Purpose, do we have One?

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Rod's World

On the 6th May I will be part of the crew for RAW: Purpose and Meaning, a deep conversation that will make a difference for about 100 people. My friend Emeli will lead us through a process which will move people closer to seeing what they are on the planet for.

I have spent a lot of my life seeking mine, thinking I have found it at different times, doing some extraordinary things on the way. I have run the Moscow Peace Marathon the year before the Berlin Wall came down in the name of ending world hunger during one of these times. I have done an 8 week silent Calm Abiding meditation retreat during another and been the editor of a national Community Development journal for two years which also gave me purpose in my life at the time.

What does the world have to say about finding your purpose. There are quotes from some well known individuals to that most well known philosopher Anonymous, lets take a journey through 15 of them.

1. As a child new from the womb we are pure unbridled potential, we all could be president of the United States, the most powerful position on the planet. As we journey through life it takes something to remember this.

2. It’s wiser to look out there for your purpose because without others involved its hard to make a difference that has much affect.

3. Sometimes it gets dark along the path of our purpose, luckily you will have your trusty companion passion to light your journey for you.

4. In her songs Diana Ross sang about this, such a one is Ain’t no Mountain High Enough

5. All the great people who are remembered for their grand purposes used this simple formulae in their day to day progression towards them.

6. Purpose makes you jump out of bed, especially when they are fulfilling that dream you were having. I must include the classic number by Lou Reed and his friends: Perfect Song for a Perfect Day.

7. Did Mark Twain realise he would be one of the early pioneers of a self development movement that would have millions of people seeking their Why, their purpose. I don’t think so.

8. Love this one, just make you absence felt, perhaps you will have a day named after your purpose if you do it well enough.

9. Are we commissioned by the creator if there is such a being? A lot of people have purpose in their life without believing this.

10. Howard Washington Thurman 1899 – 1981 was an influential African American author, philosopher, theologian, educator, and civil rights leader. He played a leading role in many social justice movements and organisations of the twentieth century. He definitely spent his time on the planet alive.

11. Purpose makes many friends on her journey, travelling with one or two of them and at sometimes all of them to achieve the result she is seeking.

12. An essential part of the recipe in fulfilling your purpose is to locate the Self Love within you because this allows you to give it away and receive it in buckets. You cannot imagine how much easier this will make your journey.

13. “Buechner uses words with such transformative power that any comment on them is like the moon palely reflecting the sun.”

14. Don’t just find your purpose, give it away to as many people as you can.

15. As the three examples I gave at the beginning show you your purpose will change throughout your life, never give up looking for them. Remember there is always climbing after all.

I am looking forward to the 6th May, I love conversations that make a difference.

Namaste until Monday , my dear friends.

Migrant or Refugee?

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Rod's World

I went to my friend Kavisha Mazzella’s first solo art exhibition yesterday and she sang a song of her nonna’s story. Her grandmother was a refugee from Burma who had to flee when the Japanese started bombing and invading Burma and the Anglo Burmese had to flee the invasion. Here is the song: Fisherman’s Daughter.

It made me think how you become a refugee , the previous century had two world wars that saw many nationalities in the European sector become refugees and this century has seen more Asian, middle eastern and African countries due to civil wars and invasion by western countries.

What did the world do and what will it continue to do with these people who have suffered having to flee their own homeland because they have no other option.

The 15 quotes I have chosen cover statements about and people who have experienced being a refugee, let us begin the journey:

1. This pope has to keep reminding us that migrants and refugees are actually human beings as well , mothers fathers, sons , daughters , uncles and aunties as some nations have started to forget.

2. Each of us come on to the planet as a bouncing baby, some healthier than others, but none of us are illegal.

3. Communication between nations or Interculturalism: Love and Respect for All, Everyone Included would solve many of the problems that occur when people are branded migrant or refugee. I have created a Facebook Page to assist this to happen : Interculturalism.

4. On the page I talk about above I posted a quote that says if you call your self a christian or a muslim or an Italian or English you are being violent. On of you do not say you are from a particular religion or country are you not because you are owning being a human being totally. These flags above represent what is one of the major problems migrants and refugees face.

5. We can never tell what our journey will contain, unfortunately for the migrant and refugee the struggle is much more difficult than those who live in the country they are fleeing to.

6. For many of the families in my country of Australia, this is how they arrived, with one suitcase each. They made a successful life for their families from this difficult beginning.

7. One of the difficulties forced on migrants and refugees is that they must become …….., the question to be asked of the nation saying that is would your citizens do it if the situation was reversed and you were the Other.

8. We have all seen pictures of refugees camps and people crossing dangerous oceans in boats. Why do we wonder then when these same people make such wonderful citizens after putting up with these treacherous journeys to get to a safer country to call home.

9. This is a very broad statement, we probably do it to our own family at times, so how do we do this to people from countries we know very little about. Take the time to get to know people, especially new arrivals to your country.

10. This is what mainstream media forget when they place labels on people fleeing danger in their own countries. It is normally a label that has caused them to leave.

11. Tshibanda Gracia Ngoy fled tribal conflict in 2005 from Nigeria. In 2012 she was a finalist in the NSW Young Australian of the Year and a member of the NSW Multicultural Youth Network. A commerce and communications degree student at Wollongong University, Gracia Ngoy is also a caseworker for refugee families, a youth motivational speaker and a member of the Illawarra Regional Advisory Council and the NSW Multicultural Youth Network. Gracia, who speaks five languages, arrived in Australia with her family in 2005 after fleeing tribal conflict in the troubled Democratic Republic of Congo. After settling in Wollongong, she took up an offer of free homework tutoring, simultaneously signing up as a mentor for others. An accredited freelance journalist, Gracia recently published her first book entitled A Little Recipe for Success which aims to inspire young people to live successful, fulfilled and purposeful lives. She has also written numerous articles aimed at breaking down cultural barriers between her native Congo and Australia. Awarded the prestigious Australian Young People’s Human Rights Medal, Gracia was also named 2010 Wollongong Young Citizen of the Year. Drawing on the wisdom of personal experience, Gracia is determined to help the ‘many people living shattered lives who have been tied up by their past experiences and challenges.’

12. What you let your government get away with when dealing with members of their citizenship, especially their migrants and refugees build the future way you are treated as well.

13. This man is considered one of our greatest minds to have ever lived on the planet, he was a refugee.

14. António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, born 30 April 1949) is a former Portuguese politician who was Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002. He also served for a time as President of the Socialist International. He served as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from June 2005 to December 2015. This is what he say about accusing refugees of being terrorists.

15. This has been forgotten in our country, in fact we call them illegal and take away their rights to live as a human being saying they do not have a right to live here and send them to gulags.

So my request is that you spend time getting to know the migrants and refugees in your country. Only then will we realise that they are fellow human beings not terrorists. Love and Respect for All, Everyone Included.

Namaste until Thursday, my dear friends.

Beauty Begins the Moment …..

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Rod's World

At the Intercultural Centre I volunteer at, we are having an art project called Brighten the Jade. We are getting local artists to collaborate to paint the walls of our new meeting room, the Jade Room. It brought me to think what brightens my life up? I would include singing, dancing, time with my family and friends and of course blogging and my new thing creating PDF’s from webinars and podcasts.

What do people say around the world and throughout history about what has brightened their life up, its an interesting recipe of 15 quotes. Let us begin our journey

1. The American Poet John Holmes was known for his uplifting quotes, this being the most famous of them. Being buff brightens your day up but your heart gets fitter the kinder you are.

2. It took me two lengthy periods of working in government service then severals years of mental health issues before I got the health and spiritual value of this statement. Have read Richard’s biography he is a man who did not do this in his life.

3. Time for what was the anthem of my generation: Don’t Worry about a Thing.

4. Do you get tunnel vision on your projects and visions in life. The work I am doing with my mentor Arion Light through his Activation School. points to the above, if you are not attached to where you get your result from, you can get your result from anywhere.

5. We have days we jump out of bed screaming YES, YES, YES, then something happens and the Yes’s fade. Though its great to set by whens if it doesn’t happen on that exact date your dream is still there in your heart and soul.

6. Probably the song that best covers this type of deep love is the one and only All You Need Is Love.

7. Lots of people give up on their plans for supposedly logical reasons, what were their names, but we all know Galileo, Martin Luther King, Oprah Winfrey. Don’t give up brightening up your life.

8. There are so many quotes that express the above sentiment, that the way to brightening up your life is through others, I agree wholeheartedly.

9. Three formulas for brightening up your day. A lot of people do this with their cups, so to remind them when the going gets mundane.

10. This quote is another by the prolific philosopher Unknown – Its not great to have people who demean the sunshine around, heal them or move on.

11. Abhisek Tiwari is an Indian TV actor, this could be a line from his series or a great insight he has come up with that brightens our lives.

12. Just love the cheeky humour of this one.

13. It seems Hafiz is Hafez, words of great Beauty , always.

Hafez
An artistic depiction of Hafez
spiritual poet, mystic
Born	1325/1326 CE Shiraz, Persia (now Iran)
Died	1389/1390 CE Shiraz, Persia (now Iran)
Major shrine	Tomb of Hafez, Shiraz, Iran
Influences	Ibn Arabi, Khwaju, Sanai, Anvari,Nizami, Sa’di, Khaqani, A
Influenced	Subsequent Persian lyric poets,Goethe
Tradition or genre	Mystic poetry (Ghazal, Irfan)
Major works	Divan-e-Hafez

Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī (Persian: خواجه شمس‌‌الدین محمد حافظ شیرازی‎‎), known by his pen name Hafez (حافظ Ḥāfeẓ; 1325/26–1389/90),^[1] was a Persian poet who “lauded the joys of love and wine [but] also targeted religious hypocrisy.” His collected works are regarded as a pinnacle of Persian literature and are to be found in the homes of most people in Iran, who learn his poems by heart and still use them as proverbs and sayings. His life and poems have been the subject of much analysis, commentary and interpretation, influencing post-14th century Persian writing more than any other author.

14. Two of the greats, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman starred in this movies that was about brightening the last days of their lives: The Bucket List.

15. And finally , lets get amongst the stars, after all we are starseed, but that’s another blog for another time.

Namaste until Monday my dear friends

Unadulterated Joy for Me!!

Posted on March 21, 2016 by Rod's World

I have just completed the first Activation program by my friend and mentor Arion Light : Activation Schools Web Page. On the final evening we came up with an Essence for our Vision for Life, My essence flowed immediately , it was Unadulterated Joy. I just have to write about it as much of the six week journey if the course was spent in this Essence.

What does unadulterated mean, here is my favourite on-line dictionaries meaning:

un·a·dul·ter·at·ed

1. Not mingled or diluted with extraneous matter; pure: unadulterated coffee.

2. Out-and-out; utter: unadulterated joy.

unadulterated

not debased or made impure

So I am residing in the Essence of out and out utter joy, my logical mind fights this on a regular basis but luckily the training works and works well. So what does the world have to say about unadulterated joy. lets have a look with these 15 beautiful quotes:

1. Bernie Mac,recently deceased comedian believed that the way to be joyous in your life was to simply be yourself, and as he says in this quote if they don’t like it …………………!!

2. Jim Bishop was an author who wrote historical books, here he is pointing out that unless we focus on Joy it will fade as will other diverse thing such as grief.

3. Don’t we all wish we could return to the joy we feel as very young children, their world is definitely the most peaceful and joyful we spend on the planet. We don’t know what racism, jealousy and corruption are.

4. Frederick Philip Lenz, III, Ph.D., also known as Rama and Atmananda, was a spiritual teacher who taught what he termed American Buddhism, including the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, Zen, Vedanta, and Mysticism. One of the great premised of Buddhism is humility, as taught by HHDL.

5. Playing just because he loves to, unadulterated joy. They wrote a song about this : Song of Joy.

6. Joy can come from anyone, even MF’s Had to think for a while what it stood for, guess that means I’m not one.

7.Suzie Orman is a financial wizard, but states that happiness works in all areas of your life and brings her partner joy along for the ride.

8. Relief is another area of life that can generate unadulterated joy, all those fears leaving your body and mind as you enter the blessed space of relieving the pressure from them.

9. One of Bobs great 60’s videos using the cardboards signs depicts unadulterated joy for me Most Likely you’ll go your way and I’ll go mine.

10. I’m working on this , has been a long long time.

11. People with Down Syndrome have no barriers to their expression. Empathic, truthful to the max you know they live life with unadulterated joy.

12. I have attached the fascinating and funny TED talk by Robert Sapolsky, its a bit long, but worth it, yes other species think the human race is bizarre : Funny Joyous Humanity.

13. Dr. Bob Rotella writes golfing books, many golfing widows may not agree with this but to me its a great way to obtain joy in your life.

14. How could I leave the Buddha out in a discussion on Unadulterated Joy. Here is a short musical offering to attain the state via meditation : Relaxing Buddhist Music.

15. I have found that with residing in Unadulterated Joy the latter part of this quote is true, I have stopped explaining my life to others, no explanations, just Sacred Love and Sacred Stories.

Will I complete my vision and hang out in the Essence of Unadulterated Joy, time will tell and its purely up to me.

Namaste until Thursday my dear friends

What makes a Hero?

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Rod's World

Each of us has different heroes, my 89 year old mum’s are Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela and she has never been to South Africa or America. I am sure for most very young children it is their mum and dad. How do you get to be deigned hero status, is it through an act of immense bravery in battle, myself I believe the heroes are those who refuse to go and kill another human being in the name of some political cause or should we say even Oil.

There were many images showing soldiers in the background, I deliberately did not choose them, heroism is not killing another, heroism to me is stepping outside what your fears tell you you can do and going for it anyway. Here are the 15 quotes I have chosen to use to recognise the heroism that exists on our planet.

1. Maya Angelou is a heroine to many an activist, in an age when African Americans were not recognised as people she strode through the civil rights movement, With the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou publicly discussed aspects of her personal life. She was respected as a spokesperson for black people and women, and her works have been considered a defence of Black culture. Attempts have been made to ban her books from some U.S. libraries, but her works are widely used in schools and universities worldwide. here is Maya performing And Still I Rise.

2. In our country, we have a status in life called the tall poppy syndrome, don’t rise to high or you will be chopped down at the knees. This makes the above statement very poignant, Its up to us, because we can, its our time.

3. Joseph Campbell, American Mythologist who created The Heroes Journey and the quote “Follow your Bliss” covers the moments when we become bigger than ourselves and enter hero status.

4. As children we love our superheroes, their colourful capes and costumes and super powers, because they are special people. Later we realise we don’t have the same powers and learn to become our own hero or heroine.

5. Hard times, we all have them in our lives, some much worse than others and the time it takes to recover to the hero status within us is unique for each person, Gillian Welch wrote a beautiful song about them: Gillian’s Hard Times.

6. Talking about superheroes Christopher Reeve was the actor from the first Superman movies, everyones hero. On May 27, 1995, Reeve became a quadriplegic after being thrown from a horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Virginia. He required a wheelchair and a portable ventilator for the rest of his life. He lobbied on behalf of people with spinal-cord injuries and for human embryonic stem cell research, founding the Christopher Reeve Foundation and co-founding the Reeve-Irvine Research Centre. He remained a hero to the day he died of a heart attack at the tender age of 52.

7. I can imagine most of us living the comfort of our lives today would imagine travelling on one of these vessels was a heroes journey. There is still the opportunity to take such journey these days, go out and discover them for yourselves.

8. The criminals were always trying to unmask Batman in his movies and comics to discover his identity, true everyday heroes do not need masks, they just get the job done.

9. I/We can do this, enough said.

10 And Mum.

11. Mary McCarthy was an American author who parents died when she was 8 in the great flu plague of 1918, sent to abusive relatives she moved around until going to University. During the 1940s and 1950s she became a liberal critic of both McCarthyism and Communism. She maintained her commitment to liberal critiques of culture and power to the end of her life, opposing the Vietnam War in the 1960s and covering the Watergate scandal hearings in the 1970s. She visited Vietnam a number of times during the Vietnam War. Interviewed after her first trip, she declared on British television that there was not a single documented case of the VietCong deliberately killing a South Vietnamese woman or child. She wrote favourably about the Vietcong.

12. Some people go as far as tattooing their favourite quote on their body, often about heroism or their heroes.

13. Peter Alexander McWilliams (August 5, 1949 – June 14, 2000) was an American self-help author who advocated for the legalisation of marijuana. The condition he died of is now treated by marijuana in the states that have realised the medical qualities of Marijuana. It is often quoted he was murdered by the state. For the people now benefiting from his struggles he would be considered a hero.

14. The human story, the heroes path. if you think you have fallen off yours look for your passion and change direction, you are your own hero.

15. And I have chosen to finish with one of my musical Heroes : David Bowies Heroes

Are there more heroes than ordinary people, for the worlds sake I hope so.

Namaste until Monday my dear friends

Pay as you Feel or Donate, its all Giving.

Posted on March 14, 2016 by Rod's World

I wanted to write todays blog on the pay as you feel ethos, there is a chain of restaurants in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia called Lentil as Anything who do just that, you eat there and pay what you can afford. There are not many pay as you feel quotes so I have had to move over to what it is to donate or give of our time.

I give a lot of the little money I have that I can afford to give. I support guide dogs as I have a blind friend, I support Green peace and several other organisations who do good stuff around the planet and volunteer my time as well as an English teacher and a Social media nerd.

I have chosen 15 quotes that i think will allow for some interesting comment. Here we go:

1. I have a friend Emeli who runs an organisation called Collective Potential whose target audience is corporate types who have realised that the $100,000 job does not provide the satisfaction they are looking for. Frankly they never do.

2. At least several times in out lives the chance will come to make a difference to someone. I once met a person in the street who told me that I wouldn’t remember him because he used to be a drug addict but that I had saved his life in the way I had treated him as a human being and not a number when I worked for the government welfare agency. He was right, I didn’t.

3. What makes the greatest difference, the child talking to the homeless man who has not spoken to someone in five days or the millionaire making a six figure tax deductible donation. I know which one does for me.

4. Cornelia “Corrie” ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who, along with her father and other family members, helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. She was imprisoned for her actions. Her most famous book, The Hiding Place, describes the ordeal. She certainly lived the meaning of the above quote.

5. As the example of the person I met in the street who said I had saved his life thorough my actions and that of children who talk to strangers like they know the person needs love these are both moments of the above.

6. This man is a frigging saint, enough said.

7. Can I put a Dolly Parton song in this blog , yes I can : Put a little Love IN Your Heart.

8. What would it take to make a statement like this. Anne Frank was a teenage jewish Schoolgirl hiding from the Nazi’s who wrote the Diaries of a Young Girl which was made into the iconic film The Diary of Anne Frank, she did not survive.

9. Sir Ken Robinson has done four TED talks on the danger of rigid education. He points out if you buy into the mainstream you will not know how to give your gifts to the planet, they will be drained out of you.

10. In the United states there are over 100,000 people waiting for live saving organs, why do we get buried intact when we could just as easily save another’s life. I don’t think your God would notice the difference.

11. There are people who are worshipped for what they gave in their lifetimes, this man is one of them, and yes we killed him as well.

12. What every person thinks who this happens for, they may not be able to say it physically or mentally.

13. It is always valued by someone, at times you will be rewarded in person, in other times it may be your next lifetime, if you believe in that sort of thing.

14.The Tao Te Ching, Daodejing, Dao De Jing, or Daode jing, also simply referred to as the Laozi, is a Chinese classic text. According to tradition, it was written around 6th century BC by the sage Laozi, a record-keeper at the Zhou dynasty court, by whose name the text is known in China. The text’s true authorship and date of composition or compilation are still debated, although the oldest excavated text dates back to the late 4th century BC. It is full of wisdom like this.

15. The great Buddhist concept of compassion as spread by the Dalai Lama is well spoken in this quote by Steve Maraboli, the worlds most quoted man.

Will the people who are the givers of the world withstand the attack of the takers,is it really the beginning of the Age of Aquarius as is being promoted on the internet, I hope so.

Namaste until Thursday, my dear friends.