drugo

thx Torsten

Poor guy. If only he had some guidance.

Why do you instinctively think that there is nothing 'out there'?

The idea that 'authentic' crop circles are shaped in a way not to destroy the plants - by bending them - intrigues me. Do you's think that this idea is just some exciting mythology or an interesting fact?

Max Weber suggests that the modern self is highly indebted to religious asceticism; a protestant work ethic which emerged in full colours at the turn into modernity. More specifically, during the Catholic Reformation, the early days of capitalism and the industrial revolution. Long story short, this dude reckons that the rational organisation of labour, distinct of Western capitalism, fed off the Protestant idea that everyone has a 'calling' in their life. Before the Calvinists/Puritans and Protestants mutated the idea, in the middle ages this 'calling' used to be for clergy and church folk in regards to their divine relationship. These days, according to Weber, our highly specialisated work force has evolved out of a protestant work ethic which hails that everyone has a specific 'calling' in life, a 'calling' which we are to find. This calling is crudely defined as your job. One of the most fundamental questions people ask when meeting each other, generally, in the West, is, 'what do you do for a living?', sometimes abbreviated simply as 'what - do - you - do?'. This is a protestant work ethic question. In the modern West the centre of a persons identity generally surrounds their job. I think this next quote is about as pessimistic as Weber gets (a lot argue that he took it too far, I think it's worth hearing, at the least): I reckon that people do often find deep meaning in their work (contrary to Weber). I also reckon that the nature of our capitalistic system has produced particular kinds of attitudes to support itself. One attitude being, 'clinging to jobs like a purpose willed by god' (Weber). When you boss said 'you haven't found yourself', maybe he is deeply interwoven with this common type of Western attitude - which can be rephrased as 'you haven't found your "calling"'. I tend to feel that my life is a collection of "callings" morphing in and out of each other, kinda' like the various forms wind takes flowing through a majestic acacia in bloom.

They are SOOOoooo nice. Mind you, I've opened a far share of half-rotten ones in my time - not sure if they've got a short shelf life or maybe I've just had some bad luck.

Thanks, Apparently directing kundalini up sushumna towards symbols/images is a rough description of some popular sorcery and healing techniques - I was just wondering if you'd cultivated it in that way. Can you recommend a specific publication for working with merkaba? There seems to be a lot of fabricated nonsense surrounding it.

Global warming and the subsequent catastrophic death of various systems of life are symptoms of a deeper illness. The source, or illness, needs to be attended to, not the symptoms. For an analogy, imagine someone suffering from AIDS. The symptoms of AIDS surface as sores, fatigue, etc. but attending only to the symptoms, such as applying ointment to sores and drinking Yerba Mate for fatigue, won't cure the deeper illness, AIDS. The 'sores', or global warming and its destruction, cannot be fixed by focusing on the symptoms. Instead, attention needs to fall on the source of the symptoms, the illness ie. the worlds popular value systems and the various economic and political structures which maintain them. Throwing discs into space or creating artificial trees is like applying tea tree oil to AIDS' sores, the source of the problem will continue to manifest, until death. Sustainable practices equals the continuing of life, unsustainable practices equals death. Sustainable - sustains life, unsustainable - has no future. The deeper illness, or cultural pathology, of the contemporary globalised world manifests in popular value systems. The worlds current popular values directing powerful activities are selfish and shallow, ie. untrammeled hyper-rationalisation mixed with cut-throat individualistic competitiveness, merged with self-centred impulses of status (whether economical, social) which is directed towards individualistic short-term forms of satisfaction - strive for the shinny car, job, house and all the other semiotic emblems of our shallow value systems. This individualistic and highly competitive value system has created a pressure valve which excretes into the world of basic ethics and rationale - such as the destruction of basic forms of our material nature (for example, global warming, deforestation), not to mention the spiritual nature of 'nature' and the destruction there. I think we need to aspire towards a move inclusive world, bringing our fellow systems together into a more harmonious frequency for spiritual growth - including systems such as human (community), animal, plant, wind, water, fire, earth, galaxies, spirit and beyond. With a shift in values towards a greater harmony of these principles the unbelievable potential of human intelligence and creativity is astounding. It fully blows my mind to think about what could come from tweaking what we commonly value.

Swami Satyananda Saraswati Kundalini Tantra (1984:81) 'Everybody talks about the ascent of kundalini, but few ever discuss the descent. When the descent of kundalini occurs, it means that the lower mental plane of te human being is no llonger influenced by the ordinary mind, the supermind takes over instead. This higher form of consciousness rules the body, mind and senses and directs your life, thoughts and emotions. I'm not sure if this is aligned with your experience. Interesting that you simply reversed the technique to produce, essentially, the reverse experience - the descent. Have you done any work with directing kundalini towards images and symbols?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and insight tantra.

I've been trying to make some time for trying White Light. I've had a 7g gar for a while now and want to start experimenting but first I have a coupla' questions which I'm hoping you might be able to help clarify. Do the actives have any effects whilst awake (despite short-lasting nausea)? -will I be able to maintain my usual everyday activities? or should I organise a few days to spare? Is a recommended dose of .5g - 1g for morning and night or just morning? How effective is the froth extraction? How long are we meant to shake for? How many 'pulls' or froth extractions are necessary? -I'm leaning towards simply ingesting the herbs out of fear of frothing failure.

That' great, I really like it. Is it reasonable? It touches beyond reason! When you say 'spirit links' are you suggesting that it is a kind of separate 'thing' to soul? Does the soul have spirit, in this sense? Also, would you say that 'soul', in this sense, can be analogous with 'self'? Cheers

The academic world, at large, despises him. His PhD thesis on 'personal shamanic journeying' rocked the anthropological scene in 1970, in which it was accepted as 'fact' for 6 years until two guys named Richard de Milles and Davi Noel both published work questioning Castanada's authenticity. Castaneda quickly became scrutinised, accused of fabrication (making it all up based on various ethnographies and other studies of shamanism), these days most academics don't believe that Don Juan even existed. Castaneda's controversies gave shamanism a really bad name in anthropology and the social sciences in the late 70s, which is still felt today. Most academics these days when they see articles and what not concerning shamanism (esp. the entheogenic type) they'll usually read it through a scorned lens of the Castaneda controversies. But, regardless of whether Don Juan existed, or whether Castaneda's field notes really did get destroyed in a basement flood, what he managed to do is spark huge amounts of interest in shamanism outside the academy. Some suggest that he has been the single most influential anthropologist to introduce and encourage shamanism to the western public. I read his works as quality fiction. Fiction based on 'fact'. It doesn't mean that his shamanic methods and perspectives are all useless and wrong, not at all. Rather, it seems that he has simply borrowed ideas from across the discipline - the only problem (for the academic world) is, he acted as if all his work emerged out of his own experiences with the illusive Don Juan. George Orwell says that fiction is the best type of 'fact' - and I agree. 'Fact' is just fiction with flimsy rules.

If you're in Melbourne and you care about trees, conservation, and humanity, come get involved. ALL WELCOME!!! 'Change for the Climate' Get educated, get active for Copenhagen and Beyond September 12, 2009 10am-6pm Agora Cinema, La Trobe University Bundoora campus RSVP to [email protected] Maps, transport and program - go to www.espeace.org ■ key addresses by influential speakers ■ networking opportunities ■ workshops on sustainable living and community action on climate change Change for the Climate will bring together a diverse range of voices on climate issues in order to further educate us to the challenges we face. The day will consist of a series of lectures and workshops presented by academics, politicians, and activists - members of our community.

Change for the Climate GET EDUCATED GET ACTIVE FOR COPENHAGEN AND BEYOND Key addresses by influential speakers. Networking opportunities. Workshops on climate activism strategies, sustainable lifestyle transitions. When: 12th September 2009 10am – 5.30pm. 10am Register, for a 1040am start. Climate friendly lunch available Where: La Trobe University, Bundoora. Agora Cinema Go to: espeace.org for a map, transport info, program and further details. Please RSVP by emailing [email protected] Admission is by donation. Change for the Climate on youtube and facebook Change for the Climate will bring together a diverse range of voices on climate issues in order to further educate us to the challenges we face. The day will consist of a series of lectures and workshops presented by academics, politicians, and activists - members of our community. This gathering aims not only to provide perspectives from specialists in the relevant fields of science and public policy, but also to explore practical avenues for change that can emanate from an individual and community level. Together we will explore strategies for taking action to influence key decisions makers in the lead up to UN World Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen later this year. In the event that policy developed at the UN conference falls short of what climate science and logic demands, we as a community must have the tools and the networks to take necessary democratic action. Change for the Climate hopes to strengthen and consolidate an effective grass-roots response. We believe the most powerful systemic changes, which are required to stop devastating climate change, are born from strong and empowered communities. ESP, Roots Maneuvres and La Trobe Enviro Collective welcome La Trobe University’s Sustainability Task Force and Students' Representative Council Inc support for this student initiative. Fantastic speakers already confirmed: Senator Christine Milne – Greens Senator for Tasmania and Deputy Greens leader Amelia Young – forest campaigner for The Wilderness Society David Cameron – Department of Sustainability Senior Botanist and Flora Information System Curator & Threatened Species Officer David Spratt – activist, climate-policy analyst and co-author of Climate Code Red Professor Alberto Gomes – anthropologist and lecturer at La Trobe University. He has worked with local groups in Malaysia on the preservation of their environment. Jack Lomax – environmental activist from Tasmania. Jack has long been involved in direct action against destructive logging practices in Tasmanian old-growth forests, and played a key role in the successful Franklin River Campaign. Rod Quantock (Afternoon MC) – comedian and activist Workshops Potential workshops include * Civil Disobedience * Effective Letter Writing to Politicians * Sustainable living and transport * How to Start Your Own Food Co-op * Dumpster Diving * Bicycle Maintenance And more A bus will be available from Change for the Climate, La Trobe University at around 6:30pm to our affiliated event Switch Off Hazelwood. Please go to switchoffhazlewood.org for details. We encourage you to attend both events, to take advantage of this great opportunity of a weekend of effective climate action. Let us know when you RSVP if you would like a seat on our bus. About Our Speakers: Amelia Young has worked to protect Victoria's forests for over a decade. She has been involved in students politics, worked for regional conservation groups, founded non-violent direct action forest collectives, and has researched and written about a range of social and environmental justice issues. Amelia currently works for The Wilderness Society, focusing on lifting the profile of the ongoing logging of Victoria's native forests in the broader community, and on using the latest science and economic scopes to lobby for forest protection. She currently campaigns against the logging and land clearing of native savannah on the Tiwi Islands as well. David Spratt is a Melbourne businessman, climate-policy analyst, co-founder of Carbon Equity and the Climate Action Centre. He is the co-author of Climate Code Red and has extensive advocacy experience in developing community-campaign communication and marketing strategies. Senator Christine Milne is the Australian Greens spokesperson on climate change, was elected to represent Tasmania in the federal parliament at the 2004 election after a distinguished career in the Tasmanian state parliament where she served as Leader of the Greens from 1993-1998. Christine was elected as a Global Vice-President of the IUCN in February 2005, and represented the IUCN at the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention at Montreal, Canada, in December 2005. Jack Lomax - I was born at the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929 in a place made famous by George Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier. I first became an activist in 1946. I became alarmed about what was then called The Greenhouse Effect in the early 80s. I am convinced that unless we undertake wide-scale intelligent peaceful community protest including civil disobedience against global warming catalysts, we will not be listened to until it is too late. David Cameron has worked for the Victorian public service since 1978, and for the past decade has been the curator of the Flora Information System maintained by the Department of Sustainability and Environment. David has also conducted research investigations into rainforest ecology and contributed significantly to our current understanding of the status of Victorian rainforest. In his current role as Senior Botanist in the Threatened Species and Communities Section, David is charged with the ongoing review of the conservation status of Victorian flora. Alberto Gomes is an associate professor in anthropology at La Trobe University. He has conducted research among forest-dependent Malaysian Aborigines (Orang Asli). His Malaysian Aboriginal friends taught him that the relations between the forest and people is like the relations between a parent and a child, the forest as the parent and humans as its children. Orang Asli are socialised to respect the forest as they would their parents. To destroy the forest is therefore tantamount to patricide or matricide, which is not just a criminal act but an act of moral and social self-destruction. Climate peace to you on behalf of the Change for the Climate Collective. See you on the 12th!

I've got bad posture from reading books and using computers - I can post photos - not sure if this type of modification is what your after ;) Also, I've had a few breast implants, a tummy tuck, and I'm saving up for a face lift - did I mention my vag tightening?

I feel that the best way to use language is with a fluid and flexible stance. I see words like shallow vessels which gain depth when crafted with other words into giant linguistic stories, especially well thought out stories ie. books, essays, philosophies etc. The words self,ego,soul,spirit,energy,being,non-being,consciousness etc can, and often do, mean radically different things. It seems that they are like music - notes for a song, which comes to the most interesting fruition when crafted well by people who have been 'practicing' life and language. Also, a minor chord after a major sounds incredibly different than the other way around, if you know what I mean. I reckon that we should look at words as fluid shallow vessels which can embody your thoughts/feelings as deep meaningful expressions upon particular constructions. The earth shifts and evolves, along with culture, language, and the individual. As soon as we 'nail-down' a word as absolute (complete) with a complex specific meaning it seems that we limit ourselves, our capacity to learn, evolve, go beyond. I think this idea is great. People often approach entheogens in attempts to simply dissolve their 'earthly' existence and and transcend beyond. An alternative, and incredibly related aspect, seems to be what the thinker above calls the shamanic experience of the 'soul' - landscapes of suffering, passion and mess.

Is it substance? Sound? Energy? Language? - that is within everything or just humans? Is it a form of life which separates us from animals, and/or plants - is it alive only in humans as culture, custom, myth, religion, philosophy, scientific thinking, mathematics, imagination, art, compasion etc? Does consciousness contract and expand? Are there specific levels of consciousness? Or more broadly, is it a theory of reality? OR theories of relative realities? Is it ultimately ineffable? Is it Experience unable to be accurately represented in words? Do you think that there are specific forms of consciousness every human should be aspiring to? You don't have to answer all of the above, there are just some stimulating ideas. What is this thing we call consciousness???

So to conclude on your argument, would you say that consciousness is a process, or the experience of conscious life. Rather than, say, a specific thing or a kind of object of analysis. Do you mean that consciousness is a process of 'analysis' therefore it cannot be analysed? Kinda' like trying to eat your own face off?

Cool. Hey if you'd like, keep me in the loop on how much it costs to print them out large gloss. If it, along with your craft, doesn;t cost too much I'd love to buy one of you. If you're up for it, just PM me the details before you print and i'll fix ya up. I just put the one named 'entheogen' as wall my desktop wallpaper:) Local young talent needs to be supported more! Esp. when it's this sort of caliber. If your major doesn;t make it into Art Express it's because the state/education system has a warped view on the world!

hmm, that's cool. Do you think this awareness emerged in our species for a reason? Do you think that consciousness has direction, kinda' like water landing on a mountain's edge naturally will seek to travel down towards, say, a lake of water at the base? But, some currents of water seem to get caught in small enclaves, forming small and particular semi-stagnant pools, waiting for a rush of water (Revolution) to wash them downstream. If so, what do you think streams of consciousness are flowing towards / the ideal direction(s)? Or, given my personal premise, what is the seductive 'lake' of spiritual communion all about?

What do you think the term is trying to represent?

Can "I" be separated from "am"? I see the paradox being that we are trying to separate what are two and the same thing. "I" = ego,self,soul. Whilst "am"= being, existence, action. But, fundamentally "I" exists. "I" exists in action. Therefore, when we try to separate the two we get this 'subloop' as you call it. Language is ridden with paradoxes given its reductive nature, along with a whole heap of historically produced forms of thinking, such as binaries. This sort of ontological onslaught can seem lame, or a tad pointless, but when grasped in deep ways it can really move consciousness. For example. Rather than Descartes' cogito ergo sum, "I think, therefore I am." maybe, jump on board with the phenomonologists and flip existence back to base. "I am, and then I think." Or even, "I am - a thinking, feeling, meaningful being". By embodying this type of difference, that means not just conceptually agreeing, but by being able to apprehend the world and your being in it as fundamental. I was doing some work with subs. a few months ago and I incorporated some of Merleau-Ponty's (French phenomenologist) ideas of intentionality, meaning and time with some simple Kundalini breath work. It's hard for me to express how this philosophers ideas effected my experience, but i'll just say it was profound far beyond what I expected, that is, for those of you considering experimenting with powerful western thought and entheogens. Bit of a rant there. To swing it back, this experience with subs. definitely had a powerful impact on my understanding/experience of "consciousness", more specifically, the relationship between mind and matter, or intent and action.

Maybe consciousness is existence: am=consciousness, and I exist and am also the thing which I am aware of: i am=consciousness. On top of this, maybe we are evolving more and more profound forms of being aware of existence: i=consciousess, or self-conscious animal. Self/all-existential-awareness of being infinite and finite, being everything and individual. Otherwise known as matter and spirit - maybe matter is just spirit in temporal sets of formations though - therefore rendering the temporal ultimately always infinite??? Nice comment tst. A lot of people cling to consciousness as simply awareness or simply existence, and therefore tend to disconnect , what I think is, the intimate commonality of life.

That's interesting. What is the improper use of consciousness? Is it also 'found' meaning, or perhaps created meaning?? Do we sometimes find the 'wrong' things and other times find the 'right' things? Also, when you wave your hand goodbye to someone are you 'finding' meaning? The gesture of waving embodies very specific meaning, sometimes really powerful meaning relevant to you and the person your waving off. I tend to think that we do not just receive meaning, but we also create meaning - within an eternal flux of energy sometimes labeled as consciousness, being in/as being. Possibly through the process of receiving/creating meaning within our everyday opening to the world we come to know/be ourselves/everything in profound ways. I like to think of our everyday opening to the world as at play within a dualistic reality offering the discovery of everything, or the infinite, through the self. Infinite through finite, eternal through temporal. Governed by morality, each choice we make seems to craft more profound understandings of ourselves through to existence itself. As the Socratic dictum suggests to 'know thyself', I feel that deeper self knowing can offer a break through the self into the not-self, the eternal, complete human consciousness. Is the experience of consciousness kind of like a window into the eternal? Kinda' like a prisoner gazing out of their prison cell onto lakes, forests, animals, galaxies etc - only the 'outside' is eternity for consciousness, the eternal which can be sensed through the finite paradoxes of human life. Maybe we can peek at this plateau of eternity through powerful spiritual methods, and thus re-defining the "I" on the inside of the window, or the 'prison cell'. Why should/do we aspire to communicate the incommunicable? Why do we attempt ever so difficultly to offer our version of the eternal? In Plato's analogy, why does the philosopher aspire to descend back into the cave of shadows?