1981 (he died 8th September 1981)— The same young lady wanted to know whether the practice of observing a day every week as the 'day of silence' was a good one. Maharaj smiled and said that it would be an excellent practice if the significance of the word 'silence' was clearly understood. Maharaj explained: I have heard of certain Mahatmas and Gurus, greatly interested in politics, observing 'days of silence', when they do not speak but communicate with the aid of pen and paper. I am sure their throats get a lot of much-needed rest, but other than that, I doubt if there could be any other benefit. What I would understand by 'silence' is total absence of word and thought. Have you ever considered from where the word comes? Before a word becomes vocal, it has to be a thought; a movement in consciousness, and therefore, the source of the word as well as the thought is consciousness. Once you understand this, you will also understand that perfect silence can only be in the absence of thought— only when thought ceases, and conceptualization and objectivization are also suspended. When conceptualization ceases, identity, which is the basis of conceptualization, cannot remain, and in the absence of identity there is no bondage.

Friday, 17 July 1981 — You people have been coming here hoping all the time that I would give you a programme of what you should do in order to get 'liberation.' And what I keep telling you is that since there is no entity as such, the question of bondage does not arise; and that if one is not bound there is no need for liberation. All I can do is to show you that what you are is not what you think you are.

But what I say is not acceptable to most of you. And sortie of you go elsewhere, where they are happy to be given a list of do's and dont's. What is more, they act on such instructions with faith and diligence. But what they do not realize is that whatever they practise as an 'entity' only strengthens their identification with the illusory entity and, therefore, understanding of the Truth remains as far away as ever.

People imagine that they must somehow change themselves from imperfect human beings into perfect human beings known as sages. If only they would see the absurdity in this thinking. The one who is thinking along these lines is himself only a concept, an appearance, a character in a dream. How can a mere phenomenal phantom awaken from a dream by perfecting itself?

Steve Jobs adressing students

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

(Steve Jobs, founder and creative soul of Apple Computer addressing students at Stanford University on June 12, 2005. You can read the full address in: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505)

how should a religious person live?

Today I was thinking: how should a religious person live?
How should he earn a living?

(photograph by Armit Ere)

To look at yourself

To learn about meditation, you have to see how your mind is working. You have to watch, as you watch a lizard going by, walking across the wall. You see all its four feet, how it sticks to the wall, and as you watch, you see all the movements. In the same way, watch your thinking. Do not correct it. Do not suppress it. Do not say, "All this is too difficult". Just watch; now, this morning.

(J. Krishnamurti, addressing young students in Rishi Valley, India. Passage extracted from the book "On Education")

(Dedicated to Hugo)

New Year, Self

Let's start the new year with some chanting....

(Video from BeingnessTV)

How strange is to be alive

Today a peculiar feeling crept into my mind: "how strange and fantastic is to be alive". Normally we are aware that we are doing something or that we want something or that we feel something ......Not the feeling of being able to do things or to think something....... No, just to be aware that one is alive.....simply that....

(from the dictionary: fan·tas·tic:

1. Quaint or strange in form, conception, or appearance.

2.

a. Unrestrainedly fanciful; extravagant: fantastic hopes.

b. Bizarre, as in form or appearance; strange: fantastic attire; fantastic behavior.

c. Based on or existing only in fantasy; unreal: fantastic ideas about her own superiority.

3. Wonderful or superb; remarkable: a fantastic trip to Europe.)

Impermanence II

I have been thinking a lot and looking at things under the "impermanence" optic....

In the entry "Impermanence I" of october 11th, I wrote that:

"In the millions of years of the universe existence, has there been two moments in which the universe has been identical? Does this continuous change anything to do with impermanence? If there are not two moments in which the universe was identical, that means that there is no permanence.....not only it does not exists now, but there has never been.... That means that from the very beginning of the universe, impermanence has been a constant feature......"

And these days it seems to me that our mind, essentially, works on the premises of permanence. It is almost as if it would not consider the fact that impermanence is a kind of law...
Yesterday I got a "feeling" that was difficult to crystallize in words, but I will try here. It was something like this: when the mind projects a future, this projection is based on permanence, it is a kind of permanence.....it does not take into account impermanence......not to take into account such an important law makes this projection a kind of unreal projection.......which makes the present the only real thing.....
Same with the so called "ego". It is a kind of "permanent" projection......

(Picture is titled "impermanence" by Jason Theaker, http://www.flickr.com/people/photoimage/)

dentist waiting room

One of the best things about going to the dentist is to sit in the waiting room. I always feel very relaxed, as I know I have to be there, I am not wasting time, there is not the feeling that I should be doing something else....

Yesterday I went to the dentist (my dear and admired J., it is so obvious that he tries to do the best work he can, that always when I come out I feel like doing also my best in my job). The waiting room was quite full, and the "gossip" magazines were all taken, so I had to take a kind of "scientific" magazine titled something like "Very Interesting".

And I found an article titled "how do we spend our life?", and I found it very interesting, so I asked the nurse for a pen, and I copied a graph from the article: "If a person lives 70 years, he/she spends:
- 11 years: in housekeeping (washing, cleaning, cooking, etc)
- 13 years: studying and/or working
- 17 years: free time
- 29 years: vital functions (sleeping, eating, hygiene, etc.)

So, I thought, only 17 years of free time out of 70......and something came to my mind then. If we leave the religious "practice" for our free time, kind of separate from the rest of our lives, it is a very small proportion of our life....and I remembered what Krishnamurti said: "meditation" should be all the time, even in our "normal" daily life...

life outside Earth

An Earth-size planet has been spotted orbiting a nearby star at a distance that would makes it not too hot and not too cold — comfortable enough for life to exist, researchers announced (Sept. 29).

If confirmed, the exoplanet, named Gliese 581g, would be the first Earth-like world found residing in a star's habitable zone — a region where a planet's temperature could sustain liquid water on its surface.

And the planet's discoverers are optimistic about the prospects for finding life there.

"Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent," said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, during a press briefing today. "I have almost no doubt about it."

The star is located 20 light-years from Earth in the constellation Libra. One light-year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km).

Red dwarf stars are about 50 times dimmer than our sun. Since these stars are so much cooler, their planets can orbit much closer to them and still remain in the habitable zone.

Estimates suggest Gliese 581g is close enough to its star to be able to complete an orbit in just under 37 days.

With support from the National Science Foundation and NASA, the scientists — members of the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey — collected 11 years of radial velocity data on the star. This method looks at a star's tiny movements due to the gravitational tug from orbiting bodies.

The subtle tugs let researchers estimate the planet's mass and orbital period, how long it takes to circle its star.

Gliese 581g has a mass three to four times Earth's, the researchers estimated. From the mass and size, they said the world is probably a rocky planet with enough gravity to hold onto an atmosphere.

Just as Mercury is locked facing the sun, the planet is tidally locked to its star, so that one side basks in perpetual daylight, while the other side remains in darkness. This locked configuration helps to stabilize the planet's surface climate, Vogt said.

But whether Gliese 581g harbors life may not be the most striking aspect of this find. Vogt says the discovery of a potentially habitable world less than 100 light-years away means that habitable worlds may be much more common than astronomers thought. Given the number of stars in the Milky Way, Vogt explains, that could mean there are "potentially billions" of Earth-like worlds out there.

With the vastness of the universe, and the innumerable possibilities of combinations, it seems to me that the existence of life outside Earth might be not only possible, but unavoidable.... What if this life has been only 1000 years ahead of us in development? If they have gone through the challenges and difficulties we are going through now? their consciousness has gone through the evolutionary shaping process? What would be the impact on us if we could eventually communicate with such forms of life? By the way, what is life? is it something that comes up from a certain environment and evolves interacting with the evolving environment? is it just a type of manifestation in the universe?, is it separate from it?......


(This artist's conception shows the inner four planets of the Gliese 581 system and their host star, a red dwarf star only 20 light years away from Earth. The large planet in the foreground is the newly discovered GJ 581g, which has a 37-day orbit right in the middle of the star's habitable zone and is only three to four times the mass of Earth, with a diameter 1.2 to 1.4 times that of Earth. Credit: Lynette Cook) (Text and image taken from www.space.com)

The Obsolete Consciousness VII: The Holocaust part II

(Children walking to the gas chamber in Birkenau)

In 1933 approximately nine million Jews lived in the countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed by the SS Men. The Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of six million Jews.

But Jews were not the only group singled out for persecution by Hitler’s Nazi regime. As many as one-half million Gypsies, at least 250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons, and more than three million Soviet prisoners-of-war also fell victim to Nazi genocide. Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Social Democrats, Communists, partisans, trade unionists, Polish intelligentsia and other undesirables were also victims of the hate and aggression carried out by the Nazis.

The number of children killed during the Holocaust is not fathomable and full statistics for the tragic fate of children who died will never be known. Some estimates range as high as 1.5 million murdered children. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of institutionalized handicapped children who were murdered under Nazi rule in Germany and occupied Europe.

The SS Men wore black uniforms with a skeleton's head on their hats, the motto "Unsere Ehre heisst Treue" (Our honor is loyalty) on their belts and their symbol was the double S-rune. They had sworn eternal faith to Adolf Hitler and they were his most ruthless henchmen, men often seen as the very personifications of evil.

These masterminds of death were found to be quite psychologically normal. They were men of fine standing, husbands who morning and night kissed their wives, fathers who tucked their children into bed.

But murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, and other inhuman acts were an everyday occurrence.

Stangl (Treblinka's commandant), Hoss (Auschwitz's commandant) and Bergen commandants were quite "normal" people, Eichmann the same, they wanted to do a good job, wanted to ascend in the ranks, be respected in the SS, be loyal to their group, be somebody.....

The "will to power" (german: "der Wille zur Macht") concept, describes what Friedrich Nietzsche believed to be the main driving force in all living things. Briefly, it means that all living species try to prevail over the rest of species, even if that meant to violently exterminate those species.

The holocaust is very difficult to comprehend. But it comes to my mind several factors that led to it:

1) It seems to me that a big part of our conditioning does not come through things that happen in our life time, but rather we inherit from our long distant evolutionary past. So, one possible factor is this "will to power" that Nietzsche is referring to, the intrinsic tendency in all living things to try to prevail over other living groups. The tendency of one group to destroy other groups, and thus survive better.

2) The strong "drive for security" of all living creatures. And the security inside a group is to be well regarded, to do a good job, to be respected in that group, to be somebody....This is also a conditioning coming from a long distant evolutionary past...

3) The tremendous conditioning through propaganda that happened in the 3rd reich ("Jews are evil", "ubermensch", to get more "lebensraum" (living space), etc.....)

1, 2 and 3 are not separate entities, but there is a lot of overlap between them. We already may be conditioned with 1 and 2 when we are born. Number 3 may happen during our life time, with different degrees of intensity.....

And now comes the terrible question: properly conditioned, could any one of us be a nazi?

The Obsolete Consciousness VI: The Holocaust part I

I read this book last spring, and I wanted to share it with you, and hopefully engage in a dialogue about its content.

Only four men commanded Nazi extermination (as opposed to concentration) camps. Franz Stangl was the "Kommandant" of Treblinka, one of the most terrible camps. After the war he escaped to Syria and then Brazil, where he lived with his family and worked in a factory.
After extradition to Germany, he was tried for the deaths of around 1,200,000 people. He admitted to these killings but argued: "My conscience is clear. I was simply doing my duty ...". Found guilty on October 22, 1970, Stangl was sentenced to life imprisonment. He died of a heart attack on June 28, 1971.

Gitta Sereny talked to him in prison for about 70 hours, asked him questions of how he came about to be in charge of an extermination camp, how he felt then, how he was feeling now, what relationship he had with his family.
I think she does not go deep enough (maybe it is not possible) in the psychological roots of organized cruelty, I have the feeling that Stangl himself does not know how it all happened, only that it happened. But this unique book has some parts which are quite thought provoking.

One point that emerge from reading the book is that Stangl was not a psychopath or a nazi fanatic. He was rather a "grey" person, a person that wanted to please his superiors, that wanted to ascend in the rank, that wanted to do a "good" job, that wanted to be somebody.....and on top of all he loved his family (!!!)

It seems that the main power behind the holocaust was an IDEA. Just an idea. The idea of a superior race (übermensch). And the moment you project the idea of a superior race, automatically you have inferior races. What a power an idea, a thought, could have.

And how obsolete a consciousness that can generate and pursuit to the end, unchequed, such idea.....

Education IX

I read Krishnamurti´s book "On education". The very first entry starts with such a beautiful text:

You know, you live in one of the most beautiful valleys I have seen. It has a special atmosphere. Have you noticed, especially in the evenings and early mornings, a quality of silence which permeates, which penetrates the valley?........and wherever you go, in cities or in other places, man is destroying nature, cutting down trees to build more houses, polluting the air with cars and industry......but probably you have become used to it. You do not look at the hills any more, you do not listen to the birds any more and to the wind among the leaves. So you have gradually become indifferent.....

Education is not only learning from books, memorizing some facts, but also learning how to look, how to listen.....Education is not just to pass examinations, take a degree and a job, get married and settle down, but also to be able to listen to the birds, to see the sky, to see the extraordinary beauty of a tree, and the shape of the hills, and to feel with them, to be really, directly in touch with them. As you grow older, that sense of listening, seeing, unfortunately disappears because you have worries, you want more money, a better car, more children or less children. You become jealous, ambitious, greedy, envious; so you lose the sense of the beauty of the earth....... And you will grow up to fit into this. Is this right, is this what education is meant for, that you should willingly or unwillingly fit into this mad structure called society?

..... you will conform, because that is the easiest way to live.....You have to change society.... Society is you and I. You and I create the society in which we live. So you have to change..... And you, living in this extraordinary valley,.....Are you going to conform, fit in, accept all the old values? ....... But if you now begin to think, to observe, to learn, not from books, but learn for yourself by watching, listening to everything that is happening around you, you will grow up to be a different human being - one who cares, who has affection, who loves people. Perhaps if you live that way, you might find a truly religious life.....

Do you know what it means to attend, to pay attention? ..... See the totality of the tree. Look at it that way, because I am going to talk about something to which you have to pay attention. Attention is very important, in the class, as well as when you are outside, when you are eating, when you are walking. Attention is an extraordinary thing.

I am going to ask you something. Why are you being educated? Do you understand my question? Your parents send you to school. You attend classes, you learn mathematics, you learn geography, you learn history. Why? Have you ever asked why you want to be educated, what is the point of being educated? What is the point of your passing examinations and getting degrees? Is it to get married, get a job and settle down in life as millions and millions of people do? Is that what you are going to do, is that the meaning of education? ....Human beings throughout the world.....are being educated to conform, to fit into society and into their culture, to fit into the stream of social and economical activity, to be sucked into that vast stream that has been flowing for thousands of years. Is that education, or is education something entirely different? Can education see to it that the human mind is not drawn into that vast stream and so destroyed; see that the mind is never sucked into that stream; .....That stream is our culture. So, the question is how to bring about the right kind of education so that the mind can withstand all temptations, all influences, the bestiality of this civilization and this culture.

We have come to a point in history where we have to create a new culture, a totally different kind of existence, .....but a culture based upon a real quality of religion. Now how does one bring about, through education, a mind that is entirely different, a mind that is not greedy, not envious? How does one create a mind that is not ambitious, that is extraordinarily active, efficient; that has a real perception of what is true in daily life which is after all religion.

(.....means a part of the text has been edited out. If you want to read the whole text go to: http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=43&chid=297&w=krishnamurti+%22on+education%22)

It seems to me such an important book, that I feel one should not just read it, but STUDY it. And why not study it together with other people?. So, I opened a new blog, called "Studying Krishnamurti". You can see it here.
I transcribe here some of the intentions of this blog:

"Why study? What is to study? To study is to try to realize the full meaning originally intended in a text. To study is to go SLOWLY over the text, with an open mind, suspending our conditioning, and letting the meaning of the text emerge (both locally as a sentence and as whole text). It has nothing to do with casually reading....

Why together? It is our experience that a group of people reading the same text together and commenting what they read, is like looking from many different angles. This way of reading has always worked very well. With the advent of internet, it is hoped that people from very far, unlikely to get physically together, could "come together" and study something together....

This blog does not belong to anybody in particular. It belongs to the people using it. Anybody can suggest a book or an audio or even a video tape, to be studied together. Moderation will be kept to a minimum.
For the people that do not have the paper book, it will be suggested where to download it. In this case, it is suggested that a small donation is made to the corresponding foundation."

vertigo

I have been 6 days in bed struck by a strong vertigo attack. One cannot move from bed, or the nausea and dizziness became strong. It is like intense sea-sickness, but prolongued. I noticed three things:

- In the first 48 hours, the feeling of sickness was at its peak, and I would sleep on and off, and several times I had the feeling that to die is something like that. Not a big deal. Something like a feeling of being unwell and then slip into unconsciousness....

- I tried to be as "present" as I could, but I realized how difficult is to be "present" with an unpleasant physical feeling. For instance, it was very difficult to be "present", or "mindful", of the nausea feeling. How strong and overriding is the body´s reality......

- As most diseases, this vertigo attack was psicosomatic. I realized several unconfortable to see things about me that have been constant throughout my life. The interesting thing is that one is very honest about oneself when sick........

The obsolete consciousness V

The organization Banktrack has released a study showing which finantial institutions/banks are financing the companies manufacturing cluster bombs.

Cluster munitions pose a serious threat to civilian populations during and after a conflict. Cluster munitions are designed to blanket a large area, sometimes as big as 4-5 football fields. They spread a large number, sometimes close to 2000, of submunitions or bomblets. Distribution of submunitions over such a broad area results in a large chance of civilian casualties during and after the attack. Many bomblets or submunitions fail to explode on impact. They remain on the ground like landmines that kill and injure civilians long after the conflict has ended. 98% of cluster munitions victims are civilians.

A part of the consciousness has created a huge finantial system to have its own security no matter if it is by using force and maiming another part. It considers itself a part, separate from the whole. Such economic system, based on this fragmented consciousness, can never be fair and seems to lead to imbalance and conflict......

(picture, above: a boy wounded by a cluster bomb in Irak in 2003, by A. Niedringhaus; below, a cluster bomb)

Feelings arise from a mind not at peace....

A person close to me sends me a letter today:

"Last couple of days have been very bad here for me. I have known 'hell'. I was tired and resentful. And everything kept going from bad to worse. A vicious circle. I have known 'heaven' too (as a figure of speech). I have felt free, joyful, abundant, with an expansive, quiet and reconciled energy. But the last two days the 'ego' struck me hard. Made me evil, desperate, despondent. I only wanted to ESCAPE. And I couldn't. I have known the 'peaks of ecstasy' and the 'depths of despair'. Such contrasts! Today, not in its grips any longer, I see that FEELINGS control us. That they arise from a MIND not at peace. That the only real escape rests in the mind, nowhere else."

Like a good doctor she made a precise diagnosis, and pointed to the root cause of the illness....

What is a mind at peace?. It cannot be one part trying to control another part.....that would not be peace.......so, what is it?

(dedicated to E.)

sense of humor

Two things I have read this week that made me laugh:

- "if you beleive you are so enlightened, go and spend a week with your parents" (Ram Dass, quoted by Eckhart Tolle in his book " A new Earth")
(My own particular version: "If you think you have progressed a bit on the spiritual path, go and have twins"....).

- "The only opinion that really matters to me is my own" (Karl Lagerfeld, fashion designer)

"continuum"

Yesterday I was swimming in the sea, and an "strange" feeling came to me: "what if the mind is a continuum with the blue of the sea, with the ocean or with some more?"

Context II

The other day something happened that could perfectly have made me irritated.
But it did not. And I realized I was not irritated because the morning that it happened, I was feeling good and relaxed......So the mental environment, the context, with which we receive the stimulus, makes a big difference in what we feel...if we have a mental environment of dissatisfaction, or of anxiety, etc, it will influence very much how we react to things, how we perceive life....

Sometimes this "mental environment" comes from a far away past, and has stayed, it has become part of the regular functioning of our brain.....it has become "chronic", a "chronic mental environment".....a part of what we call "personality".....

Is it possible to feel, to be aware of this mental environment, mental context?.......could we have a kind of "propriocepcion" to it?...... could we try right now?......

irritation and compassion

How easy is to react with irritation and anger....
and how difficult is to react with understanding and compassion.....
.....a sign of a shallow mind?

Education VIII

Can we see the limitations of a shallow mind?.....

And can we have a feeling for a mind that has space, a big space....that is not narrowed by spinning continously around something, that is not full of worries and fears about security, that is not narrowed too much by the sense of "being somebody"......that can see all the limitations, that can see its own space....

But can one educate to have such "big space" mind?...... How?.....

(picture: "Shallow Water" (6x8") oil painting by Todd Bonita)

The shallow mind

What is a shallow mind?

A shallow mind is the mind that has very little energy to go into the religious aspect of life....(although it has plenty of energy for other things....)

to be special

I am spending time near the sea, and I see many people with tattoos.

We all want to be special, different....

There isn´t anything as ordinary as wanting to be special.....

Impermanence I

Today I was walking with H., we looked at the sky and we were wondering if in the millions of years of existence of our planet, there has ever been two identical clouds.....

In the millions of years of the universe existence, has there been two moments in which the universe has been identical?

Does this continuous change anything to do with impermanence?
If there are not two moments in which the universe was identical, that means that there is no permanence.....not only it does not exists now, but there has never been....
That means that from the very beginning of the universe, impermanence has been a constant feature......how could we expect it now???

And is there a relationship between impermanence and infinite potential (or it could be called multiplicity)?. They seem related to me. If there haven´t been two identical moments in such a length of time, that means a tremendous capacity to generate diversity......so, maybe, after all, impermanence is related to creativity......

Only our mind tends to want to put everything in a continuity, in a changeless state......by putting this total multiplicity into patterns.....

Education VII

Last night I saw a beautiful and inspiring film: "How to cook your life" (2007). Zen cook and monk Edward Espe Brown explains how to prepare bread and other foods.

But it is not only about food. Brown interlaces the preparation of food to topics as anger, anxiety, the mind and suffering.

This is how education has to be understood, and Edward Espe Brown acts as a real educator. He takes a seemingly simple act (as cooking), and uses it to go to very real and deep subjects of everyday life.

Watching the film several points popped up in my mind:

- A real teacher is not the product of many clever courses about (alternative or wholistic) education. It is the depth of the person who is a teacher that makes a difference.

- What is the role of religious people in a new kind of education? Should they come out of their monasteries and get more involved in education?

- Education cannot be just passing information-knowledge. Edward Espe Brown takes one subject like cooking and explores the relationship of the student with the subject, the relationship between the people in the class/group, the relation of the students with their own mind and the relationship of the student´s mind with life in general. And still learning something technical, like bread making, in a highly skilled way. One highlight of the film is when he refers to the bumps that have the metal tea pots, and he says they are a symbol for a person, as life inevitably produces bumps on you, but he refers to the dignity of the tea pots still serving its function.

- Another thing that popped in my mind, a bit unrelated to the film, was that if we want to send our children to a school, we should know the school really thoroughly, not just by references. In that sense, schools should offer some classes to the parents, so one could know firsthand the school and the teachers.

You could see a small clip of this film here.

Education VI

I am observing how my young twins develop. Since they are 3 month old, something happens that I did not understand at the beginning: when they are laid down they cry ferociously.

They calm down when you pick them up and show them things or when they are contemplating a new thing.

And the idea came to my mind that their brain (at this stage, at least) needs this stimulus to develop. Lines, textures, flavors, colours, not only feed information, but make the brain develop.

It is a kind of hunger. Same as the body is hungry for food to develop, the world is the food for the brain development.......

So, at this stage, we do not have to give any education, only to allow their exposure to the world.

The obsolete consciousness IV

The picture top most was taken from Marie Claire (September 2010), a well known fashion magazine. The text to the right of the picture says:
Jacket, 1990$, by Oscar de la Renta;
top, 595 $, Phillip Lim;
pants, 147$, Plastic Island;
shoes, 1395$, Michael Kors;
ring, 280$, Alexander McQueen

The bottom picture is a child picking through trash at a garbage dump in Philippines (1990).

These huge differences are another sign of an obsolete consciousness.......

Education V

My friend A. told me that when his daughter was born he took her in his hands and thought: " There is intelligence already here"....

This morning I was looking to one of my 6 month old twins and I saw this intelligence in his eyes......

So intelligence is already there. We do not have to produce it by means of so called education. Actually it would be completely impossible to do it. It would be more difficult than creating a new organ, a new arm.....

So, if intelligence is already there, what are the implications for education?.....
Do we have to add or to remove layers that prevent its expression?
Is education a process of adding or of uncovering?
If it is uncovering, mainly, what does it have to be uncovered, and what is the covering factor(s)?........

The obsolete consciousness III

The Aral sea from space in 1985

The Aral sea from space in 2009

The Aral Sea was one of the four largest lakes of the world with an area of 68,000 square kilometres (26,000 sq mi), the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by the Soviet Union for cotton irrigation projects. By 2007 it had declined to 10% of its original size.

The region's once prosperous fishing industry has been virtually destroyed, bringing unemployment and economic hardship. The retreat of the sea has reportedly also caused local climate change, with summers becoming hotter and drier, and winters colder and longer.

The ecosystem of the Aral Sea has been nearly destroyed, not least because of the much higher salinity. The receding sea has left huge plains covered with salt and toxic chemicals – the results of wepons testing, industrial projects, pesticides and fertilizer runoff – which are picked up and carried away by the wind as toxic dust and spread to the surrounding area. The land around the Aral Sea is heavily polluted and the people living in the area are suffering from a lack of fresh water and health problems, including high rates of certain forms of cancer, lung diseases, tuberculosis and certain types of cancer. Infectious diseases are common ailments in the region and liver, kidney and eye problems can also be attributed to the toxic dust storms. Health concerns associated with the region are a cause for an unusually high fatality rate amongst children and pregnant women.

This kind of separation from Nature and this kind of interaction with the environment is another sign of this obsolete consciousness.......

Education IV

I was reading through the Chidaksha Geeta by Bhagawan Nityananda, and I found this entry about education:

"A man or women should be educated. What is education? Jeeva should know the secret that He is the Paramatman."

"Explanations (from the lady that collected these teachings, Tulsiamma): That which we get in schools and colleges is no real education; that by which we recognise the unity of Jeevatma and Paramatma is real education. That which we ordinarily get is called "Apara-Vidya" (Inferior Knowledge); that which we get from a spiritual preceptor is called the "Para-Vidya" (Superior Knowledge). Man or Woman must be educated in the spiritual education i.e. they must realise the unity of Jeeva with Siva. This is real education."

- Jeeva: a jiva is a living being, or more specifically, the immortal essence of an individual living organism (human, animal, fish or plant etc.) which survives physical death.
- Paramatman: the whole Universe

(Bhagawan Nityananda born November/December, 1897 in Kerala, South India – died August 8, 1961.
Nityananda gave relatively little by way of verbal teachings. Most of the time he was silent, though occasionally he would give teachings. A devotee named Tulsiamma wrote down some of his teachings and his answers to her specific queries. Later, these notes came to be known as the Chidaksha Geeta.)

If interested, you can download the Chidaksha Geeta in here.

parenthood

How do you know that you love your children?

When you became a father most things change. The first thing that changes is the (cherished) sense of freedom of going here or there, of deciding by yourself what to do....the being constantly around the newborn. The changes in how you relate to your friends. To live in a different place than the one you want. The impossibility to be quiet, to read. Sometimes they could drive you to your limits. The change in mealtimes, in sleep patterns.....

Trying to answer the question posted above, I think is when their happiness is more important for you than the troubles you are going through.....or to put it in another way, when their happiness is more important to you than your suffering......

consciousness

When you became completely conscious of the consciousness you are in,
then you are out of it....

what is the purpose of education?

what is the purpose of education?

I was thinking about this question. There are many things which are important. But I was thinking what is the top of the piramid?...the thing from where all else cames from?....

And it flashed in my mind that the purpose of education is to know who you (really) are.

All else might be secondary......

It seems to me this is common with spirituality, as we could say that the purpose of spirituality is to know who you (really) are.........

And now....what?

"everything that you understand,you can only understand through concepts"

"Everything that you understand,
you can only understand through concepts"

(Nisargadatta Maharaj)

It should be VERY important that we are aware of this limitation.......

solidarity

I was reading about Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and I wanted to share a couple of paragraphs:

"There should be less talk; a preaching point is not a meeting point. What do you do then? Take a broom and clean someone's house. That says enough."


"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway."

And also I found her inner doubts, very likely a product of her intense inner search and questioning:

"Where is my faith? Even deep down ... there is nothing but emptiness and darkness ... If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul ... How painful is this unknown pain—I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, ... What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true."

have we human beings solidarity by nature?

I look in the dictionary, and I found that solidarity comes from the french "solide" (solid), almost implying that solidarity comes from a sense of unity of "all one"......

(From the dictionary: Solidarity, from French solidarité "mutual responsibility," a coinage of the "Encyclopédie" (1765), from solidaire "interdependent, complete, entire," from solide (solid))

solidarity...to a girl in Pakistan

She is 7 or 8 years old. One can see the distress in her face. Probably she is hungry, maybe she got separated from her family. But she is helping her little brother. I can see how she supports her right thumb in her left sleeve. Probably she has been carrying him for hours and her arm is tired. She has put her own scarf over him to protect him from the rain. They are both soaked....but she goes on....

My affection for you, little girl. You simbolize the best of us. I hope all goes well with you.

(Picture by Adrees Latif on the flooding in Pakistan)
(dedicated to E.G.)

“To be the best me I can be today.”

I am subscribed to a Multiple Sclerosis association, and in a mail arrived today they tell the story of Jim Dunlap. His story is one of courage and strength. Jim was a former professional bike racer and cycling team manager who is now forced to cope with the everyday struggles of living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

The unexpected and uncontrollable symptoms of MS have created new and unforeseen obstacles for him. His ability to walk was first encumbered by the need for a cane, and now he relies on a wheelchair to get around.

To Jim what is important is to accept the obstacles that arise every day and “To be the best me I can be today.”.

(Dedicated to the many, many anonymous heroes living everyday life, the mother that takes such care for her babies, the truck driver exhausted at the wheel because he loves his sons, the people that endure long hours of physical pain or dissability, the people in a monastery or with a normal life that are trying to advance this conscioussness......etc, etc, etc. )

silence

Is silence just the absence of sound?

The obsolete consciousness II

On August 6th 1945, at 8:15 a.m. local time, the plane Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb onto Hiroshima. Just 43 seconds later it exploded 1,900 feet above the city, killing 140.000 people.

One part of this obsolete consciousness had learned how to obtain energy by splitting matter. Another part had decided to use this knowledge to fight another part of the same consciousness, divided by something called nationality. Another part flew over Hiroshima and dropped it..... Then a part of the consciousness celebrated the success with joy and another part was crying with pain......

(see a re-enactment in this video)

When is the learning?

We were in a dialogue, part of an education course. Then C. asked the question: "when is the learning taking place?"......

And in that moment something "flashed" on my mind: "all learning can only be in the present moment"...

I know it sounds even topical, or obvious....but it impressed me as something new and important......