Our Second Chance to Play, Parenthood

"By helping this child to grow into a beautiful human being, into a buddha, you will be becoming the mother of a buddha. You will not be obliging the child: you will be simply enjoying your own life; your own life will become a fragrance through the child.This is an opportunity, a God-given opportunity.

And these are the two pitfalls: either you neglect the child, you are tired of it; or you become too serious about the child, and you start burdening him, obliging him.

Both are wrong. Help the child – but for the sheer joy of it. And never feel that he owes any debt to you. On the contrary, feel thankful that he has chosen you to be his mother. Let your motherhood bloom through him.If you can bloom into your motherhood, you will feel thankful to the child forever.And, naturally, there will be sacrifices, but they have to be made…joyously. Only then is it a sacrifice! If you do it without joy it is not sacrifice. Sacrifice comes from the word sacred. When you do it joyfully, it is sacred. When you don’t do it joyfully, then you are just fulfilling a duty – and all duties are ugly, they are not sacred. This is a great opportunity. Meditate over it, go into it deeply. You will never find such a deep involvement – in fact, there is none as it is between a child and the mother. Not even between the husband and the wife, the lover and the beloved – the involvement is not so deep as it is between the mother and the child. It cannot be so deep with anybody ever – because the child has lived in you for nine months as you; nobody else can live in you for nine months as you.And the child will become a separate individual sooner or later, but somewhere deep down in the unconscious the mother and the child remain linked.If your child can become a buddha, you will be benefited by it; if your child grows and becomes a beautiful human being, you will be benefited by it – because the child will always remain connected with you. Only the physical connection has been disconnected; the spiritual connection is never disconnected.

Thank God! Motherhood is a blessing.” Osho

Life Within the Paradox is Non Dual

"Not effort or
the absence of effort,
neither choice nor the impossibility of choice,
neither self nor not self,
neither nothing nor something,
neither emptiness nor form,
neither unborn nor born,
the third thing..." - John Astin

The embrace of third alternative does not blot out any part of reality, or substitute it with a new shiny version - it very simply completes the picture. Nothing seems wrong anymore. When we are presented by the two opposites in a story, no longer do either of them scare or titillate us quite as much, as we naturally choose the third alternative.

The third alternative has its own flavor - it tastes like wholeness, and smells of paradox. It is a dimension of being that holds all paradox snugly in its unicity. It is not the solution to all our problems, we find out, but the inclusion of all our problems into that greater wholeness. This third alternative, according to Dr. John Astin, is non dual reality.

It is nothing you can take hold of conceptually, and it's not any particular experience (as opposed to any other experience). It is the awaring presence, the beingness, the IS-ness of this moment -- this that is undeniably present beyond all doubt, requiring no proof or belief, impossible to deny -- before and after and even during all the grasping and searching and experience-mongering. The words (presence, beingness, awareness, IS-ness) are only pointers. What they point to is nothing you can get hold of as an object. What is, is thorough-going flux, and yet it is always right here, right now. This awaring presence (or emptiness, or no-thing-ness) is pure subjectivity, your true nature. This is all there really is.

From here, there is no inside/outside, you/me, right/wrong distinction, there is only unity and perfection of all there is. Everything that comes into our experience leads us here, and from here, the beginning is the end which is the flow. Is this possible? Can we live from here?

What do YOU think?

Sharing a Laugh and a Smile

Some say laughter is the quickest way to change our mood or thinking. How often do you laugh? Can you laugh at yourself? Do you intentionally seek laughter to change your mood? Is laughter of value in your life, or just a natural reaction to stimuli?

Marshall Brain has studied laughter and tells us that the average adult laughs 17 times a day. When we laugh heartily, changes occur in many parts of the body, even the arm, leg and trunk muscles. Laughter seems to be produced via a circuit that runs through many regions of the brain. (This means that damage to any of these regions can impair one's sense of humor and response to humor, experts say.)

• The left side of the cortex (the layer of cells that covers the entire surface of the forebrain) analyzed the words and structure of the joke.
• The brain's large frontal lobe, which is involved in social emotional responses, became very active.
• The right hemisphere of the cortex carried out the intellectual analysis required to "get" the joke.
• Brainwave activity then spread to the sensory processing area of the occipital lobe (the area on the back of the head that contains the cells that process visual signals).
• Stimulation of the motor sections evoked physical responses to the joke.

Behavioral neurobiologist and pioneering laughter researcher Robert Provine believes that laughter is a decidedly social signal, not an egocentric expression of emotion. In the absence of stimulating media (television, radio or books), people are about 30 times more likely to laugh when they are in a social situation than when they are alone. Humor that creates laughter in these situations may be:

The incongruity theory suggests that humor arises when logic and familiarity are replaced by things that don't normally go together.

The relief theory - an actual story or situation creates tension within us. As we try to cope with two sets of emotions and thoughts, we need a release and laughter is the way of cleansing our system of the built-up tension and incongruity.

In some respects laughter may be a signal of dominance/submission or acceptance/rejection. Consider the distinction between laughing with and laughing at someone.

The superiority theory comes into play when we laugh at jokes that focus on someone else's mistakes, stupidity or misfortune.

A speaker, in other cases, may buffer an aggressive comment with laughter or deliver a remark using "laugh-speak," a consciously controlled hybrid of laughter and speech. In this sense laughter may modify the behavior of others by shaping the emotional tone of a conversation.

Laughter, in its highest form, can also be intentionally used to uplift the spirits of others, as in the case of clowns and comedians who visit hospitals and hospices to bring smiles to those in most need of them. In the Presence of Humor: A Guide to the Humorous Life by Cy Eberhart is a systematic and comprehensive guide, written to increase your ability to find and achieve the humorous life by activating your comic viewpoint. It's designed to help you realize the spiritual strengths that come from experiencing the humor present in your living.

What do YOU think?

Awaken to Multidimensionality

There is much discussion about the notion of human multidimensionality. What, exactly, does it mean? We know that physically, our world consists of three dimensions. The first dimension begins with a point in space, the second, a line between this and another point, the third, allowing depth - length, height, depth. The fourth dimension is said to be time, and if we add time to the first three dimensions we can measure a three dimensional object as it changes over time. Time is the dimension of changeability. Scientists tell us that there are an infinite number of dimensions and each dimension is infinite. There are those who believe that the fifth dimension is compassion and that bringing the highest form of feeling into our dimensionality allows us to embrace all dimensions, infinitely. What do YOU think?

Celebrate Thanksgiving with Gratitude

". . . the pang of affection & gratitude is the Gift of God for good. I am thankful that I feel it; it draws the soul towards Eternal life & conjunction with Spirits of just men made perfect by love & gratitude, the two angels who stand at heaven's gate ever open, ever inviting guests to the marriage. O foolish Philosophy! Gratitude is Heaven itself; there could be no heaven without Gratitude. I feel it & I know it. I thank God & Man for it . . ." William Blake

The United States of America is today celebrating Thanksgiving as the one day of the year that we are encouraged to look inward at all the blessings in our lives, and give thanks for what we appreciate. I think that as global consciousness emerges, the awareness of gratitude as a powerful attitude of spirit, that contributes to emotional integrity and happiness in life, occurs more and more. Sacred space is created by complete honesty, appreciation and psychological safety. Gratitude plays an important part in our unfolding, this day and every day.

The GO GRATITUDE experiment that began in 2005 offers a model for making gratitude a habit. As of 3/14/07, 972,343 people have watched the GoGratitude Flash movie and 178,539 people from all walks of life and from 153 countries have joined the Gratitude Experiment since its launch on Nov 21, 2005. A wave of gratitude sweeps the globe. How refreshing.

I would like to express gratitude for my friend, Chris Bernard, and his vision of love and support. Thanks too, to all my friends, readers and family that fill my life with light and love. So many thanks. Happy Thanksgiving.

Love and Self Discovery

Does love lead to self discovery? How?

Both light and shadow are the dance of Love.
Love has no cause;
It is the astrolabe of God's secrets.
Lover and Loving are
inseparable and timeless.
Although I may try to describe Love
When I experience it I am speechless.
Although I may try to write about Love
I am rendered helpless;
My pen breaks and the paper slips away
At the ineffable place where
Lover, Loving and Loved are one.
Every moment is made glorious
By the light of Love.
-Rumi -----

What do YOU think?