Mellow Yellow

I uploaded this doodle to Facebook recently. I completed it during the Grade 12 Graduation Ceremony on Friday. At that point it was only black and white but I colorised it using GIMP and end result I called "Mellow Yellow" after Donovan's 1966 hit. It was only then that I realised that this was the year that I completed my own Secondary education. My doodle garnered twelve likes and some comments so I was quite surprised. It occurred to me that this is my only creative activity nowadays. I play music on my guitar but I don't create any music. I interact with technology a lot but again I don't create anything. I'm encouraged to try my hand at some more doodles, working first with pen on paper, then scanning the finished product and finally colorising it using image editing software. Let's see if I can create some other doodles during the holiday period that lies ahead of me.

PRIME DAY 23447

Today is prime day 23447 for me and I noticed that on the day that I fly to Jakarta, June 22nd, the count will be 23456 which is rather special. I doubt whether I'll see 34567 which will fall on November 23rd 2043, a Monday and Tara's 63rd birthday. If I'm alive I'd be 94. There are two prime days in June, this is the first and the second is on the 28th June. Today's number of course contains two primes, 23 and 47, formed by the first and last two digits of the number. These two numbers are connected because 23 is a Sophie Germaine prime: 23 x 2 + 1 = 47 which is a prime.

Pathocracy

Apart from a 2011 photo of Desy and Sabina walking in Qibao, my last post on this blog was August 8th 2010, sent to Blogger via email using Posterous. Well, Posterous is no more but the substance of that post, the deception about Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, links to the book I'm currently reading called "Day of Deception" by Robert B. Stinnett. I've just started but it's chilling to read of the cold-blooded way that the United States government of the time was willing to sacrifice its own citizens in Hawaii in order to pursue a war with Japan. Sixty years later in 2001 more citizens were sacrificed in order to pursue wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The United States government expresses mock shock and outrage once again: "wow, we never saw that one coming, how dare they!" 

Life goes on however, and I'm sure that similar deceptions will be carried out by the US government and the governments of other countries in the future. It must be accepted that governments in general are quite willing to trade geopolitical goals for the lives of their citizens if they feel they can get away with it. FDR got away with it as did Bush. This is the nature of a pathocracy, defined as "a system of government created by a small pathological minority that takes control over a society of normal people ... a pathocracy can take many forms and can insinuate itself covertly into any seemingly just system or ideology. As such it can masquerade under the guise of a democracy or theocracy as well as more openly oppressive regimes" (link).

Desy and Sabina jalan jalan

Posted via email from seanreeves's posterous

Hiroshima Day

Today is the anniversary of the day that I arrived in Shanghai one year ago. It's an easy date to remember because it's also another anniversary, Hiroshima Day, commemorating that day in 1945 when the United States dropped its first atomic bomb on Japan. I remember learning as a teenager that the bomb had been dropped reluctantly in order to end the war quickly and avoid the massive military casualties that would have resulted from a land-based invasion of the country. Back then I believed this fairy tale. Of course, the true reasons behind the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rather more ugly and are nicely summarised in an excerpt from this site:

• The US had made a huge investment in time, mind and money ($2,000,000,000 in 1940 dollars) to produce the bombs, and there was no inclination – and no guts – to stop the momentum.
• The US military – as did its citizens – had a bloodthirsty appetite for revenge because of Pearl Harbor. Mercy wasn't the mind-set of these professed Christians, and the missions were accomplished – with glee.
• The Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium bomb and Hiroshima's was uranium. Scientific curiosity certainly was a major factor for the mass slaughter of the Nagasaki community. The decision to use both bombs had obviously been made well in advance. The three day interval was unconscionably inadequate – Japan being in shambles in its communications and transportation capabilities – and besides, no one, not even the Japanese high command, fully understood what had happened at Hiroshima.
• The Russians had proclaimed their intent to enter the war with Japan 90 days after V- Day, which would have been Aug. 8, two days after Hiroshima. Indeed, Russia did declare war on August 8 and was marching across Manchuria when Nagasaki was incinerated. The US didn't want Japan surrendering to anybody else, especially a future enemy, so the first nuclear "messages" of the infantile Cold War were sent. Russia indeed received less of the spoils of war, and the two superpowers were mired in mutual moral bankruptcy and economic near-bankruptcy for the rest of the century.

These are the facts that spoil the fairy tale. Even so, there are some who would support the revenge motive and say that the Japanese got what they deserved for their dastardly and unprovoked bombing of Pearl Harbor. Like Hiroshima however, there is the fairy tale of Pearl Harbor, painted by the victors in the ensuing war, and then there is the ugly truth as comprehensively explained on this website and from which I've quoted below:

But comprehensive research has not only shown Washington knew in advance of the attack, but deliberately withheld its foreknowledge from our commanders in Hawaii in the hope that the “surprise” attack would catapult the U.S. into World War II.

Sound familiar? Of course it does. The same scenario as 9/11. It worked in 1940 and it worked again more than sixty years later. As Roosevelt said in his 1940 election-year speech: “I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” You've got to love politicians, especially US Presidents like Truman (who cold-bloodedly authorised the Hiroshima bombing) and Roosevelt (who acted so surprised and outraged when he got the news about Pearl Harbor). Let's remember on Hiroshima Day that sixty-five years on, Washington is just as duplicitous as ever and is still spinning fairy tales.

Silence Day

It was only by accident that I remembered July 10th is Silence Day and like last year I'm able to observe it once again, or at least try to. I tried for the first time last year and slipped up a couple of times by inadvertently speaking. In my case, the habit of speaking proved impossible to stop even for a day but Baba succeeded in maintaining silence for 44 years. Here is the link to my post from 2009 but I'll repeat the reason Baba gave for his silence once again.

Man’s inability to live God’s words makes the Avatar’s teaching a mockery. Instead of practicing the compassion he taught, man has waged wars in his name. Instead of living the humility, purity, and truth of his words, man has given way to hatred, greed, and violence. Because man has been deaf to the principles and precepts laid down by God in the past, in this present Avataric form, I observe silence.

Return to Jakarta

Time to resuscitate this blog if for no other reason than to announce that I'm not ready to withdraw completely from the blogosphere. As a complete aside I must comment on how pathetic the spell checker is on Blogger. It flags "blog", "blogosphere" and "Blogger" as spelling mistakes. Anyhow, I figure that my temporary return to Jakarta after six months warrants a fresh post. Let's begin with my arrival.

I came in on a 30 day tourist visa and consequently had to line up in a very slow-moving queue, firstly to pay for the visa (US$25) at one window and then to acquire the visa at another. While I hesitated to join the queue, a little man approached me offering to help me bypass the queue entirely. I ignored his kind offer but, for a price, I surmise that he would have taken me directly to a person behind one of the counters. Welcome to Jakarta. I knew I was home.

Having joined the queue, I waited, and waited, as the people ahead of me paid their money at one of the three open windows. At last there was only a young couple ahead of me and, when it was their turn, they moved to the nearest open window. However, by the time they reached it, the surly young man behind it had put up a closed sign and snapped at them when they approached the window, having failed to notice the flip from open to closed. He then got up and stretched his legs. Service with a snarl. Now there were only two open windows to service the snaking queue. It was clear that I wasn't in Shanghai any longer.

However, enough of the negativity. On a positive note, I am now able to appreciate the "quietness" of Jakarta traffic as compared to the insanity of Shanghai with its incessant blaring of super-charged horns. Of course, the traffic jams can be horrific in Jakarta but at least the drivers don't resort to mindless, incessant and utterly futile use of their vehicles' horns. Additionally, my local McDonalds now has a special coffee section that also serves up excellent coffee and offers a selection of pastries as well. I am deeply impressed but best of all I can now access Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, YouTube etc. without the need for a VPN. I have left the Great Firewall of China far behind me.

Spring is in the Air

According to my calculations, the Vernal Equinox fell at 1:21am in Shanghai and I thought it might be interesting to cast an astrological chart for the occasion. It can be seen that Pluto is sitting on the Ascendant and forms part of a T-square with the Sun and Saturn. The Sun, newly entered into Aries, is located in the middle of the third house surrounded by several other planets: Jupiter, Uranus, Mercury and Venus. Mars is on the cusp of the eighth house in very tight aspect to the Sun (by trine) and Saturn (by sextile).

If one considers a chart like this to mark what Shanghai can expect for the astrological year ahead, then for a city the third house is associated with transport, communications and interconnections of all sorts. This will certainly be the focus over the next few months as the Expo gets under way. A tremendous amount of manpower, material and money has been injected into the city in preparation for this event and the ongoing, widespread expansion of the road and metro systems is reflected in the strong position of Pluto (signifying transformation) in aspect to Saturn (signifying infrastructure) and the Sun (in the third house of transportation and communications). The eighth house signifies "beliefs of the masses, red-tapism, speed of execution of works, delays and obstructions, accidents, fatal accidents, epidemics, gold and precious stones, legacies, capital gains, floods, earthquakes, cyclones, storms, etc." (reference)

The effect of Mars on the cusp of this house, in aspect to the Sun and Saturn, suggests acceleration in the speed of execution of infrastructure works and reduction in the red tape that can lead to delays and obstruction in the completion of these works. As for the accidents, floods, earthquakes, cyclones and storms, well who knows? The aspect between Mars and the Sun is a harmonious trine and so hopefully the effects of the aspect will be largely positive. The metro system however, is becoming increasingly complex as new lines are opened up and old ones extended. If an accident were to happen, it would probably happen there.

Meditation and Eyeballing

This is a sketch called "You eyeballing ME, boy?" and is taken from the April 26th 2009 post to a blog at http://smiftlarsen.wordpress.com. I did a quick search on Google Images for a graphic to accompany the theme of my post and this is what caught my eye (so to speak). The joint authors, Smift and Larsen, are graphic design students in Oslo and there is other interesting material on their blog-site. Have a look at it.

Why the theme of eyeballing? Well, I had a particularly deep and satisfying meditation session one morning, a couple of days ago, just before heading out to do some shopping with my wife Desy who is visiting from Jakarta. As Desy perused the garments on display in one clothing shop, I noticed that a guy was giving us a right good looking over and I blurted out "what are you looking at?" before I could catch myself. Needless to say, Desy was quick to rebuke me and just as suddenly, I averted my eyes and looked at the floor in embarrassment. I hadn't said what I'd said loudly and the guy had no understanding of what I'd actually said although he could have guessed from my tone of voice and body language.

After my outburst, I felt quite annoyed with myself, most of all because I should have been more alert. This sort of thing has happened before after a "successful" meditation session. Normally being eyeballed doesn't bother me and even if it does, I'll simply think "you eyeballing ME, boy?" and not say anything. In this case, the guy's eyeballing was quite overt and directed at both of us, doubtless because I'm a Westerner and Desy is Indonesian, an unusual combination in Shanghai.

So what's going on here? Why am I more apt to blurt something out after a satisfying meditation session that should predispose me to being serene and accepting of life's little vexations? I sort of know the answer but it's useful to attempt an explanation as a way of clarifying my own thoughts on the matter. When I meditate, I find that there are two "areas" to disengage from: one I call The Boiler Room and other I call Headquarters.

The Boiler Room, so-called perhaps because things can get pretty hot down there, is located in "my guts", an area behind the umbilicus, and is associated with how I'm feeling. Any tenseness, sadness, anxiety etc. will be felt here. In the past my identification with this "room" was almost total: I was in the room, I was the room. The trick in meditation is simply to back out of the room if already in it. A sense of "distance" has to be created and I find that locating my awareness in the area of the solar plexus is helpful in achieving this. It's important that the feeling is not pushed away or suppressed. Simple observation of the feeling is enough to trigger this disengagement which is always sudden and very apparent.

Once this disengagement has been achieved it is time to deal with Headquarters, a reference to the restless mind that is more or less located between and behind the eyes. Disengagement from The Boiler Room can throw the mind into a bit of a frenzy because the two work seamlessly together. If I'm having "a poor me" episode in The Boiler Room, the mind will generate an endless stream of thoughts that reinforce this negative feeling.

Once the connection is disrupted, the mind will often flip frantically between past and future, throwing up images of what has been and what might be in an attempt not to be pinned down in the present. Images from the past with strong emotional content will vie with unsettling images of imagined futures. To follow any of these is to be drawn into Headquarters where objectivity is lost and identification with mind is complete.

This will happen repeatedly but each time awareness needs to returned to the solar plexus area. After a while, the oscillations between past and future subside and less weighty thoughts begin to appear, centering around movies I have recently seen or books that I have recently read. This is a good sign and before too long I'll experience a sort of jolt when my mind realises that it's been thought-free for a brief period of time. This is the start of disengagement from the mind whereby thoughts still arise but just as quickly pass away because I'm not longer holding on to them.

There follows a period of internal equilibrium because there has been a more or less successful disengagement from both The Boiler Room and Headquarters. Awareness is centred firmly in the area of the solar plexus and quickly returns there if the attention wanders. An equilibrium also exists between what's inside my body and what's outside of it. Normally there is an inner pressure that wants to burst out into the world or sometimes the world seems to be pressing in. During a successful meditation session however, this imbalance is absent and instead I feel almost transparent. Outside sounds flow right through me. I don't react to them.

Getting back to my outburst, it's clear that during meditation the door to The Boiler Room is open and I can peer in and "feel" what's going on. Headquarters has powered down and only random, intermittent and light-weight thoughts are being generated. What seems to happen after meditation is that I remain closer than normal to The Boiler Room, the door is pretty much still open because I've recently been peering in. An external stimulus triggers an emotional reaction that I'm not quick enough to suppress because I've recently been careful to avoid suppression. Headquarters has also not been subject to any sort of control either, only observation, and so the reaction triggers a thought that finds vocal expression before the normal inhibitory mechanisms can intervene. I think it works something like that.

Of course, the term Boiler Room has business connotations where it's defined as follows (source):

A boiler room is an operation often associated with fraudulent activities, where salespeople cold call high net worth individuals in hopes of getting them to invest in thinly traded stocks. The phone reps have very little information on the securities and focus more on selling the client on the idea of making fast money. The name boiler room originated from the fact it is a high-pressure environment where phone reps are expected to close no matter what.

My own "inner" boiler rooms operates in much the same way. It is a "high-pressure environment" where I'm continually being tricked into investing in "thinly traded stocks" (my feelings) because I've been convinced that is what is best for me. At least that's the way it used to be. I'd be excited about some future possibility and "invest" in that feeling of excitement and anticipation. If the possibility disappeared I'd "invest" in the feeling of disappointment that followed. There was no distance between me and The Boiler Room and I couldn't see the fraudulent activity that was going on. I still get caught up in it but not as much as I used to.

For me, the key to a successful meditation is to sink into my body and become aware of any tension in it. This sensation of sinking into the body is quite palpable and it can be elusive when either Headquarters or The Boiler Room are in turmoil, but without it proper meditation is impossible. Nowadays this happens fairly quickly. I'm sure that my somatic "technique" as a preparation for meditation is quite crude at the moment but I'm deliberately keeping it experiential and not reading anything that will fill my head with "ideas" that my mind can seize upon during meditation.

Image URL

Perfect Storm

In my last post, I wrote that "I have come down with a mild but energy-sapping cold" and I was unaware of the complete physical collapse that was about to follow. I've largely recovered now, although my lungs still feel weak. However, the experience was unsettling and in the aftermath I find that I'm thinking more about my physical health and how best to maintain it in terms of sleep, diet and exercise. I've started taking Neurobion, a Vitamin B12 supplement that is available in Jakarta. I need to find the same or similar product here in Shanghai. I'm walking more and have resumed my morning meditation.

As my sickness worsened around Christmas time, Desy asked me if I'd had any shock before leaving China and at first I'd said no. Later it suddenly struck me that I did indeed have a shock of sorts. On the day before I flew out, I'd been half-dozing, face-down, on my bed in the late afternoon when I had an out-of-body experience. I found myself floating a few feet above the bed and became aware that I wasn't breathing. I was OK with this because somewhere in the back of my mind I realised that my astral body didn't need to breathe. However, I began to worry that perhaps I was dead and that my physical body had stopped breathing. This brought my awareness back to my body and the experience ceased.

Desy explained that her Batak culture recognises three bodies: the physical, astral and mental (although different terms are used to describe them). A sudden shock can cause misalignment of the physical and astral bodies with consequent illness, physical and/or mental. I suspect this is what happened to me because as well as being physically ill, I couldn't function mentally either. I was unable to read or use my computer for almost the entire two week period. My out-of-body experienced happened spontaneously and quite unexpectedly. The combination of this experience, the subsequent stress of travel and the disparity in climates may have produced a perfect storm of factors that produced my "super-illness".

Chrono-displaced person

In the novel that I just finished reading (The Time Traveler's Wife), the time traveler has a genetic abnormality that causes him to become abruptly displaced in time to either the past or future. That's the way I feel at the moment, that I've crash-landed in the time immediately before I headed off to Shanghai. Suddenly the four and half months already spent in that city seem like a dream. Tonight I'm sitting in my study just as I always did but the laptop is showing Shanghai time. I reset it for Jakarta and, instead of being 12:30am on Wednesday, it's now Tuesday 22nd December once again. This makes me feel even more like a time traveler.

The change of routine has thrown my meditation into abeyance and I have come down with a mild but energy-sapping cold. Right now I've just taken two Panadol in the hope of alleviating my discomfort and I am reflecting on the nature of time. I particularly liked the poem that Audrey Niffenegger (the author of the aforementioned book) uses at the beginning of the novel:


LOVE AFTER LOVE

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott


I found these lines very interesting and they reminded me of Meher Baba's words "I am closer to you than your own breath". Given my spiritual myopia however, that's simply too close. However, the time will indeed come, either in this life or the afterlife, when I will sit down with the stranger who was myself and feast on my life. Time to resume my meditation.

Old Men on a Bench

Ventured out this morning for a cup of coffee and thought I'd try the newly opened branch of the 85°C cafe/bakery chain. I bought a hot Americano coffee and two pastries. Initially I only intended to buy one pastry but, on second thoughts, I decided on two (one for now and one for later, at home). There is a wide pavement outside the shop and a circular bench on which to sit and watch the passing parade. I sat down next to a little old man who was clearly down on his luck.

I took my pastry out and shortly afterwards handed the other one to him for which he was instantly grateful. He didn't say anything but his face lit up. I think he put it away for later consumption; before long he gathered up some plastic bags he was carrying and stood up, gracing me once again before he left with a nod and a wordless smile. He wandered off, accosting passing strangers for coin money by holding out a plastic cup.

Prior to this I'd been feeling a little sorry for myself, living alone and unloved in Shanghai. The little old man and I were similar, probably, in that respect but I had the comfort of a warm, modern apartment, plenty of food and other advantages. I was grateful that I'd had the opportunity to spontaneously offer him some food rather than just drop a coin in his cup and my reward was that I felt more appreciative of how comparatively well off I really was.

Resurrection

No posts for August, September and October but with the start of November, it's perhaps time to resurrect this blog. Part of the problem has been the Great Firewall of China that prevented me from accessing Blogger directly. I could still have posted via Ponderous but for some reason I chose not to. Yesterday however, I managed to circumvent the Chinese Government's censorship using Hotspot Shield and it also marked the first day that I really accepted the reality of my changed circumstances, namely the fact that I now live in Shanghai and not Jakarta.

In my meditation I practise letting go of the past and future and sinking into the present but I really wasn't incorporating that ideal into my day-to-day life. I was still clinging to my old life in Jakarta and somehow feeling I was here in Shanghai on a holiday. I'm not. However, it's taken me nearly three months to realize that. My recent interest in learning more about the language was a sign I guess that change was imminent. About a fortnight ago, I'd started listening to Chinese language podcasts on my way to and from work and generally becoming more interested in the language.

Connecting with my last post, I can say that my daily practice of meditation has continued. I meditate every morning for about twenty minutes and sometimes I'll meditate later in the day if I'm feeling in any way perturbed. I've become quite practised and sensitive to such "perturbations" and can only marvel how I survived for so long without meditating on a regular basis. However, I'm far from self-satisfied and I'm definitely feeling a need to integrate physical movement and mental orientation. Recently I've become more diligent in my physical exercise but I need to anchor it in something like Tai Chi. Let's see what opportunities arise now that I'm more open to the possibilities of my new home.

A Breakthrough

Photo taken from this site

It's been two weeks since my last post and though nothing much has happened externally, there have been developments internally. During meditation sessions over the past few days, I've managed to sink into what I'll call my "ground state" using an analogy to the ground state of an electron in an atom. In its ground state, the electron is at its lowest energy level. When it becomes excited, it can jump to higher energy levels. In my case, thoughts and emotions represent the higher energy levels where I've spent most of my life. This constant dissipation of energy through almost total identification with my mental and emotional states is exhausting but letting go has been difficult.

During the meditation that I've been following, I've been attempting to disidentify with my thoughts and emotions by becoming a witness to them as they arise. This is a useful technique up to a point but I still found myself being carried off sooner or later by a thought or feeling that I'd latched on to. The reason for this was that I still wasn't grounded and I was witnessing from up in the clouds as it were, buffeted by this and that random thought or emotion. However, the meditation technique also advises to feel your body by exploring the sensations within it. This is what led to my breakthrough.

Previously, I'd tried to feel the sensations within my body but I'd not been very successful. A lot of the time I was thinking about my body, imagining different aspects of it and remaining very much in my thoughts. At last however, I have managed to really feel my body and sink into its energy field. I know I'm there because no thoughts or feelings arise and the sensation of it is quite palpable and readily identifiable. When I lose it, I feel the jump to the higher energy level of feeling or, higher still, of thought. The thing is that I know I've lost it immediately whereas before, during my witnessing, I wouldn't become aware of it nearly so quickly. The thoughts would carry me aware as if hypnotised. Now I'm aware instantly that because of a distracting thought or feeling, I've lost the ground state and that I need to return to it.

The more I practise, the easier it is to sink into the ground state and this is a very still place compared to the turmoil of the emotional and mental realms. It's not totally still because I have the awareness of fine vibrations but it's centred and stable. Previously, when I lived in my head, I felt that "I" existed between my eyes about a inch of so behind my forehead. When I was overcome by emotion, it would arise from my abdomen and rise rapidly upwards so that I would "lose my head". In the ground state, I have the feeling that "I" am resident in the area of the solar plexus, midway between the sources of thought and emotion.

This newly relocated me is definitely "more intelligent" than the old head-centred me that struggled to contain the emotions that would arise from internal and external stimuli. I can see more clearly now the mental and emotional structures that I've built for myself and actively lived in over the years. They were all of my own making and totally false. In my meditation, the ground state is unconditioned awareness where I don't think or feel anything but I'm still intensely aware. That translates in my daily life as being more observant and less judgmental. I can use my brain and engage my feelings as appropriate without being carried away by a thought or a feeling. There is a growing awareness of a mediating intelligence between my gut and my brain.

Villa Altachiara

I'm currently reading Elizabeth von Arnim's 1922 novel "The Enchanted April" in which four women come together to share a one month holiday in a villa in Italy. The 1992 film based on this book was called "Enchanted April" and the location chosen was a place called Villa Altachiara in Portofino, Italy. April in Portofino is indeed enchanting. As the book describes it:

"The wisteria was tumbling over itself in excess of life, its prodigality of flowering; and where the pergola ended, the sun blazed on scarlet geraniums, bushes of them, and nasturtiums in great heaps and marigolds so brilliant that they seemed to be burning... every sort of colour piled up in heaps, pouring along in rivers."

The above passage is quoted from a recent holiday review article titled Portofino: a port town that has evaded the uglier side of tourism with the clever subtitle of how to holiday with the have-yachts. What's even more special about this villa is that Meher Baba stayed there for a month in July of 1933. The magic of the location combined with Baba's presence made this a very memorable time for his followers who stayed with or visited him. As described in Lord Meher:

"During Baba's stay in Portofino, the cool moonlight lit up the night and the stars shone in all their brilliance. One evening, it was absolutely quiet around the villa, as if a message of peace and joy on earth was being conveyed to humanity. The lovers and mandali gathered around Baba who appeared exceedingly beautiful, wearing a royal blue jacket. The silent atmosphere immobilized them like an intoxicant.

The moon shone on Baba's face, the scent of jasmine hung around them, and the songs of cicadas were heard in the background. "It was one of the most timely, most beautiful moments with Baba," remembered Delia DeLeon. "We just sat there and never said a word." They could see Baba's smiling countenance and flowing hair as if aglow with light."

Well it turns out that Villa Altachiara is for sale. No price is mentioned but with its spacious grounds and 30 spacious rooms, it would not come cheap. There is more information and photographs to be found here.

The Mind's Eye and other Grand Notions

On page 3 of the book "The Enchanted April" that I'm currently reading, there is a reference to both the mind's eye and the bodily eye:

Mrs. Wilkens, having stood some time very drearily, her mind's eye on the Mediterranean in April, and the wisteria, and the enviable opportunities of the rich, while her bodily eye watched the really extremely horrible sooty rain falling steadily on the hurrying umbrella and splashing omnibuses, suddenly wondered ...

I'd never thought much about the first expression before but seeing it juxtaposed with the second got me "thinking" because it's the mind's eye that causes so much trouble in meditation. I'm not currently using any open eye meditations and so when I meditate I close my bodily eyes and then the third eye, that does indeed seem to be in middle of the forehead, takes over and supplies an endless stream of images that prove a formidable distraction.

What I've tried to do most recently in meditating is to unfocus my mind's eye so that I'm aware of the stream of images but I try not to focus on any of them as they pass by. This has not proved too hard to do but ideas still arise as my mind then exercises itself in other, subtler ways. For example, if a meditation session is going well, the idea soon arises that it is going well and my mind then starts to explore that idea. What did I do today that made it go well? How can I repeat that tomorrow? If I shake these ideas off then my ego soon steps in with notions like "yes, you're really getting the hang of this meditation business now, soon you'll be a champion meditator" and so on.

I like to use the term notion to describe the ideas that my ego is continuously generating about itself, other people and the world around itself. A lot of psychic energy is invested in creating and defending these notions.

While watching a cannonball's motion,
Galileo conceived of the notion
That natural laws,
Not a mystical Cause,
Ruled the physical world's locomotion
(source)

A notion can be defined as an odd or fanciful or capricious idea (source) and most of the ego's notions would seem to be of this sort. The notions that I formulate about myself may be at variance with the notions that other people form of me. This can lead to conflicts of course when a notion that I have of myself is challenged by somebody else. I certainly have a notion of myself as being honest and if someone were to suggest that I was dishonest I would take offence. I might form the notion that they were lying or mad or possessed of ulterior motives.

However, as that old rascal Barry Long pointed out "you are only honest at the moment of being conscious of the opportunity of being dishonest". What this implies is that my notion of being honest as a character trait is a total fabrication. I can only be honest (or dishonest) in that moment when I am faced with the possibility of being one or the other. I can't be a constant state of being honest, that's nonsense. If someone accuses me of dishonesty then it is presumably in relation to a specific incident and that can be dealt with. If someone accuses me of being a dishonest person without reference to any specific incidents, then they have clearly formed a notion of me and that's beyond my control. To the extent that I'm free of notions like "I am an honest person" then I'll be saving energy and reducing the risk of conflict with others.

Of course when faced in the future with the choice of being honest or dishonest, hopefully I'll choose to be honest but each situation needs to be considered on its merits. The mother who steals food to feed her starving children is technically being dishonest but most would argue that the situation justifies her being dishonest. In the past, this mother may have been scrupulously honest and prided herself in the notion that she is a scrupulously honest person. If she clings too strongly to that notion, she may decide not to steal the food and her children might die. In this case, the notion she had formed of herself was an impediment to her taking appropriate action in the situation. In less dramatic ways, our notions of ourselves limit and constrain our responses and bring us into conflict with others who hold conflicting notions.

Reflections on Silence Day

Silence Day (see earlier post) is nearly over and it's been an interesting experience. However, I have not succeeded in remaining totally silent, there have been several minor lapses. For example, the dog was scratching at the door of the study and so I said hello to her as I let her in. Later in the day, when I was dozing in a chair, my granddaughter who was playing in my study asked me a question and I instinctively answered it. Maybe next year, I'll succeed fully.

Desy suggested during a totally one-sided conversion at meal time that after I retire from teaching, I should consider maintaining permanent silence like Meher Baba himself. She quite liked my inability to readily complain or criticize or pontificate. Six year old Sabina had no problem with my silence either, she played in the study most of the day and was quite happy to talk away while I was limited to responding with facial gestures. I did use a pen and paper for communication on a couple of occasions. I did not venture out of the house at all figuring the chances of slipping up would be greatly magnified if I were to go to a mall.

In the morning it felt novel to be maintaining silence but as the day has gone on it's not been all that pleasant. I haven't been able to meditate at all and have felt rather restless and unable to read or focus on anything very much. I've ended up watching some television for the first time in quite a while just to pass the time. I have the feeling that I'm just waiting for midnight when I can break my silence and resume a normal life. Overall I feel satisfied that I did the best I could and my lapses were to expected I guess.

Handling Anger

It's all very well to have "big dreams" in which a High Priestess tells you in no uncertain terms to lose your anger but the challenge is to actually do that consistently in a daily life that is filled with vexations. At Pondok Indah mall today I decided on a whim to buy a gelato, something I've never done in all the years that I've been in Indonesia. The advertised price was Rp22000 in big black letters. I ordered a mango gelato and handed over the exact amount of money. However, I was promptly told the price was Rp24500. As I queried the amount, I pointed to the big black letters but the guy trying to take my money pointed to the tiny black letters at the very bottom of the display referring to an additional tax. Well that was too much for me and I walked away off in a silent huff without paying.

Roy, who had been nearby, told me shortly afterwards that a second guy who had already prepared my gelato had then attempted to catch up with me and give me the gelato presumably at the price displayed. However, the escalator was very close by and I was already on my way down it. "A silent huff" is still a mild form of anger and so I'm using this rather trivial incident as an opportunity to reflect on how to better handle such situations in the future. In the past I would have been more vocal and more demonstrably angry at the "injustice" that I was being subjected to. In that sense, I've progressed a little. My best course would have been to simply smile and propose that I was only willing to pay Rp22000 with no possibility of compromise. In the light of what happened, that offer would have been accepted.

I don't think I should have paid the full amount because then I would have remained inwardly angry and that's dangerous. It killed my mother. She was unhappy in her domestic situation and angry about certain things that she should have spoken up about but instead she smiled and maintained a false but happy face. The anger found expression through a virulent form of lung cancer. I don't want to risk that by swallowing my anger but at the same time I don't want to be overtaken by it. The trick is to be quick enough to catch yourself before the anger ignites and that means being alert. The ego is always on guard to defend itself against injustice and, in my case, anger is its favoured weapon. I, as the so-called "intelligent observer", have to intervene and stop the ego from instinctively picking up that weapon, or any weapon, by using more imagination and creativity in dealing with potentially anger-provoking situations.

As Eckhart Tolle says in "The Power of Now":

Remember that the ego needs problems, conflict and "enemies" to strengthen the sense of separateness on which its identity depends. It's only by finding sufficient stillness in myself that I can create enough space (and time) between the stimulus and the anger. In that space, there is time enough for the intelligent observer to deal with the situation. Stillness only arises through meditation.

Silence Day

On July 10th 1925, Meher Baba stopped talking and never spoke again until his death in 1969. He communicated initially using an alphabet board and later by hand gestures that his mandali (devoted followers) would interpret. His justification for his silence was that:

Man’s inability to live God’s words makes the Avatar’s teaching a mockery. Instead of practicing the compassion he taught, man has waged wars in his name. Instead of living the humility, purity, and truth of his words, man has given way to hatred, greed, and violence. Because man has been deaf to the principles and precepts laid down by God in the past, in this present Avataric form, I observe silence.

"Silence Day" commemorates that day on which Baba took his vow of silence. In all the years since the mid 1990s when I first became aware of this day, I've never managed to remain silent on that day. In most cases, the date has simply slipped by me without my even realizing it until later. Since 2000, the date has fallen shortly after the start of the academic year at the school where I used to teach. It was impossible to maintain silence even if I had remembered.

This year things are different. I'm on holidays while waiting to start at my new school in Shanghai and so there should be no impediments to my observing silence on July 10th. I'll stay at home that day, meditate, read about Baba and avoid any unnecessary social interaction in case I accidentally slip up. During the Vipasanna meditation courses that I attended in the 1990s, I was required to maintain silence for nine days and so one day shouldn't be a problem.

The High Priestess

For the first time in quite some time, I had a dream last night that I'd call a "big dream". I use this term to describe dreams that are numinous or have psychologically significant content. The setting for the dream was the house where I spent my entire childhood and adolescence, apart from the first two years. It's located at 21 Mayneview Street, Milton, Brisbane and it still stands to this day, although now it's been taken over by a computer company. In my dream world, the house serves as a symbol of my psychological foundations and so any dream containing this symbol is invariably significant.

In last night's dream, I had a close encounter with a very powerful and very old female figure. It began with me at the front of the property on which the house stands. I was on the ground writhing slowly and trying to purge myself of some inner emotional content. It felt a bit like throwing up except that I was trying to rid myself of some psychic content rather than stomach content. This seemed to be a necessary preparation for the encounter with the old woman because in the next scene I am the back of the property where she is seated on a raised throne.

I am still prostrate on the ground and I struggle to get to my feet. Eventually I succeed and I draw closer to her at her behest. As I do, her face comes into focus and I can see that she is very, very old. However, she exudes power and authority. Our faces are almost touching and I know that she is going to say something very important to me and she does. With solemn authority, shes tells me to "lose my anger" and thus delivers a very clear and unequivocal message.

Thanks to my sustained meditation, I've had relatively few outbursts of anger recently and they have been relatively minor but even so they are unsettling, often occurring when I'm driving. At other times, I'll become impatient when I'm queueing, even though I may not express my irritation. Lately in my meditation, I've become aware of the need to maintain equilibrium between inner and outer. At brief times, I've even felt the two merging and becoming continuous. At such times, "I" fade out and the inner flows into the outer and vice versa. The antithesis of this state is the emotional state of anger, however mild, because it severely disturbs the equilibrium between inside and outside.

Anger is always ego-driven as when I'm driving and somebody does something that I think he or she shouldn't do. I have an inner expectation of how I think people should behave on the roads and if they don't meet those expectations I'm likely to feel aggrieved. It's stupid really but hard to let go of. However, the old lady on her throne is telling me that I have to. She is reminiscent of the High Priestess in the Tarot deck.