No matter the Situation!!


I was always considered intelligent at school but was expelled at the end of Year 11 for non attendance. I may have been intelligent but did not consider a formal education the way to honour it. I spent many a day in Year 11 not attending the institution, Eaglehawk High School I had left my parents home to go to.

Many years later I began the education that would fulfil my desires, in the self development field. Through the tenets of Buddhism and Werner Erhardt and Associates I began a journey that I still continue today that will continue to the day I pass to the other side.So what does society have to say about where the fulfilment of intelligence lies, let’s have a look:

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1. My favourite bird, the noble owl suits this quote that Henry Ford made famous in the early years of the last century questioning were people allowed to think in an education system that was set up to train clones for jobs that already existed.

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2. Being supremely intelligent did not necessarily mean that you fitted in . Here are some unusual facts about Albert: Quirky Albert.

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3. Often people who come up with the great changes on our planet are considered quite crazy because how could their idea work or there is no need for that when they first start talking about it.

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4. Janis Joplin, one of the 60’s great philosophers, was not known for her answers , she was known for her questioning of society: Ball and Chain.

My father used to say, "Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."

5. Albert again, he did not shout in life, just kept improving his arguments until they gave him the Nobel Prize for one of them.

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6. Or Love, kindness, inner beauty etc. etc. etc: Money.

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7. I read recently you should be the dumbest person in the room if you want to be a success, this relates to that.

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8. Epictetus was a Greek-speaking Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia, and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in north-western Greece for the rest of his life. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses and Enchiridion: Just Do It.

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9. They say when you are born 60% of the jobs you will do have not been invented yet, but in our country they are trying to return the education system to a standardised system throughout the country, why would you do that? 

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10. There is also a fourth these days, artificial which could be seen as replacing one or two of the above: Prince Ea.

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11. How can you keep on learning if you are always the smartest person in the room, if this occurs more times than less, then you are going backwards.

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12. Your physical looks do not remain the same, we get lines and wrinkles as the years pile on. Your wit and foresight grow over time: I don’t want to change You!

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13. I had to include this one, because I am known as the research nerd, research intellectual bad ass has a much better ring to it.

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14. Intelligent people will really get this: Pharrell is Happy.

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15. I love this quote by Albert, It’s why I rail against the education system that thinks everyone is the same.

Intelligence is a gift we could all participate in when we enter our lives from the womb, we just need to find the right education path. Don’r rely on the one that the system says is the one that will work for you.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

namaste2

 

 

 

What’s meant to Be!!


I spent quite a few years of my life being impatient that life should go a certain way then took up meditation on advice from a friend of mine who seemed much more relaxed about life than myself.

I was terrible at it first with my monkey mind on overdrive, but slowly I learnt the art of patience and mindfulness and have been able to accept that this madness of our society for instant gratification is not how life is meant to be , that good things come with patience. Let’s define patience before we begin our journey.

Patience (or forbearing) is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, which can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without acting on negative annoyance/anger; or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. Patience is the level of endurance one can have before negativity. It is also used to refer to the character trait of being steadfast. Antonyms include hastiness and impetuousness.

I have found 15 quotes that go back as far as Ancient Greek times, lets begin.

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1. At first having a massive to do list may seem to some that we are getting more done, but our mind is so busy with getting from A to B to C that we are concentrated on what we already know and are missing out on what is available from the universe.

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2. Edmund Burke was an Irish statesman born in Dublin, as well as an author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after moving to London, served as a member of parliament for many years in the House of Commons with the Whig Party. With all those occupations Edmund must have lived the above quote throughout his life: Growing Up.

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3. Often we leave the most important person off the list of people to be patient with, our parents, our siblings , our lovers, but what about ourselves, Yes, self love  is one thing that must make that list.

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4. Here’s the ancient Greek. How many times have we begged something to happen when through it not occurring a much sweeter fruit has ended up in our basket:  Strange Fruit.

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5. saadi – Abū-Muhammad Muslih al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī, better known by his pen-name Saadi (سعدی Saʿdī( Saadi )), also known as Saadi of Shiraz, was one of the major Persian poets and literary men of the medieval period. He is not only famous in Persian-speaking countries, but has been quoted in western sources as well. He is recognized for the quality of his writings and for the depth of his social and moral thoughts. Saadi is widely recognized as one of the greatest poets of the classical literary tradition. How often we forget this.

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6. The quick wins don’t make you the master, It’s more how you react and recover from Mistakes that maketh the man, success includes patience as part of the recipe: That Power.

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7. Wait for what is meant to be , not force an issue. 365 or 1 day, it will find you.

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8. It’s the actions between the waiting that show you the power of patience. Do right things and the results will follow: Patience.

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9. The never ending story we tell ourselves in our heads like It will never work out, why doesn’t he/she like me are instant gratification stories. Have patience that yes, it will still happen.

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10. The traditional 10, 9, 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,Blast off we all can relate to from the space program points to how after spending millions of dollars time is still taken to the very end, and beginning: Space Oddity.

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11. You are unique among 7,000,000,000 people. Trust that and your journey will be a lot easier.

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12. I didn’t know this, when I buy one I will obviously have to be patient waiting on its delivery: It makes you feel like dancing.

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13. John Kabat-Zin is one of the pioneers of mindfulness in the western world. Check out his YouTube talks on the subject, he’s  very impressive.

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14. Can’t wait for the result, I’m sure you have a few hundred other tasks you could do to take your mind off it: KIds.

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15. Augustine of Hippo – Augustine’s contemporaries often believed astrology to be an exact and genuine science. Its practitioners were regarded as true men of learning and called mathemathici. Astrology played a prominent part in Manichaean doctrine, and Augustine himself was attracted by their books in his youth, being particularly fascinated by those who claimed to foretell the future. Later, as a bishop, he used to warn that one should avoid astrologers who combine science and horoscopes. (Augustine’s term “mathematici”, meaning “astrologers”, is sometimes mistranslated as “mathematicians”.) According to Augustine, they were not genuine students of Hipparchus or Eratosthenes but “common swindlers”.

So my request is to aim high, but also to show patience on the journey.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends

namaste

 

 

 

Are you on the right path!!


I have done several workshops lately, the latest being on Experiential Astrology , the new Moon and Kali. I don’t know a great deal about Kali, having studied more the Lilith and hecate lineage of goddesses over my trip so I looked up Kali.

Kali comes from the Sanskrit root word Kal which means time. There is nothing that escapes the all-consuming march of time. In Tibetan Buddhism Her counterpart is male with the name Kala. Mother Kali is the most misunderstood of the Hindu goddesses. The Encyclopedia Britannica is grossly mistaken in the following quote, “Major Hindu goddess whose iconography, cult, and mythology commonly associate her with death, sexuality, violence, and, paradoxically in some of her later historical appearances, motherly love.”

It is partly correct to say Kali is a goddess of death but She brings the death of the ego as the illusory self-centered view of reality. Nowhere in the Hindu stories is She seen killing anything but demons nor is She associated specifically with the process of human dying like the Hindu god Yama (who really is the god of death). It is true that both Kali and Shiva are said to inhabit cremation grounds and devotees often go to these places to meditate. This is not to worship death but rather it is to overcome the I-am-the-body idea by reinforcing the awareness that the body is a temporary condition. Shiva and Kali are said to inhabit these places because it is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego. Shiva and Kali grant liberation by removing the illusion of the ego. Thus we are the eternal I AM and not the body. This is underscored by the scene of the cremation grounds.

Of all the forms of Devi, She is the most compassionate because She provides moksha or liberation to Her children. She is the counterpart of Shiva the destroyer. They are the destroyers of unreality. The ego sees Mother Kali and trembles with fear because the ego sees in Her its own eventual demise. A person who is attached to his or her ego will not be receptive to Mother Kali and she will appear in a fearsome form. A mature soul who engages in spiritual practice to remove the illusion of the ego sees Mother Kali as very sweet, affectionate, and overflowing with incomprehensible love for Her children.

A worthwhile guidance to follow in Life, so let’s have a look at what life says about being guided:

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1. They sat very few individuals ever reach enlightenment because most people do not have the stamina to take all the steps required. I think we need to remember this and that there will be a lot more steps.

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2. Yes, you are not one of the 150,ooo people who died on the  planet today if you are reading this. That means you have survived those countless mistakes you have made and are still being guided: Life is a Flower.

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3. In a week one of the two most unelectable people in the western world will be president of the United States. Guess what , have the courage to let go of what you can’t change.

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4.  Mason Cooley (1927 – July 25, 2002) was an American aphorist known for his witty aphorisms. One of these such aphorisms Cooley developed was “The time I kill is killing me.” He was professor emeritus of French, speech and world literature at the College of Staten Island. He was also an assistant professor of English at Columbia University from 1959 to 1967 and an adjunct professor from 1980 to 1988. He received his B.A. from San Diego State University and his Ph.D. from Oxford: Bad Blood.

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5. One of the more forgotten religious guides, if you say you follow your guiding angel you often get a smirk from certain individuals.

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6. If you are lucky you might find one of these guides in your life, perhaps even more than one. I have one at the moment, Arion Light from the Activation SchoolBlinded by the Light.

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7. You can’t read the whole quote but certainly get the gist of it.

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8. Pick a side to be on, Douglas bader was a famous fighter pilot in WW2 who lost both his legs in an accident and returned to combat. I want some of the divine guidance he was receiving: Break the Rules

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9. I love the emoji for a hug, the little yellow creature holding its hands out, perhaps it’s doing this.

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10. I would suggest you are being well guided by this quote,and there’s butterflies, yay!!: Stuck on You.

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11. I am always so thankful the Chinese gave us the wisdom of Lao Tzu. This is from Confucius, another very wise man.

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12.  Coco Chanel was known for her lifelong determination, ambition, and energy which she applied to her professional and social life. She achieved both financial success as a businesswoman and catapulted to social prominence in French high society, thanks to the connections she made through her work. These included many artists and craftspeople to whom she became a patron. In 1970, her net worth was $19 billion (equivalent to $118 billion in 2015), making her one of the richest women of all time. She thought for herself, very loud: I Won’t Back Down.

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13. My friend Leyolah Antara swears by prayer, saying it is vital in entering being guided, she is the founder of Kundalini Dance,  Leyolah Antara.

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14. If there is a piece missing, all there is to do is persevere, really: Prince Ea.

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15. My favourite cigar smoker, Led England during WW2, made great speeches and wrote some great quotes, here’s one.

Don’t give up on looking for your guided, I found my best one at 60.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

P.S. I was having the day off, and nearly forgot to write this.

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We’re all in the same Game!!


I live in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. It was the policy of succeeding governments , both left and tight to place the heavily demonised asylum seekers who had arrived on the shores of our proud country amongst our population. What they did not mention is they placed them in houses without furniture and food, some without electricity for days. This would never be reported in the mainstream media of our country as they are on the side of asylum seekers are evil.

I work at Darebin Intercultural Centre, set up to assist the assimilation of new groups to our multicultural neighbourhood. We set up an asylum seeker lounge to get the new arrivals out of their houses and into the community and provided free English lessons for anyone, some visa classes issued to asylum seekers banned them from working, volunteering and receiving the basic 510 hours English training, but we are called  a civilised country.

So who is an asylum seeker, here’s the definition if you didn’t know :

asylum seeker –  a person who, from fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, social group, or political opinion, has crossed an international frontier into a country in which he or she hopes to be granted refugee status.

It does not say if you came by boat you were queue jumping, that is something our government made up, so lets have a look at what the world has to say about it:

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1. I was asked a question at an event called The Awakening that I attended yesterday. It was, What is it that makes you lose hope? My answer is tribalism or nationalism, that ethos that makes people thing that there are human beings on the planet who matter less than people born in your country.

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2. What would the world look like if we followed the above words of the great orator and civil rights champion, Martin Luther King : Justice.

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3. I teach English to asylum seekers. One of them is a Sri Lankan woman who was born in a refuge camp in Indian, having two children there. Whose relations paid for her to travel to Australia by boat as she had no chance of getting out of the camp legally, where she and her children was placed on Christmas island and Darwin detention centres for 12 months before being allowed into our community.

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4. This is how having to look after Asylum seekers is portrayed by mainstream media in our country : Share It Maybe.

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5. These are two lines from our national anthem Advance Australia Fair, we seem to have forgotten something.

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6. One of the tricks used to raise worry about asylum seekers is that they won’t fit in. Perhaps the fact that modern day coffee and the guitar owe their discovery to the middle east may allay these fears: Guitar Live.

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7. Our Air Force at the moment bombing parts of Syria, I would call that shock and awe, get the connection.

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8. How do we fix the problem of asylum seekers flooding our shores? Our country has increased its equanimity with each cultural intake of refugees. When I grew up as a child all you could get was steak and three veg. at roadside cafes, I now live in a suburb with about 20 different culture’s food outlets; When you say nothing at All.

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9.  William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays, and screenplays. He is primarily known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life. 

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10. Before planes everybody arrived in our country by boat, The first boat arrivals, the English, declared Australia Terra Nullius,Terra nullius – Indigenous Australians had inhabited Australia for over 50,000 years before European settlement, which commenced in 1788. Indigenous customs, rituals and laws were unwritten and their social and political organization was unknown or understood by Europeans as being analogous to their own institutions, and the British could not find recognised leaders with whom they could sign treaties.

The first test of terra nullius in Australia occurred with the decision of R v Tommy (Monitor, 29 November 1827), which indicated that the native inhabitants were only subject to English law where the incident concerned both natives and settlers. The rationale was that Aboriginal tribal groups already operated under their own legal systems. This position was further reinforced by the decisions of R v Boatman or Jackass and Bulleyes (Sydney Gazette, 25 February 1832) and R v Ballard (Sydney Gazette, 23 April 1829).

Prompted by Batman’s Treaty (June 1835) with Wurundjeri elders of the area around the future Melbourne, in August 1835, Governor Bourke of New South Wales indicated the significance of the doctrine of terra nullius by a Proclamation that Batman’s so-called treaty was null and void because Indigenous Australians could not sell or assign land, nor could an individual person or group acquire it, other than through distribution by the Crown. a land with out people , and set about trying to wipe out the native indigenous people on their arrival: Treaty.

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11. One of the methodologies used by the Australian government was to stop reporting the arrival of boats in the name of national security.

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12. One of the asylum seeker couples I taught English to were a civil engineer and a doctor who had to flee Afghanistan when the Taliban declared a fatwa on Lina, who was a doctor who had been empowering women. Most people who seek asylum had jobs before they had to drop everything and run for their lives: Getting It On.

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13. Words not included in the asylum seeker who arrived by boat in Australia policy. We have generously given them temporary visas where they must reapply every three years to see if they can stay. What would you feel like in your life was measured on a three year life span.

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14. And this is one of the main reasons that we know the term asylum seeker: War, what is it good For.

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15. I have friends who say questionable things about asylum seekers, The first question I ask them is have they ever met an asylum seeker? There answer is usually in the negative.

I request you to research your knowledge of what is written about asylum seekers. A viewing of the excellent Mary meets Mohammad documentary helps greatly.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

namaste2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As long as you don’t need them!!


I saw a beautiful word on the way to my volunteer work today, when I got their I was told I was no longer a volunteer but a visitor and have to wear an ID identifying me as so, I have been volunteering there for 3 and a half years, bureaucracy is a beautiful thing.

The word I saw was transference, I wasn’t sure of its exact meaning so I went to google, here it is : definition of transference:

Transference is a phenomenon characterised by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. One definition of transference is “the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person’s childhood”. Another definition is “the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object”. Still another definition is “a reproduction of emotions relating to repressed experiences, especially of childhood, and the substitution of another person… for the original object of the repressed impulses”. Transference was first described by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who acknowledged its importance for psychoanalysis for better understanding of the patient’s feelings.

I’m still not sure if I know what it means after that but I will have a go at discussing the following quotes on it:

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    1. Have you been to see a film and left disappointed because their interpretation didn’t match the one you had created from reading the book in your head, I know I have.
     
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    2. In the definition it talks about repetition in the present, if the repetition is of a negative nature get away from that transference: Bad Vibe.

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3. I have a friend who does self development work, he says it is to have people                    become sane in an insane world, he must have read this.

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4. How often do we fear situations in out life, and when they occur the result is                  nothing like the expectation, for me its a fear of heights, what’s yours: Guts over              Fear.

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5. Arthur M. Jolly  is an American playwright and screenwriter. In 2006, he was                   awarded an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship in                 Screenwriting for a script named The Free Republic of Bobistan.

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6. Are you great at hugging , holding and being held. To me this is the greatest act            of transference of the soul, spirit, energy through action: I Want to Hug You.

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7. Nationalism, one of the great tools of fascism. Sport taken to extremes, killing              in the name of!!

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8. James Frank Dobie – was an American folklorist, writer, and newspaper                           columnist best known for many books depicting the richness and traditions of life           in rural  Texas during the days of the open range. As a public figure, he was known           in his lifetime for his outspoken liberal views against Texas state politics, and for             his long personal war against what he saw as bragging Texans, religious prejudice,           restraints on individual liberty, and the assault of the mechanised world on the                 human spirit. He was instrumental in the saving of the Texas Longhorn breed of               cattle from extinction. Imagine what he would have thought of our crazy                             times: The Human Spirit.

 

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9. Aren’t they so charismatic: we all know one of them. In the conscious dance                 community I hang in, I know quite a few thankfully, people who are alive and full             of enthusiasm.

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10. That first day of school when we are with our mothers normally, and they                     leave us behind with a whole lot of strangers, how long did it take you to get over             the first day blues: First Day of School.

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11. How often do we transfer our vision into reality? I put it in google, guess the                  result: 20,300,000. I suppose that’s why they call it leadership.

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12. Simone Weil  was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. After                   her graduation from formal education, Weil became a teacher. She taught                            intermittently throughout the 1930s, taking several breaks due to poor health and            to devote herself to political activism, work that would see her assisting in the                  trade union movement, taking the side of the Anarchists known as the Durruti                 Column in the Spanish Civil War, and spending more than a year working as a                   labourer, mostly in auto factories, so she could better understand the working                   class : Never Know.

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13. Father of the Star Trek phenomenon, Gene Roddenberry –  was asked to write a            series called Riverboat, set in 1860’s Mississippi. When he discovered that the                    producers wanted no black people on the show, he argued so much with them                    that he lost the job, but what a great question. 

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14. The father of transference, Sigmund Freud lightening the situation a                             little: The Cigar Song.

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15. The Diva of soul Nina Simone lived with the transference that music can be, a            blessing or the burden of fame throughout her life, suffering mental health issues            and family breakdown as well as playing to some of the biggest audiences of her               era.

So what have you transferred from your childhood and who do you relate to like they            were that person who did that to you the first time, It’s a life time journey battling the          transference of our minds.

       Namaste until next time my dear friends.

 

 

 

 

 

Real Heroes don’t wear Capes!


I won a competition when I was very young dressed as a super hero. As you get older you realise that the heroes in life don’t necessarily wear capes. That heroics are much simpler than that, a smile when you feel down, a hug when you feel lonely. a dollar in a cup.

Appreciation of what they do is what people remember, it has been an ongoing battle for me as it was not a strong point in my family as I was growing up. I have to remember to say thank you as it was not something I learnt from an early age.

Acts of appreciation, what does society say about them, lets have a look:

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1. Margaret Elizabeth Cousins, also known as Gretta Cousins (7 October 1878–11 March 1954) was an Irish-Indian educationist, suffragist and Theosophist, who established All India Women’s Conference (AIWC) in 1927. She was the wife of poet and literary critic James Cousins, with whom she moved to India in 1915. She is credited with composing the tune for the Indian National Anthem Jana Gana Mana in February 1919, during Rabindranath Tagore’s visit to the Madanapalle College.

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2. I am not like the millions who think that the Tony Robbins documentary I am not your Guru is a classic. Too me it looks a lot like manipulation but a lot of people I respect swear by him and have done the fire walk : The Tony Robbins Experience.

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3. I still remember the Japanese airline staff member who walked us to the front of the line in Kyoto airport because we were due to miss our flight as we had assumed a flight to Moscow would be international. It was domestic and we could not read the signs in 1990.

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4. Expectations versus acts of Appreciation. How dull has your relationship become when your day to day actions are expected? : Someone Like You!!

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5. This is not so easy to do, a dear friend of my brothers is in hospital at the moment with the possibility she will not see 50, you never expect this.

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6. Bruce Wilkinson is a Christian philosopher and author who has given keynote addresses at major national and international events with stadium audiences of 80,000 or more. He has written more than 60 books that have been translated into 30 languages, including several books that reached the number one spot on the bestseller lists of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Bruce’s book, The Prayer of Jabez, remains the fastest-selling book in history,  with worldwide sales exceeding 20 million. Scarlet Begonias.

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7. A little known secret that can have you lead a fulfilled life.

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8. The Wonder of you. A lot of songs have been written about this. Here’s the most famous by the King: The Wonder of You.

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9. Aaron Polson currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, two sons, and a tattooed rabbit. His stories have featured magic goldfish, monstrous beetles, and a book of lullabies for baby vampires. His work has seen print in Shock Totem, Blood Lite II, and Monstrous with several new stories forthcoming in Shimmer, Space and Time, and other publications. The Saints are Dead, a collection of weird fiction, magical realism, and the kitchen sink, is due from Aqueous Press in 2011. “

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10. These people are rare, we usually marry them or have them as our children. Have you seen that ad were the father announces his death to get his children to come at Christmas. It says a lot about unconditional love. Here’s a disco version: Unconditional Love – Donna Summer.

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11. One of the most famous quotes ever written about appreciation comes from Maya Angelou and it doesn’t even use the word.

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12. When you put your love out there you are giving your power away, it lies within the life within you, the same for flowers, don’t pick them and bring them to an early death : Dead Flowers by Townes.

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13. My friend Daniel started a Facebook page : Daily Gratitude Space for a forum so people could write what they appreciate daily. It has grown to over 1,000 members. Join, its a beautiful thing to do.

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14. Love her or hate her, Mother Teresa’s words are still quoted 20 years after her death. There are many Indians alive today who appreciate what she did for them even though she was considered a  bit narky : Mother Teresa’s Song.

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15. What can you not say about the great man who is Wayne Dyer. Who did he appreciate? Wayne Dyer stated Nisargadatta Maharaj to be his Teacher and cited the quotation, “Love says: ‘I am everything’. Wisdom says: ‘I am nothing’ from a compilation of talks on Shiva Advaita (Nondualism) philosophy I Am That. He was influenced by Abraham Maslow’s concept of self-actualization and by the teachings of Swami Muktananda, whom he considered to be his Master. In his book, Wishes Fulfilled; Mastering the Art of Manifesting, Dr. Dyer also credited Saint Francis of Assisi and the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu as foundational influences in his work.

I appreciate all of you who read my blogs, I am in awe you are from all over the world. I was especially bemused by the person from St. Kitts who read one.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

Namaste2

 

 

 

 

There is no Beauty in the Finest Cloth!!


We are having a movie day at the Darebin Intercultural Centre today. It is a screening of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. We provide lunch before and the attendees were discussing the countries they come from: Malta, China, Vietnam, India, Ireland and Italy, most of how arrived as refugees , many of them asylum seekers who arrived  in our country by boat.

Hanh, our elderly vietnamese who attends our events and was an asylum seeker who arrived by boat back in the 1970’s was sharing about how she was helping the new intake of Syrians who are arriving in our country because they have nothing. And she said how she could relate to that and how poorly our planet is set up so that all people survive.

It led to a conversation about the sustainability of our beloved planet, so I am enquiring into what has been said and done over the years in regard to this. Lets have a look:

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1. I watched a discussion on A T.V. showed called Q and A the other night with a scientist and a politician discussing Climate Change. The politician said that it had been made up by NASA. The scientist asked him did he believe we had landed on the moon, and who was responsible for that.

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2. Point taken, Prince Ea has a few words to say about this: Sorry.

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3. Will there be an Amazon Forest in the future for our children and grandchildren to visit. In the past 40 years 20% of the rainforest has been cut down. Here are 20 Facts about the Amazon.

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4. They say that everything is music, what tune what is happening in Syria playing:War, what is it good for?

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5. Anna Lappé is an author and educator, known for her work as an expert on food systems and as a sustainable food advocate. The co-author or author of three books and the contributing author to over ten others, Anna’s work has been widely translated internationally and featured in many journals. With her mother Frances Moore Lappé, Anna co-founded the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, an international network for research and popular education about the root causes of hunger and poverty. The Lappés are also co-founders of the Small Planet Fund, which has raised nearly $1 million for democratic social movements worldwide, two of which have won the Nobel Peace Prize since the Fund’s founding in 2002.Anna’s research on sustainable agriculture has taken her from Brooklyn to South Korea, China, Bangladesh, India, Poland, France, Italy, Mali, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, and beyond.

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6. Sustainability depends on us all, stop using plastic bags, throwing rubbish in the streets, purchasing pre wrapped items from supermarkets etc. etc. etc. : Sustainability Song.

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7. One  of my favourite songs is by Paul Kelly , From Little things, Big Things grow. It depicts the action of an indigenous tribe in Australia and their battle for their land with Lord Vestey, a British landowner: Here are the words: 

Gather round people let me tell you’re a story
An eight year long story of power and pride
British Lord Vestey and Vincent Lingiarri
Were opposite men on opposite sides

Vestey was fat with money and muscle
Beef was his business, broad was his door
Vincent was lean and spoke very little
He had no bank balance, hard dirt was his floor

From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow

Gurindji were working for nothing but rations
Where once they had gathered the wealth of the land
Daily the pressure got tighter and tighter
Gurindju decided they must make a stand

They picked up their swags and started off walking
At Wattie Creek they sat themselves down
Now it don’t sound like much but it sure got tongues talking
Back at the homestead and then in the town

From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow

Vestey man said I’ll double your wages
Seven quid a week you’ll have in your hand
Vincent said uh-huh we’re not talking about wages
We’re sitting right here till we get our land
Vestey man roared and Vestey man thundered
You don’t stand the chance of a cinder in snow
Vince said if we fall others are rising

From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow

Then Vincent Lingiarri boarded an aeroplane
Landed in Sydney, big city of lights
And daily he went round softly speaking his story
To all kinds of men from all walks of life

And Vincent sat down with big politicians
This affair they told him is a matter of state
Let us sort it out, your people are hungry
Vincent said no thanks, we know how to wait

From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow

Then Vincent Lingiarri returned in an aeroplane
Back to his country once more to sit down
And he told his people let the stars keep on turning
We have friends in the south, in the cities and towns

Eight years went by, eight long years of waiting
Till one day a tall stranger appeared in the land
And he came with lawyers and he came with great ceremony
And through Vincent’s fingers poured a handful of sand

From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow

That was the story of Vincent Lingairri
But this is the story of something much more
How power and privilege can not move a people
Who know where they stand and stand in the law

From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow

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8. There are many quotes like this, pointing to the fact that how we treat the earth is how we are treating ourselves and future generations. Mahatma Gandhi said it in the 1940’s, we do not appear to have learnt much: I am that I Am.

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9. Ralph  Marston (February 16, 1907 – December 7, 1967) was a professional football player who spent a season in the National Football League with the Boston Bulldogs in 1929. 

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10. Indigenous wisdom from people who lived on lands for thousands of centuries is often ignored these days as primitive, I think thats a damn shame: Elders Wisdom.

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11. We hold ourselves superior to all other creatures on the planet, and wipe countless species out each year, when will they turn on us?

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12. Arnie, the terminator in the good guy movies about coming back to protect the leader of humanity from the machines knows how the planet will survive, unfortunately the Australian government does not. The Terminator.

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13. William Andrews McDonough is an American designer, advisor, author, and thought leader. McDonough is founding principal of William McDonough + Partners, co-founder of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) with German chemist Michael Braungart as well as co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things and The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance, also with Braungart. McDonough’s career is focused on creating a beneficial footprint. He espouses a message that we can design materials, systems, companies, products, buildings, and communities that continuously improve over time.

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14. The profit mongers of the world seem to think they can do anything to our planet. What they fail to realise that the earth will still be here long after the human race disappear from its surface as many other dominant species have: Earth Song.

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15. Zinn described himself as “something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist.” He wrote extensively about the civil rights and anti-war movements, and labor history of the United States. His memoir, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, was also the title of a 2004 documentary about Zinn’s life and work. Zinn died of a heart attack in 2010, aged 87.

How do we sustain the world if we continue with tribalism and fighting wars over it. Sustainability must  include all things on the planet being equal.

Namaste until next time my dear friends.

namaste

 

 

 

 

 

 

You are not a Tree!!


I suppose I spent the first 30 years of my life being a good country boy with not much ambition besides holding down a job that brought in some money so I could survive this life.

The first event that really changed it was when my sister rang me near her birthday and asked me had I heard anything about the Forum and would I like to come to an evening about it. Being a good brother I said yes as a sort of Birthday present. I could not imagine I would be running down the main street of St. Petersburg with the sports minister and mayor of that city that is larger than Sydney and Melbourne combined just a year and a half later after running the Moscow Peace Marathon.

This phone call was life changing for me as I had never really taken a look at my life up to the moment I enrolled in the Forum a couple of months later. It didn’t have a lot of effect at first because I sat there knowing what they were talking about. It was only when they said something my egotistical IQ did not understand or believe at the time that had me actually take part in the enquiry.

What changes our Lives? Is it looking across the room and seeing the person we know we are going to spend the rest of our life with, the birth of our first child, or in my case a willingness not to know something. Let’s have a look at what is said about it  out there:

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1. How does one change their life? Winston Churchill, known as much for his cigar smoking as his words says it take old-fashioned courage, the ability to continue down the path of life. Lets be Brave.

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2. Don’t listen to those negative stories in your head, go and talk to someone else who will point out the lies they are.

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3. There will be moments in your life that you rediscover your two-year old tantrum ability, NO, with this I will not put up with. Here’s why MLK was considered such a change leader : I’ve been to the Mountaintop.

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4. The meaning of life is not to get your values from mainstream media but from  personal experience, then you truly know how it affects you.

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5. Eleanor Roosevelt said the essential thing is to learn and that there is no experience from which you can’t learn something. My mentor Arion says it  like this: Everything is a gift. At times it hurts me when I try to comprehend this lifestyle. You could say Its Living not Dreaming.

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6. Do you agree with this?

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7. Over to John Lennon: Imagine.

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8. How many of the men out there were trained not to be emotive and shed tears because it was not being manly? Luckily our society has changed and this is no longer such a crime.

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9. I was just turning 30 when I chose the latter. Let’s hear from the Sesame Street crew: Don’t Give Up.

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10. My God, of which I don’t really have one, that hurt. Which type, which pain?

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11. I’m a How I met your Mother fan, big time. If you are not you will not know who this proud and out gay actor who played the womaniser of the series is. Such an irony. Here’s Tegan and Sara from the Lego movie : Everything is Awesome!!.

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12. Life will not always go the way you want  it to, time for some yachting lessons so you can sail your way back.

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13. My friend Emeli says it You’re Allowed, to live your dreams, she’s referring to. Arnie, the terminator in the classic movie series says  it even simpler: I will do! Rise Up!!

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14. Albert Einstein , 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics). Einstein’s work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. Einstein is best known in popular culture for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2 (which has been dubbed “the world’s most famous equation”). He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his “services to theoretical physics”, in particular his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory. His research has changed many lives.

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15. Possibly the oldest quote with the youngest and cutest image. Confucius points out how to change your life, begin by taking a step at a time : One Step at a Time!!

The title of this blog comes from another quote: f you don’t like where you are, then change it – You are not a Tree. Victimhood is the booby prize, take that step from tree hood today.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends

namaste

 

Do we experience the Divine?


In this time of Pokemon Go, Facebook, Tinder and instantaneous gratification do we remember what it is to experience the divine? Those moments that make our heart shudder such as the birth of our children, the moment we looked across a room and realised that they were the person we were going to marry and other similar events that fill up our photo album of divinity.

This is the meaning of divinity according to the dictionary, number 5 shows how much our society has changed

Divinity – definition of divinity by The Free Dictionary

1. The state or quality of being divine.
2. a. Divinity The godhead; God. Used with the.

     b. A deity, such as a god or goddess.
3. Godlike character.
4. Theology.
5. A soft white candy, usually containing nuts.
Over the ages much has been said about what constitutes the divine, often dependant on how strong religion was at the time, lets begin our journey down this sacred path:
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1. We often place divinity onto our favourite singers yet they never claim it for themselves, so lets go for Peace, Love and Understanding.
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2. Daddy-Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel by the American writer Jean Webster. It follows the protagonist, a young girl named Jerusha “Judy” Abbott, through her college years. She writes the letters to her benefactor, a rich man whom she has never seen.
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3. One of the dangers of divinity to me is placing it on one character, it splits the world into believing that theirs is right and the other is wrong. Perhaps it should be A Love Song.
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4. A Journey of Discovery – Uncover the mysteries of this key time in our history through ancient spiritual knowledge and new scientific research. Studies of specific numbers and letters have led to unusual findings hidden in lost knowledge and ancient mysteries. Unique and unusual patterns are discovered revealing profound links between modern scientists and ancient
philosophers. These new discoveries point to the beginning of a new era.

 

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5. Washington Irving was an American short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith and Muhammad, and several histories of 15th-century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors and the Alhambra. Irving served as the U.S. ambassador to Spain from 1842 to 1846. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
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6. The bard knew that it was in the everyday that we honed our divinity and that it was up to us how it turned out.
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7. Doreen Virtue is the queen of Angels, she believe their is A Spirit in the Sky.
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8. Cute animal quote of the blog, speaks to the law of divinity and the power of nature.
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9.Charles seems to be saying there is divinity in  Every Moment.
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10. Samuel Benjamin “Sam” Harris is an American author, philosopher, and neuroscientist. He is the co-founder and chief executive of Project Reason, a non-profit organisation that promotes science and secularism, and host of the podcast Waking Up with Sam Harris. His book The End of Faith, a critique of organised religion, appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks and also won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction in 2005. Letter to a Christian Nation was a response to criticism of The End of Faith. In The Moral Landscape, Harris argues that science can help answer moral problems and aid human well-being. He subsequently published a long-form essay Lying in 2011, the short book Free Will in 2012, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion in 2014 and, with British activist Maajid Nawaz, Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue in 2015.

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11. Your Inner Pilot Light, that feeling , that persistent voice that you sometimes don’t listen to, yet what it is saying was the correct path. It is your Divine Lover.

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12. Love and Respect for All, Everyone included – a statement of the divine.

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12. Yes you are, look in the mirror daily.

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13. Meditate 30 minutes a day and you will hear your divinity a lot louder. here is a short mindfulness meditation by Deepak’s meditation.

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14. Has society stopped hearing Sacred Love, that space in life where we tell each other our Sacred stories so that we hear our own as well?

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15. So when your divinity speaks to you , it’s a good idea to listen. Because your ripple effect could be what the world is waiting for. Your Ripple Effect.

Have a listen fir your divinity daily, It is speaking to you. It may be faded but it will never give up on you. After 5 psych unit hospitalisations I know this for a fact.

Namaste until next time my dear friends.

namaste

Love and Respect for All, Everyone Included.


I picked up a pocket guide to The Charter which speaks about Human Dignity, Equality and Freedom. It was promoting the state government where I live in Victoria, Australia Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities 2006. There are 27 sections of the charter covering from freedom of expression to cultural rights.

The title of this blog is a slogan I created about two and a half years ago to explain the ethos of Interculturalism where the rights of all human beings are respected. I also created an Interculturalism Facebook group for people to express examples that they came across , here’s the link : Interculturalism if you wish to join us.

Human rights are a subject that a lot of well known people have spoken on and I had many to choose my 15 examples from, lets begin our journey.

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1. Unfortunately where I live in Australia we have been doing this for several years by detaining people in concentration camp conditions on off shore facilities. The fact that some staff refer to people by their boat number and not their name speaks very loudly that human rights do not exist in these facilities.

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2. 
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Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth. – Abraham Lincoln, the last independent nominee elected as the president of the United States. Unfortunately some countries seem to have forgotten this.
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3. A member of the German Greens party Volker Beck is an outspoken supporter of gay rights and recompense for families persecuted by the Nazi’s. In 2006, Beck sponsored an anti-discrimination act in civil law and at the workplace, outlawing discrimination based on race, ethnic origin, sex, sexual identity, religion, age, and disability.

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4. Anyone can be a champion of human rights, politicians, TV personalities, You.

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5. The youngest Nobel Prize winner Malala is afraid of no one in her quest for equal rights, especially through the right to education. Peter Tosh sang a great song about this in the 70’s : Equal Rights and Justice.

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6. Gandhi freed a nation from the oppression of the British Empirical rule but never gave up his belief that humankind was fundamentally good, dirty drops do not spoil the masses of great human beings out there.

 

7. I have the entire speech made by Martin Luther King, now so do you : I have a dream. Listen to this when you need to be inspired.

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8. Sometimes I think it’s sad that we need to have a day to remind us of this. I look forward to the day it is no longer required.

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9. Harriet Tubman  was an American abolitionist, humanitarian, and an armed scout and spy for the United States Army during the American Civil War. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved families and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped abolitionist John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harper’s Ferry, and in the post-war era was an active participant in the struggle for women’s suffrage. This song demonstrates what Harriet did beautifully : I’ll Fly Away.

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10. Remember that curiosity and joy that babies have, everything is a gift in life. Why do we train them to forget this? Love is all you need and underlies all emotions.

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11. What if everybody was Perfect. Pink thinks so: Perfect.

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12. If you know another you can not really hate.

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13. As Homer would say Doh!! YMCA.

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14. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris. The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of what many people believe to be the rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled. The full text is published by the United Nations on its website.

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15. This is a struggle worth getting up for. As the Warriors of Love the Beatles sang back in the day: All you need is love.  And as Arudhati Roy stated: Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

They are the rights of all people on our beloved planet, we have just forgotten and became focused on other crazy things such as war, profit and other such hedonistic pastimes. Lets give it up for Lent or Ramadan.

Namaste until  next time my dear friends.

namaste