“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours ... In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.” – Walden, Henry David Thoreau

 

Keith Wiltshire (Aged 76, retired teacher who taught in Malaysia, the United Kingdom & Singapore; resides in Bristol, UK):

"Poverty. Insufficiency of any or all of these: food, clothing, housing, health, companionship.

Abundance. Adequate amounts of all of the above.

Why is there poverty? Lack of imagination by the wealthy. SELFISHNESS (Refusal to love your global neighbour as yourself) and the sad fact that as the planet is depleted by the wealthy who are the major cause of global warming it will be the poor who suffer most from the collapse of systems which now seems inevitable.

[Just remembered: Keith had taught me English literature at an elite junior college which academically had an intensively competitive environment. Before I left he autographed a text he taught, Gulliver's Travels, and in it drew his Oxford college crest and his own motto beneath -- labore nihil delectat ("to do nothing delights me"). I still have that copy of Swift somewhere.

And from a group email sent out by him] --

Our Garden

I have been stimulated to write this to all of you by Sanjay Perera's questionnaire about poverty & affluence [abundance] - & the undeniable fact that although our income is too low to have to pay Income Tax, we are nevertheless affluent.

It has become a custom for us to hold a garden party at midsummer (which is also our wedding anniversary) so for those who have not yet attended such an event I intend to describe our back garden, where a good deal of our time is spent.

It faces due south, is about 100 yards long & 30 wide. There are two plum trees, one yellow, one red, which are as old as the house (and us), situated near the border fence, one half-way along, the other overshadowing the patio which is just outside the French windows of the house. In the centre is a magnolia tree which we have just reduced to its size when we moved in ten years ago, thus allowing more light into the garden. I have recently dug 3 new beds formerly under its (admittedly beautiful) shade.

Our garden philosophy is that anything can grow wherever it wishes unless there is a good reason why it should not - there are therefore plenty of buttercups & daisies sprinkled over the grassy area immediately beyond the patio with flowers springing up among the vegetables & various Spring flowers (daffodils, primulas, violets) under what remains of the magnolia. There are also still 2 bay trees, & 2 apple trees (one cookers, one eaters) & a sprawling tree at the end of the garden just before the laurel hedge which separates us from the 1970s houses which were erected just beyond the line of the original Roman Road from the port of Abonae (at the bottom of the hill) & Bath.

There are easily movable chairs & benches and grassy paths between the vegetable beds which are sometimes guarded, as at present by four-foot tall foxgloves with streams of tiny florets (blue, white, purple, pink) inhabited by honey-bees which are having a revival this year after years of decline in the country. The pink of camelia bushes is now over - as are the magnolia & weigelia (3 more sizable bushes), & the peonies. (There are many other colourful flowers here & there but only the Head Gardener knows the names & how to spell them!)

We have 4 compost bins into which we tip our grass cuttings, kitchen waste etc. for worms to turn into magnificent soil improver after a few months. These are all along the western edge of the garden & between them, clinging to the fence are blackberry bushes. In the middle of the southern sector of the garden are soft fruits: gooseberries, raspberries, redcurrants, loganberries (all of which are also represented in our store cupboard full of jam jars filled by Pauline last year - as well as a few remaining in our freezer). You will have gathered that, as far as possible we try to feed ourselves but are somewhat handicapped by our inability to grow rice or bananas, though we do have plenty of potato & cabbage beds & rows of beans, peas, garlic scattered among the nigella (blue flowers known colloquially as 'love in the mist").

This year's party is for the local Green Party to reflect on their election results (we only have one MP - but the Labour Party started with one, and we held our City Council seat with a different candidate). Many people told me that they would like to vote Green but would have to vote LibDem [Liberal Democrat] to keep the Tories out - so much for tactical voting!

P.S. Further reading: The Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry a Kentucky farmer & poet; also this poem by Louis Macneice written just before the 2nd World War started:

THE SUNLIGHT ON THE GARDEN

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying.

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too

For sunlight on the garden.”

To end, Thoreau's journals have some interesting stuff as in an entry on Oct. 4, 1851:

“...Minot is, perhaps, the most poetical farmer – who most realizes to me the poetry of the farmer's life – that I know. He does nothing with haste and drudgery, but as if he loved it. He makes the most of his labor, and takes infinite satisfaction in every part of it. He is not looking for a sale of his crops or any pecuniary profit, but he is paid by the constant satisfaction which his labor yields him. He has not too much land to trouble him, -- too much work to do...but simply to amuse himself and live. He cares not so much to raise a large crop as to do his work well. He knows every pin and every nail in his barn. If another linter is to be floored, he lets no hired man rob him of that amusement, but he goes slowly to the woods and, at his leisure, selects a pitch pine tree, cuts it, and hauls it or gets it hauled to the mill; and so he knows the history of his barn floor.”

Then on Oct. 6, 1851:

“To Fair Haven Pond by boat, the moon four-fifths full, not a cloud in the sky: paddling all the way. In the middle of the pond we tried the echo. As we paddled down the stream with our backs to the moon, we saw the reflection of every wood and hill on both sides distinctly. These answering reflections – shadow to substance – impress the voyager with a sense of harmony and symmetry, as when you fold a blotted paper and produce a regular figure, -- a dualism which nature loves. What you commonly see is but half. Home at ten.”

[After first click on video, click it second time at link "Watch on Youtube". For those who have the patience: try at some stage to find a quiet time, close your eyes, and focus on just listening to the audio of the video.]

There has been much said about spirituality and nature. But today, it gets harder to see this clearly because with the conflicting voices coming from the rush to see capitalism through its death throes, a great deal in compassion is missing in the sound and fury of it all. In such times many turn to religion and spirituality but do not always get what they need from there either.

For instance, take Buddhism. In many ways, as it is taught today and as it is followed in many monasteries: there is a focus on meditational techniques, the doctrinal understanding of the teachings and the moral principles espoused in them. This is necessary.

But what is seen little of in many places of institutional religion and spirituality around the world are teaching emphases and being living examples, by those who proclaim them, of compassion and unconditional love; and while we’re at it, gratitude as well.

Which comes back to what did the Buddha do first thing upon attaining Enlightenment? We are told that the Master stood in front of the pipal tree under which he attained Realization, and gazed at it for seven days and seven nights without moving as an act of gratitude.

True, he had developed supernormal powers by then, but there were many things he could have done like, well, look for food or something (which is what most of us would think of doing). But he just stood there radiating love, compassion and gratitude.

This is the cornerstone of Buddhism: that with Enlightenment, or on the path to it, compassion and gratitude are defining characteristics. Especially since one has seen through the illusion of ego, you realize that you owe more to what is around than what everyone else is supposed to owe you -- this is still a novel thought for many.   

But, why a tree? Because it is a living thing. Because it was the shelter. Because it is harmless and provides a service to all life around, including for humans who know how to synergize with rather than desecrate it. Because, and this may be contrary to the view of orthodox Buddhism: it is a gift from God (yes, the Creator, the Universal, All That There Is, etc).

Again this may be shocking to some, but the Buddha never denied the existence of God nor the existence of a soul: what he did say is that it's of little use to pontificate about such matters when you should focus on actions leading to your salvation.

The Buddhist idea of anatta is a complex one. It is actually non-ego but tends to be interpreted as non-Self or no-soul. It was a revolutionary concept in the context of the time as it meant that the person you think you are is an illusion, in that the desires and projections that come from the ego generated by the senses are the cause of dissatisfaction in life. It certainly predates anything that psychoanalysis and our so-called ‘scientific’ pathological studies may provide today.

One of the reasons for veering away from traditional philosophical questions on the origin of the universe and God in Buddhism was because India at the time was full of all kinds of spiritual teachers and quacks and metaphysical speculation was the in-thing.

Yet it can also be pointed out that much of what the Buddha says was already put forward in Hindu teachings but without the former's minimal leaning on metaphysics. For all the great Teachers of the world have had the same message, it just has been adulterated through the ego and religious texts have been expurgated by those who use them, and via the institutions built on them, to instill fear and control over others.

The focus in Buddhism is on practising the teachings and less on philosophical debate. But like today, while we talk a lot about doing good, we don’t always follow it with action. Despite its talk of renunciation of many things, Buddhism is about action. You walk the talk.

Sometimes you stand in your truth by acquiring stillness and radiating gratitude to a tree. If we can’t even show gratitude to the natural world around us, can we genuinely show gratitude to people and loved ones? Or are our relations tainted by conditions: we state loudly ‘through sickness and in health’ (but mean through a ‘healthy’ bank balance too, better if it is a fat one).

Some of us know what fair weather friends are like. They are there when the going is good, there are even more of them (some of whom you never knew were your friends) when the going gets better. 

As good old Dr Samuel Johnson says: “Adversity is the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free from admirers then.”

How true.

However, through thick and thin, earth abides. It is always there for us. The trees and plants and the natural world are always there. And we are always there to tear them down to build fancy condominiums as investment strategies and to find ways of making a buck from life. We have been led to believe and even adamantly proclaim ourselves, that what good is the world and life around us if we can’t make money from it?

Just look at the world around us to see the happy effect of this kind of indoctrination and ideology.

When the Buddha was abandoned by those who knew him as in the spiritual seekers who were his band of brothers, he had only himself and the tree. In coming to his full Awakening and realizing the Unconditioned termed Nirvana, he sets an example for the ages through demonstrating Unconditional love and gratitude to a tree.

After this act of gratitude, the first group of people the Buddha searches out to impart his teaching of love and freedom from birth and death is the band of seekers who left him. Why does the Buddha seek them out?

Because there is no discrimination against those who may have left him and if you have compassion and gratitude to all, then you have that to each person without conditions. He is also grateful for the experiences of adversity. This is something people don’t get as we tend to look at many difficulties as terrible suffering and want to run away from them only to end up sometimes in even worse conditions.

The point is not to be a sado-masochist but see in the difficulties, the challenges and lessons for growth (not the GDP, $$$ kind) as human beings evolving back to Godhead. That without the adversity and ‘abandonment’ it would be difficult to see who you truly are. As you have identified your ego self by those around you without sometimes the slightest discernment. We can be quite self conscious of what others think of us. You see yourself as represented through the eyes of others full of their own ego.

But on your own with the right spiritual balance, you can discover the Oneness of all life. You can tap into the eternal light of All That Is and there is only light and energy, as even our lame and ego driven scientific theories claim. And energy can be transformed.

If energy is devoid of fear, harm and greed, it can transform you and the world. The lesson from the natural world can also come in the form of how uncomplaining a tree, plant or animal is when left on its own within its habitat. The tree does not complain whatever the weather is, it does not react violently when it is cut down or stripped of its branches, it does not show anger when careless people carve their names on it, nor does it discriminate as to who can take the fruit from its boughs.

This is reflected in Buddhism in which we are told to let go of many things; let go of ego, fear, greed, anger, hatred, unbridled desires, intoxication and anything that is of harm to you or life. By doing so you allow yourself to be filled with love, compassion, peace and happiness – abundance enters your life, and there is indeed a lot to be grateful for.

As you can find in Matthew these words of wisdom (6:25-34):

    ²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?

²⁶"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? ²⁸And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

³¹"So do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?' ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

The words speak for themselves.

Read them carefully over a period of time. Think over them. Read them again, and yet again, and then once more.

Observe and see if there is not, over time, truth in them. If you do what you’re supposed to do caring for the world and people and life around you, you will be taken care of. The world and everything in it will turn out well. This can be practiced in daily life within the family, workplace, and society.

Difficult, sure, who on earth said it was always a walk across a field.

The earth is a demanding school for learning through adversity. Through the greatest challenges come the greatest learning and advancement and peace. And the greatest rewards. There will always be enough, you need to know how to draw from it, and that requires a paradigm shift; but all these shifts are spiritual in nature.

If you ground your energies in gratitude to the world and the miracle of life around you there will be in time a joy, peace and freedom that comes from it that cannot be measured in any form. In that moment of being here now, where you are, and not wanting to be anywhere else you see the grace of the divine flowing through you, and slowly but surely you understand why you are here and that everything will be well. When you learn such lessons, don’t be surprised to see a shooting star one night that tells you’ve been given a star for a lesson recently learnt.

But usually, the immediate response from a world of incessant handphone buzzing, stock markets, advertising and media mania, and inveterate i-padding is -- why can’t the results happen now, since you tried to be ‘good’ for one day. But the lesson is only learnt and bears fruit through patience, which the Buddha rightly proclaims is the highest austerity.

The ego wants everything now, but God tells you, all in good time. We still haven’t got it yet, but we are not in control of the universe. However, on this planet given for our learning, the results of our choices from free will are coming back to show us where we stray. If that is still unapparent, then witness the turmoil of the weather and the world. This is a time of cleansing.

Through making the right choices and doing the right thing, a balance will be regained, but until then you can prepare for much upheaval globally in every sense of the word and in each aspect of your life.

Our conscious thoughts are creating our reality. The more we live and believe in lack and the need to beggar someone else to get ‘ahead’ or sustain ourselves, the more difficult things will be till we learn from them.

There is the famous question that also underlies quantum physics as once raised by Berkeley on the impact of consciousness on what happens in the world that comes in the form: does a tree actually fall in the woods unless you are there to listen or perceive that it is so.

You may ask so what does such thinking have to do with the very real problems of the unrest in Egypt and what may take place elsewhere?

Well, sometimes the sound of one hand clapping comes from extreme satori. It is the sound and knowledge you get that the tree really is falling when it comes crashing down on your head.

There is a lesson in that somewhere.

 

Folks

as many prepare for the festivities of the coming Christmas and New Year days, a little reminder of some age old stuff that bears looking at time and again. It is like the well worn Xmas stocking -- you hang it up and hope somehow something gets in there that you like.

As we review the year we are still told that if 'Greed is not so good', then it's also not so bad. But somehow, most people seem to focus on what is good and heartwarming during the festive year end season. It is a time of giving and gratitude and Christmas sales and a busy time for the advertising and marketing industry.

After all, if 'goodness' can sell, why not? What isn't for sale anyway.

Many a person has mentioned why one needs to be 'realistic' and accept that what is spiritual is for the idealists who think what cannot be seen is real. These are the very same 'realists' who believe that there are such things as 'market forces' (invisible to the mind but can be seen through movement of stock indices and people being thrown out of work due to creating a leaner and certainly meaner work force).

Together with the commercially viable 'magic' of Christmas, you have the magical invocations of the 'free market', 'structural unemployment', and increasing 'productivity'. Yet while the workers who create that 'productivity' are 'structurally' eliminated from the 'work force', the fatcat CEOs and the like are busy planning their own bonuses.

The 'productivity' of the top, lean, mean ultracompetitive managers is shown by throwing out people from work thereby testifying to their everlasting adherence to the neo-occultist force of the 'market'. Their 'productivity' is measured through revenue 'turnover', share 'value' (through a laughably valueless US dollar), and one's golf handicap. 

Someone I know who is a CEO of a company in a conglomerate tells me how the deputy to his Group CEO is busy politicking to help bring down the boss so that the deputy can take over. 'Productivity', old chap, 'productivity'.

It's worth recalling the story of The Little Match Girl (beats saying, please read almost all of Dickens).

And while some of us look out at the world and are greatful for what we have, there are many who would look in and wonder why there is an absence of charity to all.

For the Christians among you, especially those who claim to be true believers, it should be with great understanding that you read these well known words:

"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" -- Matthew 16:26

But many among those who claim religiosity would also say, well good ole Matt was speaking at the time when there were no stocks and mega corporations to run. Life was simpler then. There was no SUV to maintain nor high priced condominium to covet.

They say with a straight face, that there was no real use for accountants to cook, well 'balance', the books and so forth. Those were less complicated times; you could actually believe in God and miracles, this is the twenty first century and, the usual stuff...science and technology is the new spiritualism and economists the high priests of our way of life (or 'freedom, democracy, individual rights', and all that).

Then with some hesitation, let us re-read these also unoriginal lines (compared to the 'new' things the mainstream media bombards us with everyday) --

"For I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
   “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink?  When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’" -- Matthew 25:35-40

All well and good, but later man, first the handphone beckons and will ask for Help when I really need it, right now...it's bonus time, shopping, a little relaxing. At the end of the day someone wins and someone has to lose. That's life.

Meanwhile, back in Gotham City... the United Corporations of America (a.k.a USA) continues its military adventurism abroad, and we have the strange variation of the Monroe Doctrine coming back to bite itself in the hindmost. It increasingly seems apparent that what happens in America's own backyard, that is within itself, should be of concern to Washington, D.C. (Detective Comics).

And there is that other old fashioned line that goes, 'Charity begins at home'.

So perhaps, while everyone would like to think all is well in the world as long as it's basically still OK with themselves, then please take a closer look (especially for those wanting to emulate the United Corporations of America) at what is really taking place in a country that still has the potential for greatness:

Incidentally, there is the interesting complementary tale to The Little Match Girl called the tale of The Star Money. Here the story is one in which the little girl gives away whatever she has and is rewarded by money dropping from the stars/heaven. It is essentially the Law of Attraction embedded within the story in which those who give in all goodness, only need open their arms to receive abundance (the rewards, however, are not always monetary).

Of course, to the smart science-technocrats of today, this is old hat: even as they lay on their death beds one day contemplating that if death is a constant in the third dimensional world of change and conditioning, and that if apparently there may be eleven dimensions to the universe and parallel realities and that it is theoretically possible to do time-travel -- then are there other dimensions of deathlessness and Freedom?

Good question.

On a less sentimental note for the hard core realists out there, a message/song from the one and only; and, by the way, have a good Xmas, New Year, etc -- you know the drill.

 

The recent British general election which has seen a new government takeover by another generation of political leaders there has been touted as entertainment by the mainstream media. The BBC World Service reporters and so-called analysts kept talking about how “interesting” the situation was and what would happen in government now that Britain has a hung parliament.

A hung parliament that has produced a coalition government since there is no majority party in charge. It is a government whose life mainly seems to depend on the level of disagreement among the politicians forming it. Britain, like most other countries, is facing a massive budget deficit of 12 per cent of its GDP which may be the largest among the world's major economies.

The new government in Britain has just announced that it may have to enact, for starters, US$8.9 billion in spending cuts to bring some semblance of sanity to the debt burden already riding the shoulders of the populace in Britain. The number of unemployed in Britain has risen to 2.51 million in the first quarter, the highest level in 16 years.

How is electing anyone to solve such problems in a country supposed to be 'entertaining'?

But this is how the mainstream media portrays all politics so that it can be milked for all its worth in order to promote their own industry, and ensure that they themselves stay employed.

Just look at the elections in the US, especially the Presidential elections, to see how much of it is a semblance of a Hollywood gladiatorial contest rather than one that reflects the seriousness of what is happening. The obvious gain for those who wish to control others using the media is to create a distancing of the population from political affairs to ensure that all affairs of state should solely remain in the hands of politicians.

So we are kept busy trying to sustain ourselves through the daily grind while 'watching' the regular Political Idol show that takes centre stage of the news. Our participation tends to be limited to simply pushing the voting buttons (like dialing in for American Idol) every few years, then go back to keeping ourselves distracted by our salvation – the entertainment industry. We are constantly in need of distraction and 'entertainment' which is surely a handicap for anyone opting for some sort of anchor point and spiritual balance in their lives.

Media distraction and the entertainment approach to world affairs is how people are kept away from empowerment. This is how they are effectively shut out from properly participating as democratic citizens in their society and from being able to put up and elect genuine change makers into office: the mainstream media and their mega corporate owners will be doing all they can to dumb things down to ensure that you vote for a personality, think about the gossip that surrounds them or exaggerate through fear mongering what they are proposing to get people worked up and addicted enough, to keep the media industry alive.

Yet at the same time we are kept at a distance from the reality of the importance of what is taking place in the politics of our world. You can be engaged and interested about who is winning an Oscar at the Academy Awards, but in the end you are still just another spectator, without whose support there would be no entertainment industry in the first place. Think about that.

Where is the democracy or justice or human decency in any of this? And most people say, well what else can we do.

This is understandable considering that many of our priorities, for those who are still employed, are things like when can we get hold of the next Apple 4G iPhone? Apparently, for the second time, Apple has conveniently 'lost' its so-called 'hot' product and this time in Vietnam. Once again it is receiving lots of free publicity for its product. And people are falling for the ruse, discussing all about it and, more importantly, want to own it.

People do not see that the product is not the iPhone itself but themselves. They are the human commodity that is being bandied about by large corporations and the mainstream media as they allow themselves to be manipulated away from any soul searching and improvement of the mind and spirit. People have allowed themselves to becomes pawns whose appetite can be whetted and used the way the manipulators want while removing earnings from them at the same time.

All in all, a pretty good deal.

Here is the rub: the world is in on the brink of economic turmoil, in a constant state of absurd and manufactured conflicts, acts of terror and violence are given full publicity all the while and there are countless people the world over (including the so-called developed world) facing and living in poverty, but the mass consciousness of people is focused on an iPhone.

Is it any wonder why people sense they are disempowered and that they must resign themselves to forces 'beyond their control'? Well, that is because we have allowed this situation to arise.

Imagine turning our attention away from the media manipulators and commodity mongers of the world to helping those around us and hold properly accountable those who are in public office, or even starting to read and think critically for ourselves by relying less on the mainstream media and using more discernment in everything: that would give some of those who want to keep us distanced, disillusioned, and despairing a real run for their money.