april
Matisse on Fauvism, 1905-10
Fauvism at first was a brief time when we thought it was necessary to exalt all colors together, sacrificing none of them. Later we went back to nuances, which gave us more supple elements than the flat, even tones.
The Impressionists' aesthetic seemed just as insufficient to us as the technique of the Louvre, and we wanted to go directly to our needs for expression. The artist, encumbered with all the techniques of the past and present, asked himself: ‘What do I want?' This was the dominating anxiety of Fauvism. If he starts from within himself, and makes just three spots of color, he finds the beginning of a release from such constraints.
This period lasted for some time, even some years. Once you have reached the point where you take cognizance of the quality of your desire, you begin to consider the object which you are making., and you need to modify your methods in order to become more intelligible to others, and to organize all the possibilities that you have recognized within yourself.
The man who has meditated on himself for a certain length of time comes back to life sensing the position he can occupy. Then he can act effectively.
My master, Gustave Moreau, used to say that the mannerisms of a style turn against it after a while, and then the picture's qualities must be strong enough to prevent failure. This alerted me against all apparently extraordinary techniques.
The epithet 'Fauve' was never accepted by the Fauve painters; it was always considered just a tag issued by the critics. Vauxcelles invented the word. We were showing at the Salon d'Autonme; Derain, Manguin, Marquet, Puy and some of the others were exhibiting together in one of the big galleries. The sculptor Marque showed an Italianate bust of a child in the center of this hall. Vauxcelles came in the room and said: 'Well, Donatello among the wild beasts!' ['Tiens, Donatello au milieu des fauves.']
A whole group worked along these lines: Vlaminck, Derain, Dufy, Friesz, Braque. Later, each member denied that part of Fauvism he felt to be excessive, each according to his personality, in order to find his own path.
from Matisse on Art, Jack D. Flam, a Dutton Paperback
march
Matisse, Notes of a Painter, 1908
Both harmonies and dissonances of colour can produce agreeable effects. Often when I start to work I record fresh and superficial sensations during the first session. A few years ago I was sometimes satisfied with the result. But today if I were satisfied with this, now that I think I can see further, my picture would have a vagueness in it: I should have recorded the fugitive sensations of a moment which could not completely define my feelings and which I should barely recognize the next day.
I want to reach that state of condensation of sensations which makes a painting. I might be satisfied with a work done at one sitting, but I would soon tire of it; therefore, I prefer to rework it so that later I may recognize it as representative of my state of mind. There was a time when I never left my paintings hanging on the wall because they reminded me of moments of over-excitement and I did not like to see them again when I was calm. Nowadays I try to put serenity into my pictures and re-work them as long as I have not succeeded.
Suppose I want to paint a woman's body: first of all I imbue it with grace and charm, but I know that I must give something more. I will condense the meaning of this body by seeking its essential lines. The charm will be less apparent at first glance, but it must eventually emerge from the new image which will have a broader meaning, one more fully human. The charm will be less striking since it will not be the sole quality of the painting, but it will not exist less for its being contained within the general conception of the figure.
Charm, lightness, freshness--such fleeting sensations. I have a canvas on which the colours are still fresh and I begin to work on it again. The tone will no doubt become duller. I will replace my original tone with one of greater density, an improvement, but less seductive to the eye.
The Impressionist painters, especially Monet and Sisley, had delicate sensations, quite close to each other: as a result their canvases all look alike. The word 'impressionism' perfectly characterizes their style, for they register fleeting impressions. It is not an appropriate designation for certain more recent painters who avoid the first impression, and consider it almost dishonest. A rapid rendering of a landscape represents only one moment of its existence. I prefer, by insisting upon its essential character, to risk losing charm in order to obtain greater stability.
from Matisse on Art, Jack D. Flam. a Dutton Paperback
february
the cost of civilization
--- the move of the earliest societies from hunting and gathering to cities and farming brought stunted growth and disease:"It is not as if farming brought a great improvement in living standards either. A typical hunter-gatherer enjoyed a more varied diet and consumed more protein and calories than settled people, and took in five times as much vitamin C as the average person today. Even in the bitterest depths of the ice ages, we now know, nomadic people ate surprisingly well - and surprisingly healthily. Settled people, by contrast, became reliant on a much smaller range of foods, which all but ensured dietary insufficiencies. The three great domesticated crops of prehistory were rice, wheat, and maize, but all had significant drawbacks as staples. As the journalist John Lanchester explains: 'Rice inhibits the activity of Vitamin A; wheat has a chemical that impedes the action of zinc and can lead to stunted growth; maize is deficient in essential amino acids and contains phytates, which prevent the absorption of iron.' The average height of people actually fell by almost six inches in the early days of farming in the Near East. Even on Orkney, where prehistoric life was probably as good as it could get, an analysis of 340 ancient skeletons showed that hardly any people lived beyond their twenties.
"What killed the Orcadians was not dietary deficiency but disease. People living together are vastly more likely to spread illness from household to household, and the close exposure to animals through domestication meant that flu (from pigs or fowl), smallpox and measles (from cows and sheep), and anthrax (from horses and goats, among others) could become part of the human condition, too. As far as we can tell, virtually all of the infectious diseases have become endemic only since people took to living together. Settling down also brought a huge increase in 'human commensals' - mice, rats, and other creatures that live with and off us - and these all to often acted as disease vectors.
"So sedentism meant poorer diets, more illness, lots of toothache and gum disease, and earlier deaths. What is truly extraordinary is that these are all still factors in our lives today. Out of the thirty thousand types of edible plants thought to exist on Earth, just eleven - corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye, and oats - account for 93 percent of all that humans eat, and every one of them was first cultivated by our Neolithic ancestors. Exactly the same is true of husbandry. The animals we raise for food today are eaten not because they are notably delectable or nutritious or a pleasure to be around, but because they were the ones first domesticated in the Stone Age.
"We are, in the most fundamental way, Stone Age people ourselves. From a dietary point of view, the Neolithic period is still with us. We may sprinkle our dishes with bay leaves and chopped fennel, but underneath it all is Stone Age food. And when we get sick, it is Stone Age diseases we suffer."
At Home: A Short History of Private Life. by Bill Bryson © Doubleday
Delanceyplace.com
january 2011
H.L. Mencken on crowdsIn today's excerpt - H.L. Mencken comments on the impact of crowd psychology. Mencken, known as "The Sage of Baltimore," was a popular journalist, essayist and satirist, and is regarded as one of the most influential American writers of the first half of the 20th century. A caustic critic of American life and culture, Mencken was one of the first in the U.S. to popularize such writers as Friedrich Nietzsche and Joseph Conrad.
He had grave concerns about anti-intellectualism in American society, which he viewed as being found most prominently in organized religion and political discourse. He was especially concerned about the role of the crowd in this anti-intellectualism. His reporting of the debate over the theory of evolution between William Jennings Bryan and legendary attorney Clarence Darrow (made famous in the movie and play Inherit the Wind) reflected his distaste for fervent belief rooted in faith rather than science:
"The individual man, cheek by jowl with the multitude, drops down an intellectual peg or two, and so tends to show the mental and emotional reactions of his inferiors. The crowd, as a crowd, performs acts that many of its members, as individuals, would never be guilty of. Its average intelligence is very low; it is inflammatory, vicious, idiotic, almost simian. Crowds, properly worked up by skillful demagogues, are ready to believe anything, and to do anything."The numskull runs amuck in a crowd, not because he has been inoculated with new rascality by the mysterious crowd influence, but because his habitual rascality now has its only chance to function safely.
"What happens when a crowd cuts loose? ... The few superior men in it are not straightway reduced to the level of the underlying stoneheads. On the contrary, they usually keep their heads, and make efforts to combat the crowd action. But the stoneheads are too many for them. ... And why? Because they are suddenly conscious of the power lying in their numbers. The third rate man, though he may wear the false whiskers of a first rate man, may always be detected by his inability to keep his head in the face of an appeal to his emotions. A whoop strips off his disguise."
Author: H. L. Mencken
Title: Damn! A Book of Calumny
Publisher: Philip Goodman Company
Date: 1918
Pages: 32-34with thanks to thomas quinn spitzer
quote from delanceyplace.com - 1/3/11
december
Human Rights Day December 10, 2010
...The first decade of human rights in this new century has been a serious setback to the progress that was made up until then. Peter Benenson, founder of Amnesty International, was instrumental in creating the momentum that the human rights movement saw in the later part of the 20th century. He died on February 25, 2005 at the age of 83.
Citizens should use his life as an example of the gains of human rights so that we can reclaim the roots of the movement. During this time of fear and uncertainty, we must revive his model of action and accountability, the model that helped cultivate the biggest developments that the human rights movement had ever seen.
In the last few years of the previous century the world governments created the International Criminal Court (ICC) and it looked and felt like the bad folk of governments would be chased and maybe imprisoned for crimes against humanity. Human rights groups were popping up all over the world and progress was being made.
Then, 9/11 occurred and American anger channeled fear instead of courage... Iraq is invaded... Torture begins in the jails of Iraq by our forces, where water boarding... is used repeatedly. Secret prisons are set up in many countries and we send prisoners there to be tortured by others. Guantanamo becomes a prison of infamy and reduces the respect for law to this day. Unmanned drones are... used in targeted killings as weapons with no accountability... (some studies suggest 10 to 55 civilians are killed for every one militant insurgent). The new President enlarges the war in Afghanistan. Bagram prison rivals Guantanamo in another attempt to reduce our level of decency and thus up the hatred of American forces in the region. All the while, Bin Laden roams the earth freely 10 years after his hits on our cities.
American efforts to mix security issues with human rights lowered the prestige, interest and support of human rights. What happened to the momentum... that swept human rights through our streets and past our doors? ... the tide has gone out.
... a model to emulate is Peter Benenson, the founder of Amnesty International. Most of the world does not know about him: he never sought the limelight... even refused to go to Oslo when Amnesty won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977. A simple lawyer in London, Peter refused the knighthood nonsense of the crown... He was a humble man... But make no mistake, his idea and action of that idea changed the world. Today... is a time to stop and remember how Peter Benenson brought that idea to life.
Before the (famous concert tours of Sting) and others, human rights was an ideal that people shared; but these concerts helped transform human rights into a movement by using music to attract a whole new generation... It brought the awareness and income that was needed to drive the international human rights movement...
... Peter said that the simple idea of human rights is everyone's possession and those concerts were perfect expressions of that idea in action... when he saw two students in Portugal go to prison for toasting to freedom -- Peter would not have it. Even more importantly, he cultivated a wave of support and urged others to do the same. It was time to write, to organize and to embarrass those responsible for obstructing the rights of others...
Peter... created what we see today as the human rights movement... embodied by Amnesty and... other human rights groups, and defined by the Universal Declaration of Human rights. While Eleanor Roosevelt and John Humphrey... brought this... into fruition, Peter put the constituency behind that document. It was an ideal that changed the human rights movement by breaking down... borders... now... human rights was ... something to be preserved universally regardless of geography. ... Peter... acted to implement that understanding all over the world.
Along with... Mandela, Dr. King and Gandhi, Peter Benenson was among the greatest people of the 20th century, but he stands out from the rest because while the others changed their countries and inspired hope throughout the world, Peter actually changed the world: he got the innocent out of prison, he stopped the persecuted from being tortured, and he did it all beyond the borders of his homeland. He put Amnesty International in every country because he believed that everyone has a responsibility to protect human rights everywhere.
... Amnesty... had a continuing impact on people's lives worldwide for 50 years. In a century of blood and gore, Peter leapt to the forefront as the leader of the change that was needed. His simple life and person put human rights onto the tables of governments and no one will ever get them off -- that is the legacy of this man. Simple, plain, sweet and caring. A man for this season. A man of courage and vision unseen in history's annals.
The depth of decency in this man was total. Even more important than Amnesty... was Peter's idea that... each and every one of us... have rights and those rights must be protected by all of us regardless of where we live... we all are ambassadors of the world...
I humbly... urge all governments to print the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in all passports in honor of Eleanor Roosevelt and Peter Benenson. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights belongs to the citizens of the world. It's about time we give it to them...
condensed from: huffingtonpost.com/jack-healey/human-rights-day-2010
november
put an end to Better
... this is the new Gospel - There is no master race - There is no greatest nation - There is no one true religion - There is no inherently perfect philosophy - There is no always right political party, morally supreme economic system, or one and only way to Heaven -
Erase these ideas from your memory - Eliminate them from your experience - Eradicate them from your culture - For these are thoughts of division and separation, and you have killed each other over these thoughts - Only the truth I give you here will save you - WE ARE ALL ONE -
Carry this message far and wide, across oceans and over continents, around the corner and around the world -
from Friendship with God © 2000, Neale Donald Walsch
october
coming to ripeness, to freedom in maturity
.... what I had heretofore taken for love in myself and others had been a succession of neuroses with their various fixations, compulsions, and the many complex sensations of vice. That's all that vice is - the pitiful neurotic escape from reality and from the inner self. How many people are vicious? Just as many as try to hide themselves in others, and, in relationships based on sensation, never feeling real except when lost and oblivious in some "love affair"; or else in drink or drugs, trying to find the stimulation that doesn't arise naturally in one's own depths.
How many of us had depended upon our vicious satisfactions, going from one stimulant to another, never daring to be alone because nothing happened inside one, escaping the horrible stillness and emptiness and immobility of the soul?
How many of those I had known were like myself? I had been constantly under the influence of external stimulants and unable to get along without them! Dependent upon them. That was what made them vices.
And even those, like friends close to me, who had not been of the vacillating, inconstant, changeable type, who had been wedded to one, true to one, unable to get away, bound hand and foot, surely they had been no less vicious persons than those whose solutions seemed to lie in new excitements. It
was neurosis just the same, servitude, the infantilism that prevailed and prevented them from coming to ripeness, to freedom in maturity.
from ‘Edge of Taos Desert’ © 1937 by Mabel Dodge Luhan, p276-7
september
The Process of Creation
from Conversations with God, bk 1, p 90-93Life is a creation, not a discovery
You do not live each day to discover what it holds for you, but to create it. You are creating your reality every minute, probably without knowing it.
Here's why that is so, and how that works.
1. I have created you in the image and likeness of God.
2. God is the creator.
3. You are three beings in one. You can call these three aspects of being anything you want: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; mind, body, and spirit; superconscious, conscious, subconscious.
4. Creation is a process that proceeds from these three parts of your body. Put another way, you create at three levels. The tools of creation are: thought, word, and deed.
5. All creation begins with thought ("Proceeds from the Father"). All creation then moves to word ("Ask and you shall receive, speak and it shall be done unto you"). All creation is fulfilled in deed ("And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us").
6. That which you think of, but thereafter never speak of, creates at one level. That which you think of and speak of creates at another level. That which you think, speak, and do becomes made manifest in your reality.
7. To think, speak, and do something which you do not truly believe is impossible. Therefore, the process of creation must include belief, or knowing. This is absolute faith. This is beyond hoping. This is knowing of a certainty ("By your faith shall ye be healed”). Therefore, the doing part of creation always includes knowing. It is a gut-level clarity, a total certainty, a complete acceptance as reality of something.
8. This place of knowing is a place of intense and incredible gratitude. It is a thankfulness in advance. And that, perhaps, is the biggest key to creation: to be grateful before, and for, the creation. Such taking for granted is not only condoned, but encouraged. It is the sure sign of mastery. All Masters know in advance that the deed has been done.
9. Celebrate and enjoy all that you create, have created. To reject any part of it is to reject a part of yourself. Whatever it is that is now presenting itself as part of your creation, own it, claim it, bless it, be thankful for it. Seek not to condemn it ("God damn it!"), for to condemn it is to condemn yourself.
10. If there is some aspect of creation you find you do not enjoy, bless it and simply change it. Choose again. Call forth a new reality. Think a new thought. Say a new word. Do a new thing. Do this magnificently and the rest of the world will follow you. Ask it to. Call for it to. Say, "I am the Life and the Way, follow me."
This is how to manifest God's will "on Earth as it is in Heaven."
If it is all as simple as that, if these ten steps are all we need, why does it not work that way for more of us?
It does work that way, for all of you. Some of you are using the "system" consciously, with full awareness, and some of you are using it unconsciously, without even knowing what you are doing.
Some of you are walking in wakefulness, and some of you are sleepwalking. Yet all of you are creating your reality--creating, not discovering--using the power I have given you, and the process I've just described.
So, you've asked when your life will "take off," and I've given you the answer.
You get your life to "take off" by first becoming very clear in your thinking about it. Think about what you want to be, do and have. Think about it often until you are very clear about this. Then, when you are very clear, think about nothing else. Imagine no other possibilities.
Throw all negative thoughts out of your mental constructions. Lose all pessimism. Release all doubts. Reject all fears. Discipline your mind to hold fast to the original creative thought.
When your thoughts are clear and steadfast, begin to speak them as truths. Say them out loud. Use the great command that calls forth creative power: I am. Make I-am statements to others. "I am" is the strongest creative statement in the universe. Whatever you think, whatever you say, after the words "I am" sets into motion those experiences, calls them forth, brings them to you.
There is no other way the universe knows how to work. There is no other route it knows to take. The universe responds to "I am" as would a genie in a bottle.
You say "Release all doubts, reject all fears, lose all pessimism" as if you're saying "pick me up a loaf of bread." But these things are easier said than done. "Throw all negative thoughts out of your mental constructions" might as well read "climb Mt. Everest--before lunch." It's rather a large order.
Harnessing your thoughts, exercising control over them, is not as difficult as it might seem. (Neither, for that matter, is climbing Mt. Everest.) It is all a matter of discipline. It is a question of intent.
The first step is learning to monitor your thoughts; to think about what you are thinking about.
When you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts--thoughts that negate your highest idea about a thing--think again! I want you to do this, literally. If you think you are in a doldrum, in a pickle, and no good can come of this, think again. If you think the world is a bad place, filled with negative events, think again. If you think your life is falling apart, and it looks as if you'll never get it back together again, think again.
You can train yourself to do this. (Look how well you've trained yourself not to do it!)
Thank you. I've never had the process set out for me so clearly. I wish it were as easily done as said--but now I at least understand it clearly--I think.
Well, if you need a review, we have several lifetimes.
Neale Donald Walsch, © 1995
note: his books influenced "The Secret", by Rhonda Byrne, © 2007 -
Neale Donald Walsch is acknowledged and a short bio of him included -
august
Sartre's insight
The 17th-century philosopher Descartes, regarded as the founder of modern philosophy, gave expression to this primary error with his famous dictum (which he saw as primary truth): "I think, therefore I am." This was the answer he found to the question "Is there anything I can know with absolute certainty?" He realized that the fact that he was always thinking was beyond doubt, and so he equated thinking with Being, that is to say, identity–I am–with thinking. Instead of the ultimate truth, he had found the root of the ego, but he didn't know that.
It took almost three hundred years before another famous philosopher saw something in that statement that Descartes, as well as everybody else, had overlooked. His name was Jean-Paul Sartre. He looked at Descartes's statement "I think, therefore I am" very deeply and suddenly realized, in his own words, "The consciousness that says 'I am' is not the consciousness that thinks." What did he mean by that? When you are aware that you are thinking, that awareness is not part of thinking. It is a different dimension of consciousness. And it is that awareness that says "I am." If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn't even know you are thinking. You would be like a dreamer who doesn't know he is dreaming. You would be as identified with every thought as the dreamer is with every image in the dream. Many people still live like that, like sleepwalkers, trapped in old dysfunctional mind-sets that continuously re-create the same nightmarish reality. When you know you are dreaming, you are awake within the dream. Another dimension of consciousness has come in.
The implication of Sartre's insight is profound, but he himself was still too identified with thinking to realize the full significance of what he had discovered: an emerging new dimension of consciousness.
from A New Earth, © 2005, by Eckhart Tolle
july
Embracing your Story
Our stories have a Divine purpose. They are a real and necessary part of our personal evolutions. Until we understand the importance of our stories, we will stay trapped in the vicious cycle of trying to fix parts of ourselves that aren't broken. Hidden within our personal dramas is important information, pearls of wisdom for us to extract that hold the key to fulfilling our unique contributions to the world. Our stories contain the exact ingredients we need to become the people we always longed to be. Inside each of our stories is a Divine recipe for a most extraordinary life.
The first step in uncovering your recipe is to realize that you created your story not only to protect yourself but, unknowingly, to gather the wisdom and experiences that are necessary for you to realize your life's purpose. You created your story in order to learn the lessons it had to teach. You are like a master chef. You have spent your life in the kitchen, cooking up pain, joy, triumph, and failure in order to gather the ingredients necessary to manifest your most extraordinary self. But your story– with all its drama and all its unprocessed pain–conceals this recipe.
Most of us get so distracted by the drama of our stories that we no longer remember that we have a Divine purpose here. We are so committed to the pain of our personal histories and to making others wrong that we don't even realize that all of our pain has a purpose. This bears repeating: All of our pain has a purpose! It is here to teach us, guide us, and give us the wisdom we need to deliver our gifts to the world. Most of us use our traumas and our wounds to beat ourselves up, to stay stuck, and to keep ourselves small. But when our pain and disappointment are examined and used as learning tools, they impart sacred life lessons that can be taught to us only in this way.
You are here to contribute your own unique flavor and serve the world in a way that only you can. ...every one of us represents a vital contribution to the whole of humanity. Each of us has an important piece to contribute to the picture of life. When we are stuck in the past, hating our lives, our stories, and ourselves, it is impossible to claim our piece of the puzzle and put it in its destined place. Until we make peace with our stories, it's impossible for us to extract the ingredients we need to express our Divine selves. All of our drama--each of our experiences, the parts of ourselves that we love and the parts that we hate--is what makes our piece unique. Some of us got the middle piece of the puzzle, some the end, while others got the big round piece. There is no other piece of the puzzle just like yours. None. There are similar ones, but nothing like yours. Your unique contribution lies dormant, waiting for you to collect all the experiences you need to fulfill your piece of the puzzle. Every day you call forth experiences perfectly suited to gathering the wisdom required to produce your unique recipe, your piece of the puzzle.
from: The Secret of the Shadow: the power of owning your whole story © 2002 by Debbie Ford
june
No More Horizons
1971
There were formerly horizons within which people lived and thought and mythologized. There are now no more horizons. And with the dissolution of horizons we have experienced and are experiencing terrific collisions, not only of peoples but also of their mythologies. It is as when dividing panels are withdrawn from between chambers of very hot and very cold airs: there is a rush of these forces together. And so we are right now in an extremely perilous age of thunder, lightning and hurricanes all around. I think it is improper to become hysterical about it, projecting hatred and blame. It is an inevitable, altogether natural thing that when energies that have never met before come into collision there should be turbulence. That is just what we are experiencing; and we are riding it: riding it to a new age, a new birth, a totally new condition of mankind—to which no one anywhere alive today can say that he has the key, the answer, the prophecy, to its dawn. Nor is there anyone to condemn here. (“Judge not, that you may not be judged!”) What is occurring is competely natural ...
Now among the powers that are here being catapulted together, not the least important is the ancient East, that is entering into the fields of progressive humanism and democracy that are flooding Asia. Add the general bearing of the knowledge of modern science on the archaic beliefs incorporated in all traditional systems, and I think we will agree that there is a considerable sifting task to be resolved, if anything of the wisdom-lore that has sustained our species to the present is to be retained and intelligently handed on to times to come.
I have thought about this problem a good deal and have concluded that when the symbolism in which wisdom-lore is embodied is interpreted, not as referring primarily to any historical personages or events, but to the inward potential of our species, there appears throughout something that can be properly termed a perennial philosophy of the human race, which, however, is lost to view when the texts are interpreted literally, as history, in the usual way of orthodox thought.
from: Myths To Live By, Chapter XII, Joseph Campbell ©1971
may
a little attention makes all the difference
One of the best examples of the attentive heart came after Gandhi's death, when the whole Gandhian movement was in disarray. Within a year or two of the establishment of India, a number of Gandhi's followers decided to have a nationwide meeting to see how best to continue his work. They hoped to convince one elder, Vinoba Bhave, Gandhi's closest disciple and heir apparent, to lead this conference, but he declined. "We cannot revive the past," he stated. After much pleading, they finally convinced Vinoba to lead their gathering, but only on the condition, as he requested, that it be postponed for six months, giving him enough time to walk on foot from where he lived to the meeting site, halfway across India, and listen as he went.
He began to walk from village to village. As he stayed in each village, he would call a spiritual meeting as Gandhi had done. He would listen to their problems and at times advise the villagers. Naturally, he walked through a series of very poor villages, there being many of them in India. In one, many people spoke of their hardship, of their hunger and how little food they had to eat. He asked them, "Why don't you grow your own food?" But most of them were untouchables, and they said, "We would grow our own food, Sir, but we have never been allowed to own land." Upon reflection, Vinoba promised them that when he returned to Delhi he would speak to Prime Minister Nehru and see if a law could be passed giving land to the poorest villagers in India.
The village went to sleep, but Vinoba, struggling with the problem, did not rest that night. In the morning he called the villagers together and apologized. "I know government too well," he said. "Even if after several years I am able to convince them to pass a law granting land, you may never see it. It will go through the states and provinces, the district head man and the village head man, and by the time the land grant reaches you, with everyone in the government taking their piece, there probably will be nothing left for you." This was his honest but sad predicaiiicnt. "I wish I knew what to do," he said.
Then one rich villager stood up and said, "I have land. How much do these people need?" There were sixteen families, each needing five acres apiece, so Vinoba said, "Eighty acres," and the man, deeply inspired by the spirit of (Gandhi and Vinoba, offered eighty acres. Vinoba replied, "No, we cannot accept it. You must first go home and speak with your wife and children who will inherit your land." The man went home, got permission, and returned saying, "Yes, we will give eighty acres of our land." That morning eighty acres of land were given to the poorest families in the village.
The next day Vlnoba walked to another village and heard the plight of hunger and landlessness from its lowest caste members. In the meeting he recited the tale of the previous village, and from his story another rich landowner was inspired. He offered 110 acres for twenty-two desperately poor familles and again was directed to get permission from his family. Within the day the land was granted to the poor at a meeting and celebration.
Village by village, Vinoba held meetings and continued this process until he reached the council several months later. In the course of his walk, he had collected over twenty-two hundred acres of land for the poorest families along the way. He told this story to the council, and out of it, many joined him to start the great Indian Land Reform Movement. For fourteen years that followed, Vinoba Bhave and thousands of those inspired by him walked through every state, every province, and most districts of India. Without any government complications or red tape, they collected over ten million acres of land for the hungriest and most impoverished villagers.
This was one of the greatest peaceful transfers of land in modern history. And it all began with an open mind and an attentive heart.
Hindu true story - excerpt from 'Soul Food' © 1996, Kornfield & Feldman
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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