Discuss... Do I?

I was doing research for a paper I am trying to write and came up with the following crazy ideas...

Not being a native English speaker, I must understand the possibly 'light' differences between words before I use them... I do not believe that complete synonyms exist since the use of one word would make the other obsolete... To continue with my original story, I found the difficulty between discourse, deliberate, discuss and consult unbearable. I was ready to explode when the 'flash' came...! The difference lies in the interactivity that each word expresses. "Discuss" has lost its original meaning and I think it has become closer to "talking and listening to myself at the same time". However, the other is not a part of this process. Why else would we need discourse and deliberation? Discussions are becoming more and more like the panels on TV where each one of the 'contestants' lies in his/her little (usually blue) world.

Well, Think About It!

Dream of creation

I wanted to share a very interesting dream... I believe it was Thursday, 00:23-00:26 Eastern European Time...

I wake up inside my dream from a female voice - a rather dark female voice calling me by my name... At first I thought it was my mom (even in my 29th year of age!!!) and I realise that it must be not.. I realise that there is something that the "voice" has to tell me - rather instruct me, but I am not sure I can trust her. I wake up due to my agitation...

It was 00:23. I checked my watch and was sure of that. I go to sleep immediately and I find my self in the beginning of time. There is darkness everywhere. From the darkness, light is being emitted, much like a flame coming from something like a chasm in the darkness. A voice (again!) starts telling me about the universe... "God" in this universe is not the light but darkness (I am agitated as I am writing these!). Darkness was the ruler of this universe. It was the "Anti-God" that brought light. Light was the anti-matter or something for this universe... I remember being told that the theory of the "Big Bang" was wrong. What I saw was more like darkness was giving birth to light (more biblical in a sort of way...!)

Interesting, is it not?

And when I woke up it was 00:26... I thought - that it was quite a journey for the 3 minutes of "sleep" time I had! What a "teleportation"...!

Ask and it will be granted...

Well after being fed up as I mentioned in my previous blog entry - something opened up... A golden door of some kind. I had a very interesting conversation with a somewhat crazy (well like me) individual. I made some realisations regarding the saboteur... In response to my internal situation with my trickster, this person (George) told me that I reminded him of Janus - the two faced God - with one face being that of Loki! That clicked somewhere and I wanted to search more of these two and this is the reason I provide the links... The discussion on various subjects was productive and deep issues were discussed. It is strange how anger opens new doors for me! A fuel of some sort I guess. It is kind of ask and it will be granted or maybe demand and it will be granted...

Well I feel a new beginning is being made. We'll see how this progresses.

A turn inwards... That's where the true treasure resides...

And a last minute addition... I experienced a deja vu emotion - as though a certain situation and emotion was recurring. That made me think of the "eternal occurence" in the novel "The strange life of Ivan Osokin"... - Ouspensky’s novel is base on the theme of "eternal recurrence." It tells the story of how the young Ivan Osokin is unable to correct his past mistakes, even when given the chance to relive his life. The last chapter powerfully portrays a man’s shock at the realization of his utter mechanicality and characterizes both the promise and the demand of an esoteric school.

What if things are being repeated again and again until action is made to break them? - even if that takes anger and more than a "velvet revolution" to happen.

And a little music addition...

A music addition to my previous blog entry... Seems to fit nicely to the anger associated with everything I described...

What is wrong?

Maybe I am wrong and maybe I ain't...

What I was thinking about and was troubled over in the past few days (or weeks) has to do with human relations and how we communicate... Maybe it is a male thing and again - maybe it isn't. Well in the specific situation - the greek army - it is.

I come to meet interesting guys here which I would have many things to talk about (would I?) if only... The only thing that seems to be of interest is how to meet girls, how to get to know them closer, how to get into bed with them (I am so good aren't I? - not even the world f*** comes out of my mouth). I understand the importance of such an issue but I am really bored because it seems I don't have real connection points. I don't want to go spending so much time of my day about the possibility of having sex any day now...

And then, the misery. It is unbelievable how people get caught up in mind patterns that are self destructive and quite unconscious. I believe (if I am not projecting) that I cannot start a genuine conversation from the heart, since the resistances are great. The greater is not to reveal the truth, whatever that might be. For example, I tried to start a conversation about how it is to be on a leave and I got the answer that it wasn't really a leave since he had to do business... Well OK but 18 days? And this is just an example. I am sick and tired of monotonous mind patterns. I need stimulation!!!

What happens after death?
Why am I here?
How can I perceive?
What can I do to be closer to the purpose of being here?
Am I leaving up to my heart?
What can I do better?
How can I learn more?
What are my faults?
Where am I unconscious - in what mind patterns do I get caught up?

I could go on and on but I am sure you get what I mean...

Read, Hear and See...

It is essential for me to find creative ways to spend time...

This is where I am currently on...

What I am currently reading... The ten principal Upanishads (in Greek)

What I want to see...! It opens in August in the US and I think October in Greece...

I have joined the Greek army... The service is obligatory here... I am in a Greek island and I can only say things are not as heavy as I had imagined them to be. So here is a song that matches my mood from my favorite, Tori Amos.

Bouncing off Clouds (we were)... This is not as heavy as it seems...

No Other People

Neil,

Sorry for copying but what you wrote touched me...

I haven't posted about the Virginia Tech shooting, and wasn't going to. But...

I'm in the UK right now, and it's a long way away, and I'm reading about what happened in newspapers... still managing to think of this as something that happened, tragically, to Other People. And then I see this, and my heart sinks, because this is the Michael Bishop who I met in 1999 when we were Guests of Honour at World Horror, whose son was a Sandman fan and oh god, and then I click on this, and I get my nose rubbed hard and painfully in the fact that there are no Other People. It's just us.

Did you hear that guys (and did you Mr. Bush? and did you dear politicians?)... There are no Other People, it's just us...

Bringing it down...

I am currently in a life situation when I am preparing to leave in order to serve the Greek army... What I observed is that I have started bringing down everything my current life consists of in order to be able to leave. I feel as though I am doing others wrong but cannot find an answer to my problem.

Have you felt that in order to leave a place or a life phase you had to devalue everything in your life? How did you handle that?

Parasitic Tactics

I was just reading my horoscope (I am an Aquarius if you want to know...) and it was strange how close this was to what I was thinking in the morning!!! Since the horoscope will be there just for today, I have copied it here:

Popularity is incredibly overrated, so don't base any decisions solely on achieving it! Pleasing the masses is no great feat -- after all, appealing to the lowest common denominator just means that you're expecting the least out of other people, and that's not your philosophy... You will be better off in a small group of like-minded folks than in a huge crowd of sheep.

What I was thinking in the morning had to do with how I caught myself thinking again! I was trying to hide my impulses and my desires in order to be loved (in my day-dream fantasies)... Not again!

It occurs to me that I sell out my desires in order to be loved. By doing that I project a false image - a lie - for others to love. But this lie is not me, so ultimately, what others love (best-case scenario) is not me! (Oh you Prince of Lies, you have made it easy for us to fall into your traps...) Now that I know I have to guard myself against that...

I believe that what most people do (including myself) is trying to please Mommy and Daddy even in their 60s or 80s... You know that doesn't change much as time passes - especially if you don't do something conscious about it. I have to kill this version of Mommy and Daddy that exists within me if I want to be free and ultimately accept me for who I am. I want to let people love me for who I am - Love the true me - a being in constant flux - not the Prince of Lies I project...

Great band, great songs...

I recently discovered this band... Great band, great songs... Just as an introduction, something from Youtube. It is very touching... Actually all of Sigur Ros' music is...

Suck you dry...

A funny picture that uses caustic humor for that which sucks us up and leaves us without energy... Have a look at the picture!!!

VirtualDNA

An interesting site for creating a personal profile and sharing it in your personal blog...

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Couldn't agree more...

A little quote by Albert Einstein which I couldn't agree more with...

"The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle."

Harsh!!!... but true!

Neil and his magnificent oracular journal!

Cool!

Try this out: Neil and his magnificent oracular journal

It is bound to answer your life's most serious questions...

I tried a profound question especially for this post... Here it goes:

Q: What is my soul's 'mission' on planet Earth?
A: This is the orchestra that usually lives in a small red box in the Prime Minister's hat, playing a brief fanfare in the bedroom of the sleeping White Queen.

Wow! This does require several months of meditation... Enlightment might be just around the corner after that!

The Power of Now...

I have begun reading a book by Eckhart Tolle - "The Power of Now". It is an extremely well-written book and easy to follow while at the same time containing profound "truths"... It starts very dynamically with the following paragraph:

A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years. One day a stranger walked by. "Spare some change?" mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cup. "I have nothing to give you," said the stranger. Then he asked: "What's that you are sitting on?" "Nothing," replied the beggar. "Just an old box. I have been sitting on it as long as I can remember." "Ever looked inside?" asked the stranger. "No," said the beggar. "What's the point? There is nothing in there." "Have a look inside," insisted the stranger. The beggar managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.

I am the stranger who has nothing to give you and who is telling you to look inside. Not inside the box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside yourself.

From The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle

Monsters, Dirt and Pulling Things out of the Closet

I had a little more time today and decided to search the Internet... I came up to another one of those Tori excerpts which I find really interesting and useful so I have copied it here! Monsters, dirt and pulling things out of the closet.

I made a decision to stop being unconscious. And how you do that is you give yourself the keys to the unconscious room and you walk in and you go, 'What's up?' and all the little monsters come out with their party hats. [Sacramento Bee - May 8, 1992]

I think there’s so much emphasis on pushing things away, instead of pulling them out of the closet. A lot of times I just notice that people try to hide their dirt for as long as possible. Monsters, dirt, whatever you want to call it, the stuff that you censor and that you don’t really want to share with people. I think you can only do that for so long before you start losing your mind. I’m finding a lot of freedom right now in just looking at things that I really feel. We’re not encouraged to do that, and I think that that’s what makes people sick inside of themselves. You kind of want everybody else to think that you’re okay. Well, you’re okay if you have monsters! That’s what people don’t understand—everybody has many many voices going on inside of themselves. Now there is one voice, though, that is more of the ringleader, more of the innermost voice that isn’t trying to beat you up, or trying to make you feel like you can go slaughter 67 people and it’s okay. You know, the voice in there that goes, “hang on a minute, Tori, we’re really feeling lonely right now.” That inner inner voice is, to me, the most important because it can start being a bridge between all these other voices in your head. Everybody has them.

My first trip over the Atlantic Ocean...

I was in a dramatherapy workshop in November... It was so strange the fact that during the dramatisation of a scene I was put by someone else to play the role of a bird. This bird, did a great trip over the Atlantic. 2 months after, I actually did that...
A second coincidence has to do with a dream... I keep a dream journal and this helped remember a dream that I dreamt one month before going to Hawaii. I saw a building from my homeland there. I didn't like the place because it was a multi-cultural mix (with bad taste). Kitsch... That was in fact my overall impression after staying (in "reality") for 7 days there...

Incompetence vs. Maliciousness

I was in a conference the other day and while being audience to a presentation in the eGovernment track the following was stated:

"People tend to interpret misuse of their personal data as incompetence of their governments and not as maliciousness"...

Going that a step further (applying it not just to the misuse of personal data), I was wondering about the Bush icon. Could it be that by projecting an incompetence icon, maliciousness from the government's side will be overlooked? - Something to ponder on there...

The Parable of the Two Wolves

The grandfather told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people...

"The battle that goes on inside our chest is between two wolves," he said. "One is evil. It is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego".

"The other is good. It is peace, Love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, joy, benevolence, empathy, generousity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about this for a minute and asked, "Grandfather which wolf wins?"

The grandfather replied "The one you feed."

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A small comment from me is that we have to acknowledge the existence of both of them but make a conscious choice to serve the one that can lead us to our Soul's path!