PARABRAHMAN

There is no mind, no body, no world, no universe, no God, no karma, no past lives, no samskaras and no parabrahman.
Non of this exists.
You have to come to terms with your life. That takes total honesty. You can't go on fooling yourself. Look how you run around from pillar to post. You go here, you go there. You are always searching. You are always looking. You are always striving. For what?
Some of you think you are going to find a teacher up in the sky some place., and you are going to go searching for that teacher until you find him or her. No such teacher exists.
When you finally settle down and start going into the Silence more often, the teacher will appear to you and you will find he is none other than yourself.
I am yourself. I can see that very clearly. There is no difference between you and me. When you feel depressed, when you feel angry, when you feel out of sorts, that's me you feel. When you feel happy, when you feel enlightened, when you feel beautiful, that is also me you feel. All this is the Self, and I am That.
You still think I'm talking about Mahatma Andy? Mahatma Andy has nothing to do with this. http://itisnotreal.com/satsang_with_robert/Collected_works_3.html# number 14, infact all of them.
I'm speaking of Omnipresence. I'm speaking of nothing.
And I think to continue writing is a waste of time.
Good luck.

'The divine beauty
Of heaven and earth!
All creation,
Members of
One family.'
- Morihei Ueshiba

PINK KINK IN YOUR THINK

It's drawing in. I can feel it.
Any moment now I will loose my mind and I'll be in bliss.
Not just when I try hard for a couple of hours but all the time. I know it.
And it scares me.
I find distractions. Picking arguments, watching television, movies, provoking people, judging, getting involved in pointless conversations. Ego stuff. Anything but to sit still and observe.
Keith is back on the scene, making me doubt.
'You'll lose everything. Your job, wife and she'll take the children. Have you noticed you are annoying other people? Making them feel uncomfortable. They say things behind your back. They think you strange. You are no longer one of them. It's not too late, you can go back to your old ways.'
Old ways. No thanks. I'm prepared to lose everything.
I think.
And that's the problem.
I think I'm prepared, but not sure. I think. That's the problem.
I think.
But when I'm quiet I know that I will lose nothing and gain everything. I need to be quiet more often. All the time. No one is annoyed by the caring quiet man listening to their problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundin
I need a Jackalope to remind me to keep Boundin'.

'The Art of Peace is not easy. It is a fight to the finish, the slaying of evil desires and all falsehood within. On occasion the Voice of Peace resounds like thunder, jolting human beings out of their stupor.' - Morihei Ueshiba.

FLOYD

Looking back I think my school was trying to tell me something. All the teachers had comical names. Mr Carpenter the woodwork teacher, Mrs French the French teacher and Mrs Spatula the Home Economics teacher. I made that last one up, but the others are true.
In 1979 Another Brick in the Wall was a hit in Britain, and was causing controversy. I was 13 and the English teacher, Mrs Semi-Colon, asked us to write an essay on it.
Mine was read out. I argued that the song was just as bad as the institution it was railing against. It's monotonous hypnotic beat inciting kids to rise up and change the system.
A popular idea with the teachers but not popular with the kids.
So the usual wedgie in the play ground and me wondering when I took my Duffle coat off at home where all that phlegm on the back of it had come from.
Looking back I think what I was trying to say was leave the world alone. I knew then deep down it was a pointless exercise to try and change it. It wont get any worse it wont get any better.
It is just a test.
I lost sight of that as I grew into adulthood, hypnotised by my surroundings. You can only be hypnotised if you want to be hypnotised.
I don't want to be hypnotised anymore.
Time to wake up.

"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?!" - Roger Waters.

PEACE

I saw Guru Irene this weekend. She seems to have finally found peace.
She has that look in her eyes. Distant but the lights are on and the mind is still very sharp. It wasn't always that way. She battled alcoholism for 20 years and it crippled her. Her mind was dulled and railing against everything in those years. It has left her gaunt, twisted and in pain. She hardly eats, shuffles about on a zimmer frame, and finds little joy in the world now. Even her grandchildren fail to drag her back into the illusion. She has had enough. But she has found peace.
Have you?
I asked her what she has learnt in her time on this earth.
'Be tough, be strong, don't let others push you about.'
I love you Irene. You are me.

"Study the teachings of the pine tree, the bamboo, and the plum blossom. The pine is evergreen, firmly rooted, and venerable. The bamboo is strong, resilient, unbreakable. The plum blossom is hardy, fragrant, and elegant. '' - Morihei Ueshiba

BETTY

Betty died yesterday. And Boris starting eating her corpse.
The kids were distraught. Tropical fish are beautiful creatures.
'I hate that crab Boris! Why do we have to have him?' cried Guru Basil.
Guru Esther was wailing 'Cruel Cruel Crab'.
Guru Monty looked bemused and started playing the harmonica.
I explained that Betty decided to leave her body and didn't need it any more. It sank to the bottom of the tank and Boris didn't know any better and thought he'd eat it to keep his body strong, after all Betty didn't need it anymore. Don't judge Boris, he didn't kill Betty.
That seemed to work.
But I am waiting for the cannibal questions.

'Techniques employ four qualities that reflect the nature of our world. Depending on the circumstance, you should be: hard as a diamond, flexible as a willow, smooth-flowing like water, or as empty as space. ' - Morihei Ueshiba

THE DOOR

'When I was a child, my parents told me never to open the cellar door. "Never open the cellar door," they said, and for many years, I obeyed them, although I always wondered what it was that was so dangerous behind the cellar door. And then one day, when there was no one around, I finally got up my courage... I slowly walked over... I put out my hand... and I opened the cellar door. And I saw wonderful things! Amazing things! Trees! The sky! Other children!' - Emo Phillips
That is one of my favourite jokes.
One day you decide that you wish to do more than look out of the door. You stop listening to the people around you, the people that mean well but have become lost and want the safety in numbers. You listen to your heart, your true self. And you realise you must get up, brush yourself off, leave behind all that held you in darkness, the anger, the rage, resentment, self-pity, meanness and leave the basement. You simply pick up your feet and get on with it.
You walk out the door.

'You cannot see or touch the Divine with your gross senses. The Divine is within you, not somewhere else. Unite yourself to the Divine, and you will be able to perceive gods wherever you are, but do not try to grasp or cling to them. ' - Morihei Ueshiba

CONSCIOUSNESS

Everything has a consciousness, buildings, trees, people, animals. Everything.
Everything effects your thinking. Everything effects your action. Everything effects your being.
So keep good company and natural surroundings.
Reminds me of pigeons. The ones seen in London compared to the ones seen in the country.
Feet missing, misshapen, oily, tufted feathers, scratching at filthy pavements compared to the well groomed specimens hanging out in the woods dining on the finest grub.
Why don't these unhappy pigeons move to the country?
They are probably not unhappy. And they are not thinking. They are just going through the motions of existence.
London isn't bad, it just may not be the most natural habitat for most people.
I've always thought that for meditation to be any good you must be able to do it anywhere and at anytime. Not just for 30 minutes in the mornings and evenings but 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not just in a nice warm room, scented with candles and permeated with relaxing music, but also in the heat of a war zone, scented with cordite and permeated with explosions.
SAS Meditators - that would be an interesting regiment. A platoon of soldiers floating around a war zone telling everyone to pack it in.
London could be the training ground.

Rely on Peace To activate your Manifold powers;
Pacify your environment
And create a beautiful world.
- Morihei Ueshiba.

EXERCISE

Guru Monty has decided to join me for morning exercise.
He woke up early and grumpy. He wanted to be held as he is only 2 years old and likes the security.
Don't we all? Nothing wrong with having security, it is the wanting it that causes the suffering.
The problem was I wanted to exercise. So I did both. I held Monty and tailored my routine to incorporate a giggling bundle of glee.
We had a lot of fun. Bouncing up and down, running on the spot, stretching, swinging, ducking, diving.
He has joined me three mornings in a row now.
Now the problem comes now when I try to leave for work. He wants to come. Tears and clinging, pleading to go with me. I hand him back to mum.
And leave.
That is the hard bit.
I ask mum how long he cries for after I leave.
About 2 seconds and then he is off playing music or starts colouring.
Life goes on.

'Daily training in the Art of Peace allows you inner divinity to shine brighter and brighter. Do not concern yourself with the right and wrong of others. Do not be calculating or act unnaturally. Keep your mind set on the Art of Peace, and do not criticize other teachers or traditions. The Art of Peace never restrains, restricts, or shackles anything. It embraces all and purifies everything. ' - Morihei Ueshiba

BRUSSEL SPROUTS

When I was 14 I worked in a fruit and veg shop 3 evenings after school for 2 hours, and all day Saturday.
Guru Nana used to bring me 1/2lb of Jelly Babies every Saturday afternoon.
She would stand outside the shop not wanting to disturb the bustle.
In the evenings I would visit her and she would bath my feet in a Radox salt bath and feed me Angel Cake and copious cups of tea. Guru Grandad would talk about space, time, infinity and crosswords.
Wonderful.
One Saturday afternoon when it was quiet in the shop I was out the back sorting the 'snotty' Brussel Sprouts from the good ones.
Not an interesting or pleasant task. So I started thinking about a question Grandad had asked me:
'Can you imagine infinity?'
I gave it a go.
The next thing I knew I was being shaken by the shop owner, asking me if I was OK. Apparently I had been staring into space for the last 45 minutes, snotty sprout in hand. They had decided to leave me at first because I looked funny, but after a while they grew concerned.
I was fine. Very fine.
I could remember nothing about the experience. Just the decision to let go and think of infinity. I was trying to reach the end of the universe. I didn't get there.
I explained all this to the people in the shop looking concerned. They started to look even more concerned, so I decided to keep quiet and never try it again.
It was a lovely experience but tainted by wanting the approval of the people present.
I'm going to give it another go tonight, brussel sprouts are in season.

“We kids feared many things in those days - werewolves, dentists, North Koreans, Sunday School - but they all paled in comparison with Brussels sprouts.” Dave Barry, Miami Herald Columnist

SPACE

I was musing with Guru Basil about space. Science has proven that the human body is almost entirely made up of space. This is due to the incredibly small size of the molecules/atoms and the vast distances between them. Intriguing thought.
Guru Basil helped me out
'It makes sense Dad. We are part of the Earth, the earth is part of the solar system, the sun the stars, which are all part of the galaxies, which are all part of space. It is all connected.'
He instantly saw it and took it to another level. Einstein would be proud. And Eddington.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Eddington
Eddington did the measurements that put Einstein and his theories on the world map.
Eddington had a strong belief in God.
My guess is that science an religion will eventually realise they are seeing the same thing.

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein.
"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." - Albert Einstein.

SERVICE

It is extremely rare for an individual to give up identifying with the body and be of service to everyone. Mother Teresa and Ghandi are two names that spring to mind. Oh yeah and Bono.
Another name for service is love. Not the claustrophobic you are mine to the exclusion of all others human love, but all encompassing Devine love.
Whenever I have done something to help another with out expecting anything in return it has been an almost absent minded service, no thought involved, just a compunction to be there for that person. I have always been amazed what an incredible feeling of happiness I derive from it. The benefit to me has always out weighed the potential hardship of being there.
Why don't I do this continually? Like Teresa and Ghandi.
I don't believe I'm good enough. I don't believe in myself.
How can I make your life better today? That is how I should greet everybody.
Best make a start, I've wasted a lot of time.

'The Art of Peace does not rely on weapons or brute force to succeed; instead we put ourselves in tune with the universe, maintain peace in our own realms, nurture life, and prevent death and destruction. The true meaning of the term samurai is one who serves and adheres to the power of love. ' - Morihei Ueshiba

THE WORLD IS NOT AN ILLUSION

The only thing that is constant in this World is change. Everything changes.
Perfect Truth would never change. So everything that changes is a lie an illusion?
The World is not an illusion. This is a concept. The World is an illusion. This is another concept. What would absolute reality have to do with concepts?
Nothing.
The Truth is already there, why would it need a general incomplete idea about itself?
It doesn't.
So both concepts must be wrong. Illusions if you like.
Keith is complaining. Clever incomplete argument. It's not even clever, just confusing and not at all helpful. Taking things to the limit is not satisfying.
Tell that to Newton, Einstein, Feynman, all of them loved there calculus and taking things to the limit.
And Keith again is right.
My argument is wrong. In fact in absolute reality it doesn't exist. How can it? The world can not exist, I can't exist, so how can my musings exist.
They can't.
So why bother writing a blog of nonsense?
To prove to myself that collating facts, reading books, learning, debating, musing is not the way to find the answer. It points the way. But there comes a time when you have to forget. Learn and forget.
And the way is beyond thought. Have you tried to stop thinking?
It is lovely.

'Move like a beam of light:
Fly like lightning,
Strike like thunder,
Whirl in circles around
A stable center.'
-Morihei Ueshiba

REINCARNATION

I had a dream. In this dream I was a hermit meditating all day long.
A great sage came by my spot. He was off to see God. So I asked him to ask God how long I would have to sit there until I was enlightened.
When he returned he told me to look at the big, leafy tree I was sitting under and to count the leaves. That was how many life times I would have to reincarnate before I became enlightened.
I grew angry. I had been meditating all my life. I thought sod that! I don't even believe in reincarnation, I didn't the first time I was here. So I got up and went into town to get drunk and chase some skirt.
The next moment I was under the tree again meditating and the great sage walked by, off to see God. I asked him to ask God how long it would be until I was enlightened.
When he returned he told me to count the leaves on the tree again, and that was how many life times I would have to reincarnate before I became enlightened.
This time I jumped up and down with joy and shouted,
'Thank you God, just one tree!'
I woke up laughing.

'The techniques of the Art of Peace are neither fast nor slow, nor are they inside or outside. They transcend time and space.' - Morihei Ueshiba

NOTHING IS GOING ON

I was introduced to a marvellous concept the other day, that nothing is happening, nothing is going on.
Time, the world, the planets, the universe is all illusion, a dream and your experiences, emotions and energy are all an hallucination.
When you dream it seems so real. Years can pass in a dream. You can go grow old, fly, breathe underwater, become young again, fantastic feats and it all seems so reasonable.
You can also have horrors, incredible fears and vile monsters.
When you wake up you realise the deception.
The idea is that there are many layers of this deception.
The Truth is nothing is going on.
It is a lovely concept, just thinking deeply on it makes you feel happy. Try it.
Keith says it makes him scared. You have to do something, you have to be someone, you must survive.
Keith is getting a lot more quiet nowadays but this idea woke him up.
So all the meditation, reading of scriptures, going to church, raves, all the things you do to get high is a waste of time. Any peak experience has not actually happened.
Any gain, any loss. Nothing has happened.
Just peace. Bliss beyond imagination.
And so to the random quote generator to sum up the above:

'I believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.' - Arthur Hays Sulzberger

HIVE MIND

Most people bulk at the idea that humans have a hive mind.
It is a deep fear of losing their identity. They want to be an individual. They want separation.
They want an ego.
A type of hive mind is conformity.
Attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people. It may occur as the result of subtle influences, or by direct and overt social pressure.
Conformity may also occur by the "implied presence" of others, when other people are not actually present.
Religions are good at instilling this implied presence.
This want of separation causes a lot of unhappiness.
It is a very good exercise to look at a stranger in the street and say to yourself 'You are me.'
Do it and see what happens.
What is wrong with admitting we all have the same needs, desires, worries, fears, and thoughts.
Nothing.

Brian Cohen of Nazareth: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't need to follow me, You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for your selves! You're all individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian Cohen of Nazareth: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we are all different!
Man in crowd(George Harrison): I'm not...
The Crowd: Sch!

IGNIS FATUUS

I read this very long article about Wall Street today.
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?tid=true
Michael Lewis is a good, persausive writer and he managed to draw me into his maya illusion. I felt quite sick after reading about the excesses of capitalism.
Then I started to discriminate. So a few swearing nerds made a lot of money from the collapse of the global financial system, and a large man with big hands lost a job that was well paid because of some words that were written about him and the empire he created.
What does that mean?
If you take it from the view point of leaving the world alone, of realising the illusion then it means nothing.
Absolutely meaningless.
My granny wouldn't have a frame of reference to understand that article, it would take some time to explain it to her, to get her to appreciate the complexity of the illusion. In fact I'm not sure you could explain that one to my Gran, she'd probably look blankly and say 'That´s nice dear'.
Get her talking about homosexuality, or black presidents and that would be a different matter.
Nothing matters. No thing matters. What is beyond matter is what matters.
Things, stuff, illusion, complexity, trash it is all worthless. Foolish fire, Ignis Fatuus.
If you have nothing and everyone around you loses their stuff, are you in a better situation?
If you have nothing then you are in the best position of all, and you would rejoice at everyone else having nothing. But of course this is hard to understand as most people are involved in this Ignis Fatuus that is the world.

'Those who are possessed by nothing possess everything. ' - Morihei Ueshiba

INSTRUCTORS

I like to click on this grid http://omlc.ogi.edu/aikido/talk/osensei/artofpeace/index.html
for inspiration once a day. Today I clicked on:

'Instructors can impart only a fraction of the teaching. It is through your own devoted practice that the mysteries of the Art of Peace are brought to life. '

This is something I keep coming back to recently.
You can read up on a subject until you are a walking encyclopedia, you can have all the head knowledge in the world, but eventually you have to apply it, you have to experience the subject.
This is the problem of the world, so many people reading and talking about it, few actually doing something about it. This has always been the worlds problem.
What did I do today to get myself to realise the Truth?
Did I sit and moan about something that happened 30 years ago?
Did I read a newspaper and tut at man´s inhumanity to man?
Did I sit and 'relax' in the evening by watching someone else's problems on a soap opera?
Did I go to the pub and get slightly high on European fighting lager?
Or did I sit and use the mind to conquer the mind?
Did I ask the awkward questions?
Who am I? What is this world?To whom do these thoughts come? What am I? What is my relation to the world?
Did I let the answers come to me? Did I try to control the answers, so that they conformed to the answers that I had read about?
Or did I sit and wait?
Ask the questions and sit in the silence.
I´ve decided to give myself a treat and to see if Guru Ueshiba has any advice on what I have just written, so I clicked on the grid once more:

´It is necessary to develop a strategy that utilizes all the physical conditions and elements that are directly at hand. The best strategy relies upon an unlimited set of responses. '

Spot on again! I am now going to post a random quote from the interweb, this one from random-quotes.com:

"I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence.There's a knob called `brightness', but it doesn't work." -- Gallagher --

PARADISE

The Bureau of Meteorology in Australia runs a photographic competition each year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/earth/3391311/2009-Australian-Weather-Calendar.html

This world maybe in an illusion but it can be a very beautiful one. Can be an absolute shocker too. Keith doesn't fancy getting caught in the lightening strike in Darwin. He can moan about every single picture on that calender; that sea looks cold, imagine spending the night there, fire!

It is so easy to get caught up in the world. So many distractions. Beautiful and bad.

If you were living a fairly comfortable life in a village experiencing the usual ups and downs, triumphs and disappointments, joy of birth the sadness of death, good health and crippling disease and you knew that just outside that village across the Swamp of Doom lay Paradise where there was nothing but bliss would you make the journey?

Depends what is in the Swamp of Doom.

But if you knew you could not die you wouldn't care what was in the swamp. And you'd walk into Paradise.

That pesky fear of dying again.

So that's the key; 1) Know that you never die and 2) be prepared to put up with a bit of unpleasantness for a while.

I'm having trouble with the first bit.

And the second if I'm honest.

But my rational brain is saying that I am conditioning myself with mumbo jumbo. It concedes that I have never been happier and lighter in my life despite what is going on around me. It also concedes that fundamentally I haven't changed and it is beginning to realise that my substratum is in fact happiness.

I have a choice;

1) Get involved in the world and try to conquer and bend everything to my will

or

2) Keep going, practicing my releasing, meditation, self enquiry, developing love, compassion and humility and getting happier and lighter.

I choose Paradise.

"When Alexander of Macedonia was 33 he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer - Bristow is only 27" - Sid Waddell.

FREEDOM

'When I had my awakening, I was fourteen years old. This body was sitting in a classroom taking a math test. And all of a sudden I felt myself expanding. I never left my body, which proves that the body never existed to begin with. I felt the body expanding, and a brilliant light began to come out of my heart. I happened to see the light in all directions. I had peripheral vision, and this light was really my Self. It was not my body and the light. There were not two. There was this light that became brighter and brighter and brighter, the light of a thousand suns. I thought I would be burnt to a crisp, but alas, I wasn't.
But this brilliant light, of which I was the center and also the circumference, expanded throughout the universe, and I was able to feel the planets, the stars, the galaxies, as myself. And this light shone so bright, yet it was beautiful, it was bliss, it was ineffable, indescribable.
After a while the light began to fade away, and there was no darkness. There was just a place between light and darkness, the place beyond the light. You can call it the void, but it wasn't just a void. It was this Pure Awareness I always talk about. I was aware that I Am That I Am. I was aware of the whole universe at the same time. There was no time, there was no space, there was just the I Am.
Then everything began to return to normal, so to speak. I was able to feel and understand that all of the planets, the galaxies, the people, the trees, the flowers on this earth, everything, were myriads of energy, and I was in everything. I was the flower. I was the sky. I was the people. The I was everything. Everything was the I. The word 'I' encompassed the whole universe.' - Robert Adams.

'Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond.' - Roger Waters.

TIME

Time is an illusion. All the clues are there. Even scientists are starting to realise. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg19726391.500-is-time-an-illusion.html
You've got to love scientists; solve one problem by coming up with ten more. Busy busy busy.
The best bit in that article is from the lead scientist, Carlo Rovelli -
"It is not reality that has a time flow, it is our very approximate knowledge of reality that has a time flow," says Rovelli. "Time is the effect of our ignorance."
Beautiful.
Buddha could not have said it better.
Reinventing the wheel though. It has all been done before. Or as time does not exist, it has all been thought, done, improved upon instantaneously. And then redone, rethought, re-improved ad infinitum.
But even that statement implies time.
But leads closer to the truth.
The concept of time is a limitation. Once you get rid of that limitation amazing things should begin to happen. Teleportation, prescience, omnipresence, you will never die and you can never be born.
Keith says that was a step too far, 'Where's the proof in the literature, at least the scientists are trying to put it in concrete terms. They are trying to understand it, you are spouting nonsense.'
I say if you get rid of another limitation, thinking, than you will be there.
Stop thinking and start experiencing.
We've all done it. Waiting for Christmas as a child. The conversations my mum had with her friends on the way to the shops, would they ever stop? Kissing my wife for the first time, seems like yesterday.
But that is not it either, those moments are again just pointers to the Truth.
Be still. Breath in and say to yourself 'I', breathe out and say 'Am'. Do this for a day.
I'll do it myself when I get the time.
Over to Guru Adams again:

'Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.' - Douglas Adams

'There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.' - Douglas Adams.