april
On Morality
The main aim of this teaching is to transcend the Ego, the Ego being a false sense of self, a false sense of identity. Morality is important in many traditional teachings because those teachings have not gone beyond Ego, so they still function within the framework of the Ego.
If you live in a society that is inhabited by Egos, you need certain external rules of behavior and regulations so that there is not absolute chaos. What you need then is commandments, or laws that need to be in place so that the Ego does not create absolute chaos in the world. The emphasis of this teaching is to transcend the Ego so that a different state of consciousness arises, we call it “presence”.
Once this state of consciousness operates, external rules and regulations are not really needed anymore, because a knowing of what is right and wrong arises from within you, and you are no longer able to inflict suffering on others because the illusion of absolute separateness between who you are and who another human being is, has disappeared. You are no longer trapped in that illusion, so you know that ultimately, whatever you are doing to another, you are doing to yourself. Most importantly, there is love as the recognition of the other as yourself - the recognition of oneness. Once that is the basis of your life, you don’t need rules or regulations anymore because that arises directly and spontaneously from within you.
One could say that all you need to do is to be in that state of love, which is not conventional love, but the recognition of non-separation, recognition of the ultimate Oneness of all beings. Once that is there, then the right conduct flows naturally from within you. You don’t need to memorize the commandments anymore to tell you what’s right and wrong. The emphasis of this teaching is transcending the Ego, and once that’s done, morality arises from within. The emphasis of this teaching is not on morality because that comes as really the effect of the transformation. It is the effect of the inner transformation. The emphasis of this teaching is not on morality, but on something deeper, out of which true morality flows.
excerpts © Eckhart Tolle TV April Issue 2010
march
from marcus aurelius
Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.
Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.
Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, "This is a misfortune" but "To bear this worthily is good fortune."
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
february
meditation
meditation is a way of being, not a technique - meditation is not about trying to get anywhere else - it is about allowing yourself TO BE EXACTLY where you are and as you are, and the world to be exactly as it is in this moment, as well -
change the world
that doesn't mean that your aspirations to effect positive change, make things different, improve your life and the lot of the world are inappropriate - those are all very real possibilities - just by SITTING DOWN and BEING STILL, you can change yourself and the world - in fact, just by sitting still, in a small but not insignificant way, you already have -
get out of your own way
but the paradox is that you can only change yourself or the world if you get out of your own way for a moment, and GIVE YOURSELF OVER and trust in allowing things to be as they already are, without pursuing anything at all -
nothing needs to happen
the astonishing thing, so counterintuitive, is that NOTHING ELSE NEEDS TO HAPPEN - we can give up trying to make something special occur - in letting go of wanting something special to occur, maybe we can realize that something very special is ALREADY OCCURRING, and is always occurring -- namely, your life unfolding in each moment IN AWARENESS -
excerpts from 'arriving at your own door' © 2007 by jon kabat-zinn
january 2010
Consciousness -The Way Out of Pain
The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.
The pain that you create now is always some form of non-acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering — and free of the egoic mind.Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable.
Imagine the Earth devoid of human life, inhabited only by plants and animals. Would it still have a past and a future? Could we still speak of time in any meaningful way? The question “What time is it?” or “What’s the date today?” — If anybody were there to ask it — would be quite meaningless. The oak tree or the eagle would be bemused by such a question. “What time?” they would ask. “Well, of course, it’s now. The time is now. What else is there?”
Yes, we need the mind as well as time to function in this world, but there comes a point where they take over our lives, and this is where dysfunction, pain, and sorrow set in.
The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with past and future, and so, as the vitality and infinite creative potential of Being, which is inseparable from the Now, becomes covered up by time, your true nature becomes obscured by the mind. An increasingly heavy burden of time has been accumulating in the human mind. All individuals are suffering under this burden, but they also keep adding to it every moment whenever they ignore or deny that precious moment or reduce it to a means of getting to some future moment, which only exists in the mind, never in actuality. The accumulation of time in the collective and individual human mind also holds a vast amount of residual pain from the past.If you no longer want to create pain for yourself and others, if you no longer want to add to the residue of past pain that still lives on in you, then don’t create any more time, or at least no more than is necessary to deal with the practical aspects of your life. How to stop creating time? Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation. Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.
The present moment is sometimes unacceptable, unpleasant, or awful.
It is as it is. Observe how the mind labels it and how this labeling process, this continuous sitting in judgment, creates pain and unhappiness. By watching the mechanics of the mind, you step out of its resistance patterns, and you can then allow the present moment to be. This will give you a taste of the state of inner freedom from external conditions, the state of true inner peace. Then see what happens, and take action if necessary or possible.
Accept — then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.
excerpts from Eckhart Tolle Newsletter © eckhart tolle 2010
december
on looking at art
one night last august i woke up at 4am feeling a need to take action immediately on the dream i just had - so i sat down and wrote an email to a friend saying i'd had a dream that told me to write to her and give her the dream's instructions as to how people should look at art to get the most out of it - simply put, to have zero ideas about the art beforehand - to look at it with no preconceived thoughts, keeping an empty mind until the art itself suggested something on it's own and see what that meant to her -
a day or two later i got an email that she had tried this in my show and was astonished with the outcome, a moving experience for her - she said she appreciated my effort and liked my paintings - so the dream was a heaven-sent gift for her - and for me -
then i remembered having given similar advice to a young man at my opening who had told me he didn't relate to abstract art - he then tried my suggestion and was pleased to make a real connection to my work very quickly - i think many people have preconceived ideas about abstract art that make it hard for them to grasp - after all, realist art makes its true impact on the basis of its abstract qualities - and people may feel at a loss with abstraction having no 'handle' to grasp it with - also many galleries tend to project an intimidating atmosphere and people struggle to clarify their ideas about the art in order to prove something - so the experience of appreciating the art is spoiled -
ted knerr © 2009
november
Jack Tworkov
“Notes on My Painting”
1973... I have the illusion of autonomy. I mean that when I am working I shut out as nearly as possible the influence of precendents. I guide myself by eye or intuition, which is perhaps the same thing. It’s not likely I would make a change in a painting just on theoretical grounds. The eye always asks, “Does it look right or does it look wrong?” It often takes some time for the eye to get used to something that was at first disturbing. What looks uncomfortable today may look alright in a day or two ...
... Above all else, I distinguish between painting and pictures ... Where I have to choose between them, I choose painting. If I have to choose between painting and ideas I choose painting; between painting and every form of theater I choose painting.
7/15/75
... The best way to work is to empty out your head, to aim at nothing, to become the medium of a process that is almost outside of one-self. I now use the (word) medium in another sense: I mean the painter is the medium - his desire his imagination lets the process take place: he unblocks the channels through which the process flows.
Yale, 1967
Of all the painters whose influence reaches deep into contemporary art, Matisse is most notable because he was, in his imagery, his color, his subject matter, the most naturally free from the parochial atmosphere of Christian art. I stress the word "naturally" because he seems to reach back to a golden pagan world, as if the Christian era had not existed for him at all. He is at the opposite end of the spectrum of a Rouault. There are no scars of renunciation or of rebellion in his work as one might find it in a poet like Baudelaire or a painter like Soutine. There is no moping about man’s fate, or about eternal mysteries. There is in Matisse a classic equanimity, a simple acceptance of the bread and wine of life without the cross, without the crown of sorrows.
from: “The Extreme of the Middle: The Writings of Jack Tworkov”
Yale University Press, © 2009
october
Tolle On True Art
...there is noise everywhere in America - loud ‘music’ in restaurants - there are some exceptions of course - some music can have a divine function as well - music that comes out of the stillness inside whoever created it or is playing or singing it - it comes out of that state of consciousness and assumes a form ...and yet the form is fresh and new - it has come out of that and the stillness still clings to it - it still emanates that, even if it is form -
and that’s the beauty of all art ...True art - it reflects still that state of consciousness out of which it came - but then there is Futile art - people trying to be clever - what could we do here that would look clever - and then you get ...they call it art but it totally lacks something ...only manipulating old forms - nothing new has come into it - and nothing that can lead you back to the formless, which is the original reason for all art - the sacred - to be a portal and access for it - so when you experience it you experience yourself - the formless reflected, shining through the form - that is what is True art - always there’s more than what you see or hear - it’s not just what you see or hear - always there’s more than that, and that shines through the form - and that is what can happen to you - what is happening to you (in this changing period we live in)-
ultimately, it’s not everybody’s purpose to create works of art - a few humans do, that is their function, partly, in this world - but but much more important is for you to become that work of art - your whole life and your very being becomes transparent ...also that the formless can shine thru - and that happens when you have access to the realm of stillness within yourself - then something emanates thru the form that is nothing to do with the form - it may emanate only as a silent emanation and not assume any form as such - and so that is sometimes the case with so-called ...(there have been very few in the past) ...holy people - in India they’ve always existed - in every generation in India there have always been a few holy men who never did anything! this is very rare for the West, who say, well, what did they create? what did they do? and they never did anything! they just sat there - and the West says, what a useless existence! come on, get a life! get a job!
and some even ...because people, when you’re trapped in form, you misperceive it completely, because all you see there is a useless form, sitting, and you say they are parasites on society! they allow themselves to be fed by other people, they bring them their food - they should work for a living! like myself! and that is when a mind, that knows nothing but form, looks at the form and would totally misperceive it - so a beauty that in India they’ve always recognized that because they haven’t completely lost touch with it - in fact they may have gone, at some point, too far in the opposite direction, so that they lost interest in form, because they went into a feeling mode - now that India’s becoming Western - we read that they’re into computers these days, and cellphones - and that’s fine too, but the question is, where is finding a balance! -I was totally lost in, like most people, completely lost in form and then a shift happened and i lost the balance - i became completely lost in the formless - we can’t really be lost in the formless, it’s just a way of putting it, because the formless is essentially who you are - from a normal perspective it looked as if i had lost it! :) because there was somebody who had a promising career and suddenly he just sits around on park benches! not doing anything anymore! - just being and connecting continuously with sweetness of being - the beauty of life -
excerpts from: “Findhorn Retreat, Eckhart Tolle”, DVD vol 2, start 20 minutes
for more on Real Art click: my art
for a description of this in my transformation click: tk personal
september
to appreciate art look inside yourself
“The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art. He needs no one to give him an art education; he is already qualified. He needs but to see pictures with his active mind, look into them for the things that belong to him, and he will find soon enough in himself an art connoisseur and an art lover of the first order.”
— anil sahufrom comments on maira kalman's delightful blog:
http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/i-lift-my-lamp-beside-the-golden-door/?hp
additionally
this is an excellent start but i would add that ideally one could go even farther and not use one's "active mind" but just look without mental processes, let the art quietly soak in and see what results appear - on the deepest level, art sends messages to the spirit as feelings of peace and happiness -
ted knerr 9/2009
august
attracting what you want:
See yourself living in abundance and you will attract it.
Why isn’t everybody living the life of their dreams?
Here's the problem. Most people are thinking about what they don't want, and they're wondering why it shows up over and over again.
The only reason why people do not have what they want is because they are thinking more about what they don't want than what they do want. Listen to your thoughts and ... the words you are saying. ... there are no mistakes.
An epidemic worse than any plague that humankind has ever seen has been raging for centuries. It is the "don't want" epidemic.
... It begins with you ... become a pioneer of this new thought movement by simply thinking and speaking about what you want.
Rhonda Byrne
page 12: The Secret © 2006 by TS Productions LLC
july
the importance of feeling special
Giving can be a mark of genuine freedom, the willingness to do with less so that someone else may have more. But a person who has learned to put on a mask of giving is in total slavery. To what? To the memory of what he must do to make his parents happy.
Beginning with our desire to please our mothers, we have learned to read like perfect scholars the faintest hints of acceptance and rejection in other people. As we subtly mold ourselves to this outside pattern, it becomes second nature, a kind of false self. A gap is created between true and false emotions, between what I should feel and what I actually feel. The process is subtle but treacherous. If it goes on long enough, one forgets what it is like simply to be, to let happiness and sadness come when they will, to give or keep as the moment dictates. For the false self does not really feel; it calculates.
A life lived truly is the joining of heart and mind. As feelings come, the mind approves and delights in them. It is not difficult to test if someone is leading such a life, because he will readily tell you that the best time he has ever spent is the present. This is a sure sign that the mind is not running ahead of the heart in anticipation or lagging behind in nostalgia. The Chinese poet Wu-Men counsels:
... If your mind is not clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.
If the balance between heart and mind is disturbed, especially if the subtle feeling level has been destroyed, there begins a process we call rationalization. Why am I not happy at this very moment?
"I'm too busy now. I'll be happy when I'm successful.
"Today's not a good day; I'll be happy tomorrow."
"I can't be happy with you, you're not up to my standards.""Others need me so much that I have to be responsible."
"Life is less risky if you are good and measure up to the norm."
"I'll be happy when I get what I want."
In each phrase one hears the victory of the head over the heart. Being happy is no longer immediate; it has become a distant or near prospect, an idea rather than a feeling. In meditation the yogi tries to clear a path for feeling, removing "unnecessary things" from his mind so that he can actually experience the bedrock of inner satisfaction that all the ancient scriptures declare to be our birthright. Whenever a person succeeds in joining head and heart, that is Yoga. The reward of this union is immense: every moment will become the best in the person's life.
A yogi balances the qualities of intellect and feeling, but I often think of him as a protester on behalf of the heart. Surrounded by people (even in India) who pursue achievement without gaining fulfillment, he chooses fulfillment first. He will not let the mind rob him of the subtle feelings of joy that come as freely as leaves blown by the wind and are as easily swept away.
from: Unconditional Life, © 1991, Deepak Chopra, M.D.
june
stroking and isolation
A journal article in the May 1986 issue of Pediatrics appraised the medical benefits of "tactile/kinesthetic stimulation on preterm neonates." Doctors at the University of Miami medical school divided into two groups forty premature babies -- "preterm neonates" in medical jargon who had been delivered after an average of only thirty-one weeks of pregnancy, not quite eight months.
One group was given normal treatment in the hospital's intensive care unit for neonates. The other was scheduled for fifteen minutes of special attention, in which someone reached in through the portholes of their sealed cribs to stroke them and gently wiggle their arms and legs -- this was their "tactile/kinesthetic stimulation," which was repeated three times a day.
The results of such a simple addition to the usual hospital routine were striking. Although fed on demand with the same formula, the stroked babies gained 47 percent more weight every day than the control group; they were more alert and started to act like normally delivered babies sooner. Finally, they left the hospital a week ahead of schedule, allowing the authors of the study to note a savings of $3,000 per infant in the final bill.
Here, the contrast between life and antilife seems almost too obvious to point out. Scientific medicine has reached the stage where it is not respectable to call stroking by its right name -- much less love and affection. Stroking has to go by the Orwellian "tactile/kinesthetic stimulation." It is even more Orwellian to perform controlled experiments to see if babies need loving attention, meted out in doses like cough syrup or iodine.
My deepest emotions, however, are aroused by the group of babies who were not stroked. When I think of them lying alone in their closed Lucite cribs (called "isolettes"), stranded in the weird ICU environment that numbs adult patients and frequently induces psychotic breaks, my heart cries out in protest. Not just premature babies but everyone suffers when our belief in truth falters. We lose the words for basic values, and then the possibility arises that we may lose the values themselves.
from: Unconditional Life, © 1991, Deepak Chopra, M.D.
may
Presence in art
Using the mind to 'look for' something of value in art is a mistake that's unfortunately very common. The mind is always ready to come up with false reasons to justify seeing what it already 'knows' about art, not what new spiritual content is embedded. Therefore nothing truly enlightening is noticed. But the real purpose of art, and what makes it uniquely valuable, is the enlightenment it provides to anyone (artist or viewer) who can let go of all their previous assumptions and allow the presence to shine through.
This opening up need not be a conscious effort. Presence may suddenly be felt in an ‘Aha!’ moment. A moment of unexpected bliss and delight. This is why any of the arts can enlighten even those who are usually in the grip of their egoic mind and believe their false sense of reality is universally true. Even a momentary breakthrough into enlightenment may begin a gradual movement that can be reinforced by further experiences. So art is indispensable to the renewal of the community soul in our materialistic age.
The essential element in every type of art is not its category or history. What's relevant is the presence achieved in each individual work. The lack of this presence is what is truly boring. But the eyes of the ego are incapable of sensing authentic presence (a matter of the soul) so the ego finds it boring and moves on to something more 'interesting'. So the communal ego of the art scene is what's wrong with it and why it deals mostly in irrelevancies. Authentic art is what stands the test of time, although much that's inauthentic hangs around too. It keeps the less enlightened interested. Although this is annoying, I realize it is a necessary part of the growth process to struggle to overcome the ego and I wish us all, including myself, well in the struggle.
© 2009, Ted Knerr
april
Jefferson on the Alien and Sedition Acts
which made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government:
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, & as necessary in the political world as storm in the physical."
To James Madison, Paris, January 30, 1787
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now & then. It is like a storm in the Atmosphere"
To Abigail Adams, Paris, February 22, 1787
"God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, & always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent for 11 years. There has been one rebellion [Shays's Rebellion]. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve its liberties, if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure."
To William Stephens Smith, Paris, November 13, 1787
"For my own part I consider the (Acts) as merely an experiment on the American mind to see how far it will bear an avowed violation of the constitution."
To Stevens Thomson Mason, Monticello, October 11, 1798
"I discharged every person under punishment or prosecution under the Sedition law, because I considered & now consider that law to be a nullity as absolute and as palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image; and that it was as much my duty to arrest its execution in every stage, as it would have been to have rescued from the fiery furnace those who should have been cast into it for refusing to worship their image."
To Abigail Adams, Washington, July 22, 1804
John P. Kaminski, The Quotable Jefferson, © 2006 by the Princeton University Press
excerpt from delanceyplace.com 3/3/09
march
fear of dying
I died as a mineral and became a plant, I died as plant and rose to animal, I died as animal and I was Man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Rumi, Persian poet and mystic
excerpt from wordsmith.com 2/18/09
february
Human Nature
... an interesting paradox: it is the most psychologically and spiritually mature among us who are the least likely to grow old mentally. Conversely, much (not all - there are biological factors involved) of what we call senility is a fatal end-stage form of psychological and spiritual immaturity. We have a common expression for the senile: they have entered their "second childhood." They become whiny and demanding and manipulative and self-centered. But usually this is not because they have entered their second childhood; usually it is because they have never left their first. It is just that the veneer of adulthood has worn thin.
So it is that psychotherapists, who are in the business of "adult-making," know that many people who look like adults are really emotional children in adult clothing. That is not because their patients are necessarily more immature than the average person. To the contrary, those who genuinely assume the humble but honorable role of patient do so precisely because they are the ones who are being called out of immaturity, who are no longer willing to tolerate being stuck, even though they may not yet see the way out, who are called to transformation.
A mentor of mine, an Irish Jesuit, once said to me in his marvelous brogue, "Ah, Scotty, an adult is a marvelous thing!" He meant, of course, that an adult is a creation to marvel at; there are so relatively few of them. This relative paucity of adults, however, is not a cause for despair. Evidence points to the fact that the number of those who are being called into adulthood has been rapidly increasing over the past two generations. In any case, true adults are those of us who have learned to continually develop and exercise their capacity for transformation. Because of this exercise, progress along the journey of growth often becomes faster and faster the further we proceed on it. For the more we grow, the greater becomes our capacity to be empty - to empty ourselves of the old so that the new may enter and we may thereby be transformed.
So it is our capacity for transformation that makes us, in part, such different people. Lacking a fixed, set nature, possessing the freedom to do the new, the different, the unnatural, it is inevitable that we humans should be molded into or choose multiple paths. What most characterizes the human species, therefore, is its variability. By virtue of different genes, different childhoods, different cultures, and different life experiences (and, perhaps above all, by different choices), we have become transformed or have transformed ourselves in different ways. And it is these profound differences of temperament, character, and culture that make it so difficult for us to live together harmoniously. Yet by exercising this same capacity for transformation, it is possible for us to transcend our own childhoods, our cultures, and our past experience, and hence, without obliterating them, to transcend our differences. Thus what was originally the cause of war can eventually become its cure.
excerpt from The Different Drum © 1987, by M. Scott Peck, M.D., P.C.
january 09
Thoughts on Creating Reality
YOKO ONO: ... People think of fantasy as different from reality, but fantasy is almost like the reality that will come. Everyone creates the fantasies, so everyone creates the reality. If you look at it that way, then George Orwell will create 1984. That's creating the general trend of the male species, I think that kind of fantasy. Like H. G. Wells. People say, "Incredible! What he said is happening!" But actually it is not a prophecy but a form of prayer making it happen.
JOHN LENNON: I agree with that. That's what she's been telling me for years, since we met. What do they call it? Wish fulfillment. The other day I saw an article. [To Yoko] Remember? I showed you. This guy had predicted the Third World War and what world events would lead to it. Now they're all saying, "Oh, look, it's happening just like he said!" Our game, or whatever it is, has always been the same. While that kind of article is actually a commercial for war, eventually creating war, we were doing commercials for peace.
When we did the bed-ins, we told the reporters that and they responded, "Uh-huh, yeah, sure. . . . " But it didn't matter what the reporters said, because our commercial went out nonetheless. It was just like another TV commercial. Everybody puts them down but everybody knows them, listens to them, buys the products. We're doing the same thing. We're putting the word "peace" on the front page of the paper next to all the words about war.
PLAYBOY: With hopes that wishful thinking will create a new reality?
LENNON: That's it. You got it.
PLAYBOY: Which explains Yoko's song "Hard Times Are Over. " I had a hard time understanding it. Hard times are far from over. But say that hard times are over and they will be?
LENNON: Exactly.
ONO: But also notice I'm saying, "Hard times are over for a while." I could simply say, "Hard times are over." But it's a very delicate thing. It's like weaving, which goes in and out slowly. You must do it slowly. Saying "Hard times are over for a while" is sort of a delicate way of wishing. It's not like saying, "I want to live forever. Make sure I live forever. " It's not that sort of arrogance. It might happen, but there is a strong repercussion. So I want to be more delicate, to ride the wave which is yin/yang, breathing in and out. It's not like I'm wishing for something arrogant. It is fair and it can happen.
LENNON: It's the same idea we had for "Give Peace a Chance." It wasn't like "You have to have peace!" Just give it a chance. We ain't giving any gospel here just saying how about this version for a change? We think the future is made in your mind.
ONO: I think it's not so much we, if you meant the two of us, but all of us are part of the future. The future is already within us. I think that the world is going around and is alive because some people really know that whatever they think really happens. It isn't on an esoteric, intellectual level, but I really believe that whatever you think will happen. So we're sort of responsible for our thoughts, even. We all have very negative thoughts and all that, too, and I'm not saying we should repress them, but somehow transform them into something positive.
[smiling and shaking her head]: I don't know why people always project things negative, though you shouldn't be afraid of projecting something negative as long as there is the other side, too. We all do have some garbage in us and we shouldn't be afraid of bringing it out, as long as we end with a positive period. We have some songs on the album that can be considered negatlve but at the same time the fact that we can honestly state those feelings is very positive, and we get a certain atonement through that. There is a negative side, so let it out, sing it, and dispense with it. Singing a negative song does not mean we are setting up a negative fantasy. Instead, we are using the negative to get to the positive.
ONO: ... children who stay without the knowledge of writing for a long time become more psychic...
LENNON: Remain more psychic...
ONO: Oh, right, remain. Remain more psychic. Exactly. So from that point of view the fact that women are not verbal, or this way or that way or whatever women are not that men are, I think our way of thinking and our way of feeling is really helping the world.
LENNON: How about saving the world?
ONO: Saving the world. Right. So it's a pity to change that.
LENNON: But once the change gets out of the crawling stage, there will be a dialogue. The result will be [that] men's intuition or psychicness or whatever word you want to use, which we lost, will be redeveloped. Women's other potentials will be developed, and we will share the burden equally according to each individual's -- what's the word?
ONO: Ability.
LENNON: Right. And each individual leading instead of always delegating that a black person does this and a child does that....
PLAYBOY: John, does it take actually reversing roles with women to really understand?
LENNON: It did for this man. I can't talk for men per se, although I can generalize about it. For me, it took a commitment to make the change.
PLAYBOY: Inspired by books like The First Sex?
LENNON: Yes, through reading. And through living with the Ono here. She doesn't let anything slip by. But deciding to make the change was like deciding "I am going to be a musician" or something. I was always musical, but there was a point when I said, "I am going to learn this instrument. I really want to get into this through this door." So the opportunity was presented to me not just through Yoko but through having a child and through being in the specific situation I was in when I started this, which was after years of fighting with immigration and lawsuits and all these things until there was almost no alternative but to go through this door-and going through the door changed me permanently. So that's what it was. There are many, many reasons why things happen, but there are a couple of good ones right there.
PLAYBOY: How have things gone for you since you made that decision?
LENNON: There are ups and downs like with anyone, but we know what is most important: being together. As she says, "Where two are gathered together . . ."
ONO: When two are gathered together there is nothing you can't do. As a power it is very strong.
PLAYBOY: It's very inspiring, but what about the people without that kind of love and companionship -- all the lonely people?
LENNON [seriously]: Go and get it.
ONO: Yes.
PLAYBOY: It's as simple as that?
LENNON: "Go and get it" is a flip way of saying that if you will be open to the possibility, you --
ONO: -- will receive it.
PLAYBOY: Do you agree that having it makes all the difference in the world?
LENNON: Absolutely. It's the difference between life and death.
ONO: And on a practical level, the power of two people praying, wishing, whatever, is strong.
LENNON: The consciousness is, "Let's see what we shall pray for together. Let's make it stronger by picturing the same image, projecting the same image.” And that is the secret. That is the secret. Because you can be together but projecting different things.
ONO: Double fantasies.
LENNON: Double fantasies at the same time. And you get whoever's fantasy is strongest at the time or you get nothing but mishmash. You're defeated both ways.
ONO: Of course he has different dreams and I have different dreams, too. And that's a weakness. In other words, when you say two people want the same thing, that doesn't happen all the time. So when it happens, it's really powerful. Sometimes two people might be praying but at the same time one could be thinking about something else. Then it doesn't happen. That sort of unified wishing or praying doesn't happen that simply. We go many ways but finally come together and wish that everything is going to be all right.excerpts from The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon & Yoko Ono, © 1981 by Playboy
Taped in NYC during 3 weeks in September 1980. John died December 8, 1980.
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