No matter the Situation!!

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Rod's World

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:

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

What’s meant to Be!!

Posted on November 3, 2016 by Rod's World

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

Surrender to What Is!!

Posted on October 27, 2016 by Rod's World

I am currently reading Gabrielle Bernstein’s new book The Universe has Your Back. In it, she talks a lot about faith, not necessarily Gods faith but faith in the universe and each other. Here’s a link to her page, she is one of the new thought leaders: Gabby’s page. What do you have faith in, your friends and families love, that it will all work out, that something will save you? There are many options so let’s have a look at some of them.

1. With faith comes fear, with the light the dark, I have worked more on the fear and the dark using a method called renewal recently, it has moved me from my head to my heart. Here’s a link to its source: www.activationschool.com.

2. I went to a catch up with the graduates of a program I crew on called GRIT: Create the Life you Want and Emeli Paulo , the facilitator led us through a process that got you in contact with your soul and you took away three gifts. here’s info on the program, GRIT – Find your Purpose.

3. Breathwork, the way out of your head into your heart and soul.

4. The power and the passion, both you cannot see. But you can certainly feel it: Power and the Passion.

5. I know when my heart is not seeing the light, it feels constricted. A bit more difficult with my eyes, because my logical mind believes what I see is real.

6. This beautiful image is the closest to God’s version of faith, George Michaels beautiful song expresses it well: Faith.

7. Faith and God, what else could you talk about but the iconic book A Course in Miracles : ACIM.

8. haven’t had a dog and cat quote for a while, but Aaw isn’t he cute. How many people have covered this song, the Stones and Iggy have: Walking the Dog.

9. I love Kundalini Dance, a journey to cleanse the chakras, one night you dance blindfolded for two and a half hours. In a crowded room you dance by faith and do not crash into each other.

10. Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland but moved to London, where he wrote a number of successful novels and plays. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (included in The Little White Bird), then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, a “fairy play” about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland: Flying.

11. Another way of saying the past, the present and the future, I find this method a bit more powerful.

12. One of the first blues songs I ever heard was Stormy Monday all those years ago in Blum’s records in Bendigo when the sales girl who loved blues used to tell the manager we gawky schoolboys had asked to hear it. It wasn’t this version, but I love Eva Cassidy’s take on it: Stormy Monday.

13. I fill out my Desire Map journal by Danielle LaPorte every day. As it has you write your Core desired feelings for your life, what you are avoiding , and what you are grateful for as well as what you are going to do to access what you want to feel it is what keeps me going on the days I don’t want to : The Daily Planner

14. With our logical mind being so skilful at making up real stories about what happened, this is not as easy to do as it seems: Have a little Faith in Me.

15. We all have big dreams, how come they often don’t look like we have imagined, keep on dreaming, though.

I think faith is also closely aligned with the community, the more the merrier, the stronger the faith.

Namaste until next time , my dear friends

We’re all in the same Game!!

Posted on October 24, 2016 by Rod's World

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.

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.

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As long as you don’t need them!!

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Rod's World

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Rod's World

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:

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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. “

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Make each day, a Story!!

Posted on October 13, 2016 by Rod's World

Are you a good storyteller? I love listening to podcasts and the ones that hold my attention are the ones who tell great stories. To me, a great story is one that has you live an experience you haven’t before. This means that everyone can be a storyteller for another because we all have our own unique experiences, how do you get other people to listen to yours?

Lets look at what people have said on their storyboards:

1. Christina Baldwin is a writer and seminar presenter of 30+ years experience. She has contributed two classic books to the exploration of journal writing, including the well-known classic, Life’s Companion, Journal Writing as a Spiritual Practice, revised and reissued in 2007 after 100,000 original sales. This work led her to a long study of personal growth and group dynamics and as a result of that experience she wrote Calling the Circle, the First and Future Culture to explore how social container releases needed wisdom.

2. From little things, big things grow. In Australia an indigenous tribal elder Vincent Lingiari took on one of the large land owners Lord Vestey with a simple story, Its our land: From Little Things.

3. Steve Jobs was a classic story teller, he said Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest, my entire family now has apple computers.

4. How do you relate to stories, do they lift you up and give you a new direction in life. They do for me, it may be a simple half page or a 400 page volume but if they add to my knowledge they have done what is required : Compass.

5. Michael Margolis made a career from Story telling. on his twitter page he wrote the following : Helping trailblazers tell their story. Educator, anthropologist, entrepreneur. Left-handed, colour-blind, believes chocolate is a food group. Try the red pill. His webpage is called http://www.getstoried.com.

6. Our mainstream media tell stories, they unfortunately have become written for profit not the betterment of society. How did we let it become about money not what would help our society grow: Magic.

7. We have all heard the saying you will not be remembered for what you had when you pass, but how you made people feel, the stories that are told about you when you are no longer there.

8. Sir Terence David John “Terry” Pratchett, OBE was an English author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels. Pratchett’s first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971. The first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983, after which he wrote two books a year on average. His 2011 Discworld novel Snuff was at the time of its release the third-fastest-selling hardback adult-readership novel since records began in the UK, selling 55,000 copies in the first three days. His final Discworld novel, The Shepherd’s Crown, was published in August 2015, five months after his death. He definitely turned his life into a story: The Hedgehog Song.

9. Changes, don’t wait to be a richer man: Changes, just gonna have to be a different man. Lines from a famous Bowie song. Don’t keep telling the same story for your whole life.

10. Interculturalism: Love and Respect for All: Everyone Included. I set up a Facebook group so we can share great cultural stories, Join Here : FB Interculturalism.

11. “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

12. Tenzin Gyatzo, HHDL has it down pat. Its not success that is going to transform the world. Will it be the Western Women as he has also said : Transformer.

13. I hadn’t heard of Michael Margolis before I wrote this blog, have watched a few YouTube videos while writing it, he is a fascinating man, have a look.

14. Nourishing is one of the great things stories are capable of as they strengthen our dreams: Dream.

15. I think my brother in law worked on this story. Images help stories as well.

So lets get out their and pump up our stories and fulfil our dreams.

Namaste until next time , my dear friends.

Pluck those Strings!!

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Rod's World

Where I volunteer we did a project last year producing a book called My Journey, My Lucky Country about the stories of 11 mature age migrants and their journeys before and after they decided to settle in Australia. One of them commented that she found it hard with out any English when she first arrived but if you are determined that anything is possible. I had found my word for today’s blog, determination.

So lets take the journey down the path of determination:

1. Carl von Clausewitz -was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the “moral” (meaning, in modern terms, psychological) and political aspects of war.

He saw history as a vital check on erudite abstractions that did not accord with experience. In contrast to the early work of Antoine-Henri Jomini, he argued that war could not be quantified or reduced to mapwork, geometry, and graphs. Clausewitz had many aphorisms, of which the most famous is “War is the continuation of politics by other means.”

2. These are several of the attitudes that you need to live a determined life: Win.

3. There’s a famous saying that life is about learning, the day that you stop learning is the day that you die. It’s from a Tom Clancy novel. I agree but cannot admit to doing it all the time.

4. I am statements support you in the quality of life you lead. In our country there was a rock anthem: We can’t be Beaten.

5. When you wish upon a star it may happen or it may not, but if you commit that you will, it is all over.

6. There is only one song that could go with this quote from one of my animal totems: The Leader of the Pack – The Shangri-La’s.

7. From the worlds most famous philosopher Anon. comes advice when we can alter our future, Now!!

8. Self will is needed in this short quote about what it takes ti make stuff happen: Free.

9. Josie Spinardi is an American weight loss guru, who specialises in have people break their overeating habit helping people to create the life they can’t wait to wake up to.

10. I’ve got a couple of friends who always seem to sparkle whenever I see them, they say they work hard on being happy : Sparklers.

11. How many lucky people do you know, who seem predestined to success, then there is the rest of us who get there through grit and determination.

12. The worlds oldest rock and roll band, Who else could it be: Satisfaction.

13. To fulfil a project it must be an everyday occurrence, well planned out , and followed.

14. How we interpret a situation, as a mistake that ends all hope, or as an opportunity to learn helps work out how far we are likely to rise: We are the Champions.

15. Tsepiso Makhubedu has his or her own page of quotes in searchquotes but no autobiography. Perhaps they will be as famous as anon. one day. Be a rebel.

As Ruza said if you are determined anything is possible, how would your life be different if you lived your life that way?

Namaste until next time my dear friends.

Making Hope Possible!!

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Rod's World

My word for today is restorative, it’s interesting what quotes come up under that. When we restore something to its former glory we are doing a service to the planet as we do not have to build new structures, physically or mentally. we just make good what has become damaged.

So let’s begin our journey along the making hope possible trail:

1. By restoring Light and Love you have a much better chance of restoring the hope that has been lost from a situation.

2. Audrey Hepburn believed in the 5 R’s and that everybody was redeemable, imagine the world if we all thought that was possible: Wouldn’t it be Loverly.

3. This is one of the great pitfalls for perfectionists, do you start anything if you don’t think you are going to get it absolutely right. Problems are a part of life and for our lives to succeed we must learn to deal with them.

4.Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan was the 5th Umayyad caliph. He was born in Medina, Hejaz, Abd al-Malik was a well-educated man and capable ruler who was able to solve many political problems that impeded his rule. The 14th-century Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun states: “`Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan is one of the greatest Arab and Muslim Caliphs. He followed in the footsteps of `Umar ibn al-Khattab, the Commander of the Believers, in regulating state affairs”.

During his reign, all important records were translated into Arabic, and for the first time, a special currency for the Muslim world was minted, which led to war with the Byzantine Empire under Justinian II. The Byzantines were led by Leontios at the Battle of Sebastopolis in 692 in Asia Minor and were decisively defeated by al-Malik after the defection of a large contingent of Slavs. The Islamic currency was then made the only currency of exchange in the Muslim world. Also, many reforms happened in his time relating to agriculture and commerce. Al-Malik extended and consolidated Muslim rule, made Arabic the state language and organised a regular postal service: Soften Your Heart.

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5. When I was in the depths of my mental health crisis I use d to get on busses in the hope the problems would stay behind in the place I had left, they didn’t. Only when I started taking on board the love of my friends and family did the problems start to go away.

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6. Marianne and John both believe in this: Give Peace a Chance.

7. I have found lately that the solution for a problem lies in the heart not the head. By going into your heart and accepting what is so, it magically clears the situation.

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8. Risky behaviour is deemed to be that way if you haven’t worked out the way to get there. It may not be your normal path of action but there is always a way to get places: There’s no Other Way.

9. Yoga is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India. There is a broad variety of Yoga schools, practices, and goals in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Among the most well-known types of yoga are Hatha yoga and Rāja yoga.

The origins of yoga have been speculated to date back to pre-Vedic Indian traditions, it is mentioned in the Rigveda, but most likely developed around the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., in ancient India’s ascetic and śramaṇa movements. The chronology of earliest texts describing yoga-practices is unclear, varyingly credited to Hindu Upanishads and Buddhist Pāli Canon,probably of third century BCE or later. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali date from the first half of the 1st millennium CE, but only gained prominence in the West in the 20th century. Hatha yoga texts emerged around the 11th century with origins in tantra.

Yoga gurus from India later introduced yoga to the west, following the success of Swami Vivekananda in the late 19th and early 20th century. In the 1980s, yoga became popular as a system of physical exercise across the Western world. Yoga in Indian traditions, however, is more than physical exercise, it has a meditative and spiritual core. One of the six major orthodox schools of Hinduism is also called Yoga, which has its own epistemology and metaphysics, and is closely related to Hindu Samkhya philosophy.^[

Many studies have tried to determine the effectiveness of yoga as a complementary intervention for cancer, schizophrenia, asthma, and heart disease. The results of these studies have been mixed and inconclusive, with cancer studies suggesting none to unclear effectiveness, and others suggesting yoga may reduce risk factors and aid in a patient’s psychological healing process.

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10. There is a new method of justice taking of in parts of the world. It is called restorative justice not retributive justice. It looks at redressing the issues that have caused people to commit crimes so they do not do it again: Clean This House.

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11. The daughter of artistic Italian parents, wife of a professor of philosophy, and an accomplished pianist, Vanda Scaravelli was accustomed throughout her life to meeting creative artists, intellectuals, and literati. The Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti came to stay at the Scaravelli’s villa overlooking Florence every year. When Scaravelli’s husband died suddenly after World War II, she soon began spending summers with her children at a chalet in Switzerland, where she hosted Krishnamurti during his lectures there. B. K. S. Iyengar would come every morning to teach him yoga; he introduced Scaravelli, then in her 40s, to the ancient discipline, and “a new life came into my body.” Thus began her ongoing exploration of what she called allegrezza, “the intelligent heart.”

From T. K. V. Desikachar she learned breath awareness; she later formulated her own approach to yoga (in which “you become intelligent and at the same time you are happy”) and began to teach others. Her book Awakening the Spine (Harper San Francisco, 1995) became a classic. Since her death in 1999, at age 91, several teachers have carried on her work, most notably Toronto-based Esther Myers. “I practice because it is natural for me to practice,” she told Myers in a 1996 YJ interview. “There is no other reason.

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12. The restorative power of a visit to a major art exhibition or to a great movie cannot be paid for, it isn’t the money you put out: Art for Art’s Sake.

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13. I woke up with a bung knee this morning, after one hours sleep because every time I turned over I would wake from the pain. I hope the above quote has some credibility.

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14. In our social media madness that is called our lives these days always remember that our soul is there hanging out in the peace zone: Desiderata.

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15. Do we make our children think these days , or just rort remember facts so they are prepared for their careers that have been mapped out by society. MLK was not one to accept easy answers or half baked solutions.

The path to Possibility is what I have been aiming to address in this blog. Possibility opens up a new paradigm in our lives that allows us to restore all those dreams we had as children.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

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It’s a divine Purpose!!

Posted on September 29, 2016 by Rod's World

Support – It means many things across our society which could not exist with out it. We often hold ourselves as separate but this is far from the truth as without the support I received on my arrival on this blessed planet from my parents I would not be here writing this. It could be any of the following areas but I have focused on the support of family and friends, to me a divine purpose:

VERB

bear all or part of the weight of; hold up:

give assistance to, especially financially:

provide with a home and the necessities of life:

give approval, comfort, or encouragement to:

be actively interested in and concerned for the success of (a particular sports team).

(supporting)

(of an actor or role) of secondary importance to the leading roles in a play or film.

(of a pop or rock group or performer) function as a secondary act to (another) at a concert.

suggest the truth of; corroborate:

produce enough food and water for; be capable of sustaining:
endure; tolerate:
(of a computer or operating system) allow the use or operation of (a program, language, or device):
NOUN
a thing that bears the weight of something or keeps it upright:

the action of supporting something or someone or the state of being supported:

material assistance:

approval, encouragement, or comfort:

technical help given to the user of a computer or other product.

evidence that serves to corroborate something:

a secondary act at a pop or rock concert:

Lets have a look at how life talks about the act of supporting one another:

1. I spend time volunteering at two organisations because over my many years on this planets I have learnt that the biggest changes in my life have occurred when I have been involved in community action.

2. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a non-academic historian, a writer (as Winston S. Churchill), and an artist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his overall, lifetime body of work. In 1963, he was the first of only eight people to be made an honorary citizen of the United States, he espoused that any one could lead a good life: Everybody.

3. Are you on some ones to do list or do you live in their heart?

4. I spent yesterday at a workshop called clarity and productivity, this is the type of support that would honour the person you are giving it to: Aretha’s Respect.

5. Possibly the most famous love affair of our time, Snoopy and Charlie Brown, who is the Snoopy in your life?
6. I have put my siblings through times where it was their love that sustained out relationship not my actions, I regret doing this but at the time I was not capable of anything else: That’s what friends/family are for.

7. Through giving support this is the gift you give to yourself, unconditional self love.

8. I saw this image and fell in love with it, then I read the message about the knowing. I have this in my life, thank you all: Sometimes when we Touch.

9. Gloria Laura Vanderbilt is an American artist, author, actress, heiress, and socialite. During the 1930s, she was the subject of a high-profile child custody trial in which her mother, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, and her paternal aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, both sought custody of the child Gloria and control over her $5 million trust fund. The trial, called the “trial of the century” by the press, was the subject of wide, sensational press coverage due to the wealth and notoriety of the involved parties and the scandalous evidence presented to support Whitney’s claim that Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt was an unfit parent.

10. When you have that thought that its time to contact a particular friend and give them a boost, do it. Trust your Inner Pilot Light, that’s why you are friends: One Day.

11. High Five what your friend is good at, their soul is in there waiting to hear it in times of trouble.

12. The hug, one of the ultimate givings of support, here are her allies: Say Something.

13. I love the silliness of this one, but then again is it silly?

14. A little support is better than no support. Eeyore puts it so well:Stand up.

15. Do this exercise program daily and we will change the world!!

So my request is when you have that thought that that person or that cause would be a good thing to do don’t ignore it, go with your gut feeling, the more the merrier.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.