Kandinsky on painting

“Painting is an art. And art is a power that should be aimed at developing the soul. If art does not do this job, the abyss that separates us from God is left without a bridge.
The artist owes his talent to God and has to settle this debt. To do this, he has to work hard, know that he is free in his art but not in his commitment to life. Everything he feels and thinks is part of the raw material with which to improve the spiritual atmosphere around him.
Beauty, whether in art or in a woman, cannot be empty; it has to be at the service of humankind and the world.”

Follow your own Destiny

Example moves the world more than doctrine. Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.

Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.

Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other.

Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines – these are of trifling import. One of the reasons why so few of us ever act, instead of react, is because we are continually stifling our deepest impulses. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.
Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything. The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.

Henry Valentine Miller (26 December 1891 – 7 June 1980) was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of ‘novel’ that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism. For the author of this blog, he is one of the best writers of the XX Century

SOS del Rey Católico, Easter 2010

Paulo Coelho

Here I continue to transcribe extracts of the notes I took between 1982 and 1986 on my conversations with J., my friend and master in the Regnus Agnus Mundi (RAM) tradition. I remember that I was always asking for advice on any decision I had to take. J. usually remained silent for a while before speaking:

“People who are part of our daily life can give us important hints on decisions we need to take. But for this purpose all that is needed is a sharp eye and an attentive ear, because those who have ready solutions are usually suspect.

“It’s very dangerous to ask for advice. It’s very risky to lend advice, if we have a minimum sense of responsibility towards the other person. If they need help, it’s best to see how others resolve – or don’t resolve – their problems. Our angel often uses someone’s lips to tell us something, but this answer comes casually, usually at a moment when we do not let our worries overshadow the miracle of life. Let our angel speak the way he is used to, which is at the moment he deems necessary. Advice is just theory; living is always very different.”

“Don’t try to be coherent all the time; discover the joy of being a surprise to yourself. Being coherent is having always to wear a tie that matches your socks. It means being obliged to keep tomorrow the same opinions you have today. What about the world, which is always in movement? As long as it doesn’t harm anyone, change your opinion now and again, and contradict yourself without feeling ashamed – you have a right to that! It doesn’t matter what the others may think – because they are going to think that way no matter what.”

“But we are talking about faith.”

“Exactly! Go on doing what you do, but try to put love in every gesture: that will be enough to organize your quest. Usually we do not lend value to the things we do every day, but those are the things that change the world around us. We think that faith is a task for giants, but just read a few pages of the biography of any holy man and you will discover an absolutely ordinary person – except for the fact that they were determined to share the very best of themselves with others.

“Many emotions move the human heart when it decides to dedicate itself to the spiritual path. This may be a “noble” reason – like faith, love of our neighbor, or charity. Or it may be just a whim, the fear of loneliness, curiosity, or the fear of death. None of that matters. The true spiritual path is stronger than the reasons that led us to it and little by little it imposes itself with love, discipline and dignity. A moment arrives when we look backwards, remember the beginning of our journey, and laugh at ourselves. We have managed to grow, although we traveled the path for reasons that were very futile.”

“How do I know at least that I am traveling this path with love and dignity?”

“God uses loneliness to teach us about living together. Sometimes he uses anger so that we can understand the infinite value of peace. At other times he uses tedium, when he wants to show us the importance of adventure and leaving things behind.
“God uses silence to teach us about the responsibility of what we say. At times he uses fatigue so that we can understand the value of waking up. At other times he uses sickness to show us the importance of health.

“God uses fire to teach us about water. Sometimes he uses earth so that we can understand the value of air. And at times he uses death when he wants to show us the importance of life.”

Samurai Song

Samurai Song

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.

Robert Pinsky

Om Mani Padme Hum

Dream your Dream

Everybody here has the ability to do anything and much beyond. Some of you will, and some of you won’t. For those who won’t, it will be because you get in your own way, not because the world doesn’t allow you to. - By Warren Buffet

The forces of the universe

The forces of the universe
And the elements of space,
Conjured up your being
Your size, your time, your shape.
You were created
With all the beauty they could call,
And earth, you surely are
The measure of them all

Morning of the Earth

We are the measure of all things. And the beauty of our creation,
of our art, is proportional to the beauty of ourselves, of our souls
– Jonas Mekas

Free Will Astrology

Among Eastern religions, some traditions preach the value of getting rid of your desires. To be righteously attuned to current cosmic rhythms, however, I think you should rebel against that ideal, and instead cultivate a whole host of excellent desires. Use your imagination, please! Here are a few I highly recommend: a desire for a revelation or experience that will steer you away from becoming more like a machine; a desire for a fresh blast of purity from a primal source; a desire for an imaginary pet snake that teaches you how to be more playful with your libidinous energy; and a desire for a jolt of unexpected beauty that reminds you how important it is to always keep a part of your mind untamed.

Attachmant and Love

In true love you want your partner to be happy.

In false love you want your partner.

(en el verdadero amor deseas la felicidad de la otra persona ...

en el amor falso deseas la otra persona)

Exerpt from Elizabeth Gilbert´s book - Eat Pray Love

´´I keep remembering one of my gurus teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck,something that maybe descends upon you like fine weather if your fortunate enough. But thats not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort.You fight for it,strive for it,insist upon it , and even sometimes travel the world searching for it.You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.And once you have acheived a state of happiness,you must never become lax about maintaining it,you must make mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever,to stay afloat on top of it.If you dont you will leak away your inate contenment.Its easy enough to pray éven when your in distress,but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process,helping your soul hold tight to it´s good attainments.´´

Marriage - Kahilil Gibran

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.


Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.


Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

-BUDDHA TEACHING 1 : Nothing is lost in the universe-

The first truth is that nothing is lost in the universe. Matter turns into energy, energy turns into matter. A dead leaf turns into soil. A seed sprouts and becomes a new plant. Old solar systems disintegrate and turn into cosmic rays. We are born of our parents, our children are born of us.
We are the same as plants, as trees, as other people, as the rain that falls. We consist of that which is around us, we are the same as everything. If we destroy something around us, we destroy ourselves. If we cheat another, we cheat ourselves. Understanding this truth, the Buddha and his disciples never killed any animal.

-BUDDHA TEACHING 2 : Everything Changes-

The second universal truth of the Buddha is that everything is continuously changing. Life is like a river flowing on and on, ever-changing. Sometimes it flows slowly and sometimes swiftly. It is smooth and gentle in some places, but later on snags and rocks crop up out of nowhere. As soon as we think we are safe, something unexpected happens.
Once dinosaurs, mammoths, and saber-toothed tigers roamed this earth. They all died out, yet this was not the end of life. Other life forms like smaller mammals appeared, and eventually humans, too. Now we can even see the Earth from space and understand the changes that have taken place on this planet. Our ideas about life also change. People once believed that the world was flat, but now we know that it is round.

-BUDDHA TEACHING 2: Law of Cause and Effect-

The third universal truth explained by the Buddha is that there is continuous changes due to the law of cause and effect. This is the same law of cause and effect found in every modern science textbook. In this way, science and Buddhism are alike.
The law of cause and effect is known as karma. Nothing ever happens to us unless we deserves it. We receive exactly what we earn, whether it is good or bad. We are the way we are now due to the things we have done in the past. Our thoughts and actions determine the kind of life we can have. If we do good things, in the future good things will happen to us. If we do bad things, in the future bad things will happen to us. Every moment we create new karma by what we say, do, and think. If we understand this, we do not need to fear karma. It becomes our friend. It teaches us to create a bright future.

Buddha said...
"The kind of seed sown will produce that kind of fruit. Those who do good will reap good results. Those who do evil will reap evil results. If you carefully plant a good seed, You will joyfully gather good fruit."

On Forward moving...

In fact,the ability to start out upon you own impulse is fundamental to the gift of keeping going upon your own terms,not to mention the further and more fulfilling gift of getting started all over again-never resting upon the oars of success or in the doldrums of disappointment......getting started,keeping going,getting started again-in art and in life it seems to me this is the essential rhythm....
-Seamus Heaney-

Creativity

"(Art)... rescues us from our self chosen triviality, to which we are so prone. It is like a deep organ note that makes my hair stir and a shiver run through me. I 'pull back' from life, like a camera taking a long shot with a wide angle lens. I quite simply become aware of more reality than before." -Colin Wilson (The Occult)

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

Lao-Tzu

“In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.”
-Jiddu Krishnamurti-

Indian Theosophist Philosopher, wrote The Future of Humanity, Songs of Life, Kingdom Happiness. 1895-1986

Pushkar-India

-Be at one with the World, Nothing Less, Nothing More-

Rumi

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense.

mevlana jelaluddin rumi - 13th century

You Are a Prophet

You Are a Prophet

excerpted from PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia

Your imagination is the single most important asset you possess.

Your imagination is your power to create mental pictures of things that don't exist yet and that you want to bring into being.

Your imagination is what you use to shape your future.

And so in your own way, you are a prophet. You generate countless predictions every day. Your imagination is the source, tirelessly churning out mental pictures of what you'll be doing in the future.

The featured prophecy of the moment may be as simple as a psychic impression of yourself devouring a fudge brownie at lunch or as monumental as a daydream of some year building your dream home on a mountainside in Hawaii.

Your imagination is a treasure when it spins out scenarios that are aligned with your deepest desires. Indeed, it is an indispensable tool in creating the life you want; it's what you use to form images of the conditions you'd like to inhabit and the objects you hope to wield. Nothing manifests on the material plane unless it first exists as a mental picture.

But for most of us, the imagination is as much a curse as a blessing. We're often just as likely to use it to conjure up premonitions that are at odds with our conscious values -- that's the result of having absorbed toxic programming from the media and from our parents at an early age and from other influential people in our past.

Fearful fantasies regularly pop up into our awareness, many disguising themselves as rational thoughts and genuine intuitions. Thos fearful fantasies may hijack our psychic energy, directing it to exhaust itself in dead-end meditations.

Every time we entertain a vision of being rejected or hurt or frustrated, every time we rouse and dwell on a memory of a painful experience, we're basically blasting ourselves with a hex.

Meanwhile, ill-suited longings are also lurking in our unconscious mind, impelling us to want things that aren't good for us and that we don't really need. Anytime we surrender to the allure of these false and trivial and counterproductive desires, our imagination is practicing a form of black magic.

This is the unsavory aspect of the imagination that the Zen Buddhists deride as the "monkey mind." The monkey mind is the part of our mental apparatus that's filled with pictures that endlessly zip around with the energy of an agitated monkey. If we can stop locating our sense of self in the endless surge of the monkey mind's slapdash fantasies, only then might we be able to be here now and want what we actually have.

But whether our imagination is in service to our noble desires or in the thrall of compulsive fears and inappropriate yearnings, there is one constant: The prophecies of our imagination can be pretty accurate. Many of our visions of the future do come to pass. The situations we expect to occur and the experiences we rehearse and dwell on are at least sometimes reflected back to us as events that confirm our expectations.

Does that mean that our mental projections create the future? Let's consider that possibility. What if it's at least partially true that what we expect will happen does tend to materialize?

Well, here's the logical conclusion: It's downright stupid and self-destructive to keep infecting our imaginations with pictures of loss and failure, doom and gloom, fear and loathing. The far more sensible approach is to expect blessings and joy and peace and fulfillment and understanding and meaningfulness.

And that's the reason why I'm so reverent in composing my messages for you. If I'm to be one of the influences you invite into the intimate sanctuary where you nurse your self-fulfilling prophecies, I really want to be gentle with you. It's why I avoid invoking worry and doubt, and instead nudge you in the direction of passion, integrity, happiness, and generosity.

And that's exactly the approach I'd like you to take. I want you to pay ultimate respect to yourself. Understand your power as a potent prophet of your own life. Flush away the images running around your imagination that are not in harmony with your life goals. Create images that encourage you to be your best. Cultivate feelings and ideas and imaginations that are in alignment with your highest ideals and deepest desires.

Dreamers

Poem from an Ashram, Kerela

Some people do not have to search, for they find their niche easily in life and rest there seemingly content and resigned.
At times I envy them, but usually I do not understand them... and seldom do they understand me.
I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we completely content. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand.
We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by it's power and unceasing motion, it's mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests, mountains, deserts, hidden rivers and lovely cities, aswell.
Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as our laughter.

We searchers are ambitious only for life itself and for anything beautiful it can provide. Most of all, we want to love and be loved, to live in relationship that will not impede our wanderings and prevent our search. We do not want to prove ourselves to others or compete for love.

This passage is for wanderers, dreamers, and lovers who dare to ask of life everything which is good and beautiful.

Love

Where is that promise of Love? Love is in the nature all around you
and in the eyes of your true soul friends,
some have found you
and the others will continue to find you... always.