Sailing Through Time on a Cosmic Ocean of Eternal Love

Sailing Through Time on a Cosmic Ocean of Eternal Love

 

Time travel, inhabiting my future self

Learning about alien species visiting Earth

Changing history by following along with myself

Leaving clues and signs for me to find later, earlier

Creating a small army of freedom fighters

Anarchists, socialists, communists united by vision

Of a world free from hunger, injustice, oppression

Taking the best of what the aliens have to offer for humanity

Replacing the old order and hierarchies of power

In the shared goal of making humanity a galactic citizen

Universal belonging, working for peace, justice, stability

And innovation — A bright future of light, life, love for all

Here, and beyond in the vast emptiness of space, other worlds

Transforming humanity’s basest instincts into higher callings

Dedication to truth, perfection, understanding of complexity

Instead of war, violent conflict, extreme competition beyond play

Shared resources, knowledge, wisdom — An Utopia — Life without fear

Problems we take for granted now, in the past, before

The Others come, who are yet to come, yet always here

Bringing new knowledge and wisdom that is yet old

Kept safe by elders of ancient cultures, carried on by future generations

Waiting for the day when they could share with all

Humanity suddenly confronted with the reality

That we are not ever truly alone in the Universe

For better or worse, and there are new, better ways of doing things

Organizing ourselves not only to survive

But thrive, and become full members of the community

Of the Universe of Universes — All times and places linked

By the knowledge and wisdom of the Elder Races

Guides and sometimes exploiters of the younger ones

Humanity — We must evolve and transform ourselves

Into something greater and more beautiful than we can imagine

Undreamed of, except by a few — The ones with love and peace

In their hearts and minds, those who are the storytellers

Artists, poets, philosophers — Leaders of thought and feeling

Those of gentle soul and also fierce passion for change and progress

Eyes on the Prize – Episode 5 – Mississippi: Is This America? 1962-1964

via youtube.com

 

Eyes on the Prize – Episode 01 – Awakenings 1954-1956

via youtube.com

Democracy Now! | Headlines for August 30, 2011

via democracynow.org

‘Hurricane Irene Death Toll Climbs to 40 as Widespread Flooding, Power Outages Persist

The death toll from Hurricane Irene has jumped to at least 40 people as towns in Vermont, New York and New Jersey continue to battle epic floods. Millions remain without power. Irene dumped up to 11 inches of rain on Vermont and more than 13 in parts of New York.

Michele Bachmann Says Hurricane Irene Should Be Viewed as Message from God

On the campaign trail, Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is coming under criticism for saying Hurricane Irene should be viewed as a message from God. She made the comment on Sunday at a campaign event in Florida.
Michele Bachmann, Republican presidential candidate: “And I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake. We’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people, because the American people are roaring right now, because they know what needs to be done. They know the government is on a morbid obesity diet. It’s got to rein in the spending. This is not a difficult problem to solve.”

On Monday, Bachmann attempted to back away from her comment. A campaign spokesperson said Bachmann made the comment in jest. The Christian televangelist Pat Robertson made a similar remark last week on his television program.

Pat Robertson, Christian televangelist: “It seems to me the Washington Monument is a symbol of America’s power. It has been the symbol of our great nation. We look at that monument, and we say, ‘This is one nation under God.’ Now there’s a crack in it. There’s a crack in it, and it’s closed up. Is that a sign from the Lord? Is that something that has significance, or is it just a result of an earthquake? You judge, but I just want to bring that to your attention. But it seems to me symbolic.”

Inspection Team Dispatched to Virginia Nuclear Power Plant Following Earthquake

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has sent a special inspection team to the North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia after last week’s earthquake. The 5.8-magnitude quake is now believed to have shaken the nuclear plant more than it was designed to withstand. No significant damage has been identified so far, but the plant’s two reactors remain shut down.

Maryland Nuclear Power Facility Shut Down in Wake of Hurricane

In Maryland, the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant was shut down over the weekend after Hurricane Irene ripped a piece of aluminum siding from the plant and slammed the metal piece into an electrical transformer.
Libyan Rebels Accuse Algeria of Aggression for Accepting Gaddafi Family

The rebels in Libya have accused neighboring Algeria of an act of aggression for admitting the fleeing wife of Muammar Gaddafi and three of his children, but the whereabouts of Col. Gaddafi himself remains a mystery. Algeria’s foreign ministry said Gaddafi’s wife Safia, his daughter Aisha, and his sons Hannibal and Mohammed entered Algeria on Monday morning. Meanwhile, for the third time this month rebels are claiming they have killed Gaddafi’s son Khamis, but once again no proof of his death has been made public. In other news from Libya, Physicians for Human Rights has issued a new report accusing Gaddafi forces of targeting civilians with rape, torture and summary executions.

African Union Chief Accuses Libyan Rebels of Targeting Black Africans

African Union chief Jean Ping has accused Libya’s rebels of treating black Africans as mercenaries for Muammar Gaddafi. Ping spoke to journalists in Ethiopia.
Jean Ping, Chairman of the African Union Commission: “The TNC seems to confuse black people with mercenaries: all blacks are mercenaries. If you do that, which means one-third of the population of Libya, which is black, is also mercenaries. They are killing people, normal workers, you know, mistreating them, invading some embassies like the embassy of Kenya, some embassies in Tripoli.”

Lockerbie Bomber Maintained Innocence in Private Correspondence with Libyan Officials

In other Libya news, the Wall Street Journal is reporting the Libyan convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988 has maintained his innocence, even in private correspondence with Libya officials. The newspaper has obtained a letter written by Abdel Baset al-Megrahi to Libya’s intelligence chief. In the letter, Megrahi wrote, “I am an innocent man.” The Journal obtained the letter after gaining access to the former intelligence chief’s office. Megrahi served eight-and-a-half years in prison in Britain but was released in August 2009 because of his failing health. He is now in a coma in Libya. The letter is likely to spark new questions about Megrahi’s involvement in the bombing that killed 243 passengers and 16 crew members. On Monday, Scottish First Minister

Alex Salmond says Scotland does not plan to seek his extradition.

Alex Salmond, Scottish First Minister: “He’s under Scottish jurisdiction. We have not, and never have, had any intention of calling for his extradition. And it’s been made clear by the Libyan Transitional Council, who are the new duly constituted legal authority in Libya, that even if there had been, they would have no intention of agreeing to it.”

August Becomes Deadliest Month for U.S. Troops in Nearly Decade-Long Afghanistan War

August has become the deadliest month for U.S. troops in the nearly 10-year-old war in Afghanistan. So far, 66 U.S. troops have died this month, eclipsing the 65 killed in July 2010. In addition, the NATO coalition suffered the loss of two British, four French, one New Zealander, one Australian, one Polish and four other troops whose nationalities have not yet been disclosed.

Afghan Government Derailed Peace Talks Between U.S. and Taliban

An investigation by the Associated Press has revealed the Afghan government intentionally helped scuttle preliminary peace talks between the United States and the Taliban. According to the report, the Afghan government leaked details of clandestine meetings between Washington officials and a personal emissary of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Once details of the talks emerged, the talks imploded, and the Taliban intermediary went into hiding. The AP reports the talks were deliberately revealed by someone within Hamid Karzai’s presidential palace out of fear that any agreement Washington brokered would undermine Karzai’s authority.

Pentagon Use of No-Bid War Contracts Balloons to $140 Billion

The Pentagon’s use of no-bid contracts has tripled since the United States was attacked on 9/11, in spite of promises to reform the controversial practice. According to a new investigative report from the Center for Public Integrity, no-bid spending has ballooned from $50 billion in 2003 to $140 billion in 2011. One instance cited in the report details how the Department of Defense awarded $50 million in sole-sourced contracts to an Arizona company in order to develop a lightning-shooting device that could detonate improvised explosives from the front of a vehicle. The Marines eventually canceled the contract. It was later revealed a separate company has developed the same technology for $1.5 million. So far this year, the Pentagon has allowed competition on just 55 percent of its war contracts, the lowest rate since 9/11. In addition to the Center for Public Integrity’s findings, the independent Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan is preparing to release a report showing that one in every six contracting and grant dollars spent in Iraq and Afghanistan has been wasted, totaling some $30 billion lost.

Israeli Military Prepares to Supply Jewish Settlers with Tear Gas, Stun Grenades

The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports the Israeli military is planning to give tear gas and stun grenades to Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank ahead of the expected United Nations vote on Palestinian statehood this fall. The move comes as part of Israel’s preparations to deal with possible confrontations with Palestinians after the vote. The Israeli army is also drafting guidelines on when it would be appropriate to shoot live ammunition at the feet of Palestinian protesters.

Obama: New Economic Aide Will Focus on Jobs

Under pressure to spur job growth, President Obama announced on Monday he had chosen Princeton University labor economist Alan Krueger to become the top White House economist and that he will offer a jobs plan next week. Krueger, an expert on unemployment, would succeed Austan Goolsbee as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

President Barack Obama: “Alan brings a wealth of experience to the job. He’s one of the nation’s leading economists. For more than two decades, he has studied and developed economic policy both inside and outside of government. In the first two years of this administration, as we were dealing with the effects of a complex and fast-moving financial crisis, a crisis that threatened a second Great Depression, Alan’s counsel as chief economist at the Treasury Department proved invaluable.”

Report: Half of Muslim Americans Feel Intensified Presence of U.S. Anti-Terror Policies

A new report finds more than half of Muslim Americans feel U.S. anti-terror polices have placed them under intensified surveillance or monitoring, while many have experienced increased name calling, threats and harassment by airport security, police officers and others. Despite the complaints, most American Muslims report being satisfied with the way things are going in the United States and rate their communities highly as places to live, according to data gathered by the Pew Research Center.
Alabama Judge Temporarily Blocks Controversial Immigration Law

A federal judge in Alabama has temporarily blocked Alabama’s controversial immigration law, after the measure was challenged by the Obama administration. Under the new law, contracts held by undocumented immigrants would become null, police would be required to arrest anyone they suspect of being in the country without legal status, and public schools would be required to determine the immigration status of enrolled students. The law would also make it a crime to knowingly harbor or transport an undocumented immigrant. In an editorial published Monday, the New York Times described Alabama’s measure as “the country’s cruelest, most unforgiving immigration law.”

Commission Confirms 1940s U.S. Medical Experimentation in Guatemala Killed 83

A commission has found U.S. medical experimentation conducted in Guatemala during the 1940s resulted in the deaths of 83 people. The testing focused on sexually transmitted diseases and involved U.S. medical officials intentionally infecting Guatemalan sex workers, prisoners, soldiers and mental patients — without their permission — in order to study the effects of Penicillin. President Obama put together the commission to investigate the program when it was unearthed late last year. On Tuesday, the commission concluded nearly 5,500 people were subjected to diagnostic testing in Guatemala, and more than 1,300 were exposed to venereal diseases by contact or inoculations. Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom has described the experiments as a “crime against humanity” and ordered his own investigation. The Guatemala program was discovered by Wellesley College Professor Susan Reverby while she was researching the infamous Tuskegee experiments. Professor Reverby spoke to Democracy Now! last year and discussed how much U.S. officials knew about the practices the program’s architect, John Cutler, was engaged in.
Professor Susan Reverby, Wellesley College: “It’s too easy to say, ‘OK, this was a period when there wasn’t research norms or any of the kind of regulations we’ve had in place since the mid-’70s.’ But Cutler’s bosses at the Public Health Service knew this was sort of really on the edge. And the quote that I found that just really knocked me off the chair was one from the surgeon general himself, who said — and this is secondhand, but it was in a letter to Cutler where one of his colleagues said, ‘The surgeon general says, “Well, we couldn’t do this in the United States.”’ And that’s just a stunning, absolutely stunning, acknowledgment of what was going on.”

Top NASA Climate Scientist Arrested in Ongoing White House Keystone XL Pipeline Protest

One of the nation’s leading climate scientists, James Hansen, was arrested Monday along with 60 others at a protest outside the White House against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Hansen is the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Hansen called on President Obama to reject the pipeline, which would stretch from Canada to Texas. Since last week, 522 people have been arrested in Washington protesting the pipeline.’

“A Declaration of War on the Poor”: Cornel West and Tavis Smiley on the Debt Ceiling Agreement | Democracy Now!

via democracynow.org

The veteran broadcaster Tavis Smiley, and the author and Princeton University Professor Cornel West, are in the midst of a 15 city, cross-country trek they have dubbed, “The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience.” The tour comes on the heels of last week’s deficit agreement, which has been widely criticized for excluding a tax hike on the wealthy as well as any measures to tackle high unemployment. “Any legislation that doesn’t extend unemployment benefits, doesn’t close a single corporate loophole, doesn’t not raise one cent in terms of new revenue in terms of taxes on the rich or the lucky, allows corporate America to get away scot-free again, the banks and Wall Street getting away again, and all of these cuts ostensibly on the backs of everyday people,” says Smiley.

‪One of Carl Sagan’s most pertinent messages for humanity‬‏

‪One of Carl Sagan’s most pertinent messages for humanity‬‏ – YouTube.

Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the Earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours. In every one of them, there’s a sucsession of incidence, events, occurences which influence its future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time. And our small planet, at this moment, here we face a critical branch-point in the history. What we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants. It is well within our power to destroy our civilization, and perhaps our species as well. If we capitulate to superstition, or greed, or stupidty we can plunge our world into a darkness deeper than time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissaince. But, we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth, to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet. To enhance enormously our understanding of the Universe, and to carry us to the stars.

Round Two: The Progressive Debt Deal America Wants | ThinkProgress

With the wealthy, Big Oil, and other corporations asked to contribute nothing in the first round of the austerity plan President Obama signed today to avoid a catastrophic default on our nation’s obligations, there is little for progressives to celebrate.

At the same time, the deal sets up a new “super committee” to identify an additional $1.2-1.5 TRILLION in deficit reduction — reductions which can come from more austerity cuts (including cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) or more revenues. This presents progressives with an opportunity to channel their anger over the first round into relentless action to push for the kind of progressive second round of deficit reduction that America wants — and needs. Only a progressive plan will help fund the kinds of investments we need to make to start putting America back to work.

AMERICANS AGREE: Survey after survey shows that Americans want a progressive plan:

• 60 percent disapprove of the fact that revenues from the wealthy and corporations were not included in the first round of the deal
• 66 percent wanted a deal that included both new revenues and spending cuts
• 72 percent support raising taxes on those making over $250,000
• 64 percent support raising taxes on hedge fund managers
• 59 percent support ending tax breaks for Big Oil

NOTABLE QUOTABLE: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, speaking just before the Senate voted today to pass the debt deal, said Republican members of the Super Committee must have “open minds” about including revenue in the second round. Reid said the only the way an agreement to stop the automatic cuts in the second round from going into effect can be reached is by including revenue in the Super Committee’s deal:

We’ve had too much talk the last few days of Republicans as early as this morning, Republican leaders in the Senate saying there will be no revenue. That’s not going to happen. Otherwise, the trigger is going to kick in. The only way we can arrive at a fair arrangement for the American people with this joint committee is to have equal sharing…There has to be equal spending cuts, there has to be some revenue that matches that

IN ONE SENTENCE: Washington ignored the American people’s overwhelming desire for a balanced plan in round one of the debt deal; now it’s time for progressives to fight for a plan that creates jobs and doesn’t allow most Americans to bear the burden, while those with lobbyist get to write the rules.

Round Two: The Progressive Debt Deal America Wants | ThinkProgress.

Rabindranath Tagore, Mevlana Rumi, Dalai Lama, Vonnegut, Nhat Hahn, Lao Tzu, Yoko Ono, Mahatma Gandhi, Buddha <3

via nasa.gov

via apod.nasa.gov

☮Peace is every step.
- Thich Nhat Hahn

The Inner Sun

Love is longing and longing, the pain of being parted;
No illness is rich enough for the distress of the heart,
A lover’s lament surpasses all other cries of pain.
Love is the royal threshold to God’s mystery.
The carnival of small affections and polite attachments
Which litter and consume our passing time
Is no match to Love which pulses behind this play.
It’s easy to talk endlessly about Love,
To live Love is to be seized by joy and bewilderment;
Love is not clear-minded, busy with images and argument.
Language is too precocious, too impudent, too sane
To stop the molten lava of Love which churns the blood,
This practicing energy burns the tongue to silence;
The knowing pen is disabled, servile paper
Shrivels in the fire of Love. Bald reason too is an ass
Explaining Love, deceived by spoilt lucidity.
Love is dangerous offering no consolation,

Only those who are ravaged by Love know Love,
The sun alone unveils the sun to those who have
The sense to receive the senseless and not turn away.
Cavernous shadows need the light to play but light
And light alone can lead you to the light alone.
Material shadows weigh down your vision with dross,
But the rising sun splits the ashen moon in empty half.
The outer sun is our daily miracle in timely
Birth and death, the inner sun
Dazzles the inner eye in a timeless space.
Our daily sun is but a working star in a galaxy of stars,
Our inner sun is One, the dancing nuance of eternal light.
You must be set alight by the inner sun,
You have to live your Love or else
You’ll only end in words.
~ Mevlana Rumi

Translated by Raficq Abdulla

Knowing ignorance is strength; ignoring knowledge is sickness.
- Lao Tzu

I tell you one thing – if you want peace of mind, do not find fault with others. Rather learn to see your own faults. Learn to make the whole world your own. No one is a stranger, my child; this whole world is your own.
– SRI SARADA DEVI

Our world is in profound danger. Mankind must establish a set of positive values with which to secure its own survival.
This quest for enlightenment must begin now.
It is essential that all men and women become aware of what they are, why they are here on Earth and what they must do to preserve civilization before it is too late. ~ Richard Matheson (born 20 February 1926)

I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;” I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgement is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.
~ Frederick Douglass ~

There can be no Friendship where there is no Freedom. Friendship loves a free Air, and will not be penned up in streight and narrow Enclosures. It will speak freely, and act so too; and take nothing ill where no ill is meant; nay, where it is, ’twill easily forgive, and forget too, upon small Acknowledgments. ~ William Penn

All in all is all we are. ~ Kurt Cobain (born 20 February 1967)

We picked up everything we could get our hands on. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug-collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.
The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. ~ Hunter S. Thompson (died 20 February 2005)

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. ~ Frederick Douglass

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. ~ Frederick Douglass (died February 20, 1895; born February 1817/1818, birthdate unknown)

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck. ~ Frederick Douglass

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
- Dogen Zenji

Words of wisdom
came to me at last
“the beloved you’ve lost
the one you’ve been seeking outside
can only be found inside”
- Rumi

All great truths begin as blasphemies.
- George Bernard Shaw

‎”…meditation is the only way to make you absolutely sane.”
~ Osho

The rose has come from beyond; it is from the other world. That’s why this world cannot encompass the rose. The rose is so graceful, so elegant that the world of dreams is too narrow to dream of the rose. What is meant by the rose, a messenger from the garden of the intellect, from the grove of spirit? What is the rose? A document that describes the beauty and the highness of the rose of truth that neither turns brown nor withers.
~ Rumi

Come come the roses are in bloom!
The Beloved has arrived!
Now it is time to unite the soul and the world.
~ Rumi

Without trying, the world is heading for perfect awareness – and you are part of it.
- Yoko Ono

We cannot be loving and compassionate unless at the same time we curb our own harmful impulses and desires.

Large human movements spring from individual human initiatives.
- Dalai Lama

☮Peace is the only battle worth waging.
- Albert Camus (1913-1960)

☮All it takes for evil to rule a land is for good men to remain silent.
- Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others. ♥ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
♥ Ralph Waldo Emerson

‎”Responding to adverse situations or conditions with patience and tolerance rather than reacting with anger and hatred involves active restraint, which arises from a strong, self-disciplined mind. We should not see patience as a sign of weakness or giving in, but rather as a sign of strength.”
- Dalai Lama

Seek out the source
which shines forever.
- Mevlana Rumi

“In the midst of death life persists.
In the midst of untruth truth persists.
In the midst of darkness light persists.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
– George Bernard Shaw

I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them. I am aware that a philosopher’s ideas are not subject to the judgement of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavor to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned. ~ Nicolaus Copernicus (born 19 February 1473)

External success has to do with people who may see me as a model, or an example, or a representative. As much as I may dislike or want to reject that responsibility, this is something that comes with public success. It’s important to give others a sense of hope that it is possible and you can come from really different places in the world and find your own place in the world that’s unique for yourself. ~ Amy Tan (born 19 February 1952)

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
~ Paul Simon ~
(Lyrics to “The Sound of Silence” — written on this day in 1964)

Now that your rose is in bloom,
A light hits the gloom on the grave,
I’ve been kissed by a rose on the grave.
~ Seal ~

And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence.”
~ Paul Simon ~ (song written on this day in 1964)

People have such terrible assumptions about ghosts — you know, phantoms that haunt you, that make you scared, that turn the house upside down. Yin people are not in our living presence but are around, and kind of guide you to insights. Like in Las Vegas when the bells go off, telling you you’ve hit the jackpot. Yin people ring the bells, saying, “Pay attention.” And you say, “Oh, I see now.” Yet I’m a fairly skeptical person. I’m educated, I’m reasonably sane, and I know that this subject is fodder for ridicule. … To write the book, I had to put that aside. As with any book. I go through the anxiety, “What will people think of me for writing something like this?” But ultimately, I have to write what I have to write about, including the question of life continuing beyond our ordinary senses. ~ Amy Tan

Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grave.
Ooh, the more I get of you,
Stranger it feels, yeah.
And now that your rose is in bloom,
A light hits the gloom on the grave.
~ Seal ~

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/February#19

via apod.nasa.gov

I’m sure you’ve noticed that more and more people are getting aware.
- Yoko Ono

via apod.nasa.gov

via apod.nasa.gov

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.

“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.”
— William W. Purkey

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
— Dr. Seuss

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.”
— Dr. Seuss

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
— Maya Angelou

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
— Albert Camus

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
— Mark Twain

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
— Oscar Wilde

“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
— Abraham Lincoln

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
— Mark Twain

“So many books, so little time.”
— Frank Zappa

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
— C.S. Lewis

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
— Robert Frost

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Maya Angelou

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
— John Lennon

“If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.”
— Malcolm X

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it ‘The Present’.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
— William Shakespeare (As You Like It)

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
— Albert Einstein

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
— Mark Twain

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
— Marilyn Monroe

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”
— Elie Wiesel

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
— Groucho Marx (The Essential Groucho)

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”
— Mark Twain

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”
— Steve Martin

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
— Albert Einstein

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
— Oscar Wilde (Lady Windermere’s Fan)

“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
— Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
— Jim Henson

via en.wikiquote.org

The Great Spirit does not toil within the bounds of human time, place, or casualty.
The Great Spirit is superior to these human questionings. It teems with many rich and wandering drives which to our shallow minds seem contradictory; but in the essence of divinity they fraternize and struggle together, faithful comrades-in-arms.
The primordial Spirit branches out, overflows, struggles, fails, succeeds, trains itself. It is the Rose of the Winds.
~ Nikos Kazantzakis ~

What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Teachers are those who use themselves as bridges, over which they invite their students to cross; then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis (born 18 February 1883)

At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don’t need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens — that letting go — you let go because you can. ~Toni Morrison (born 18 February 1931)

The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

My prayer is not the whimpering of a beggar nor a confession of love. Nor is it the petty reckoning of a small tradesman: Give me and I shall give you. My prayer is the report of a soldier to his general: This is what I did today, this is how I fought to save the entire battle in my own sector, these are the obstacles I encountered, this is how I plan to fight tomorrow. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

The heart unites whatever the mind separates, pushes on beyond the arena of necessity and transmutes the struggle into love. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

Where are we going? Do not ask! Ascend, descend. There is no beginning and no end. Only this present moment exists, full of bitterness, full of sweetness, and I rejoice in it all. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

I am a mariner of Odysseus with heart of fire but with mind ruthless and clear.

My entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry.

I said to the almond tree: “Speak to me of God”
and the almond tree blossomed.
~ Nikos Kazantzakis

Do not let your peace depend on the hearts of others; whatever they say about you, good or bad, you are not because of it another, for as you are, you are.
– THOMAS A KEMPIS

via apod.nasa.gov

‎”I am in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.”
— Louise L. Hay

‎”Love yourself as much as you can and all of life will mirror this love back to you.”
- Louise L. Hay

“Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.”
- Eckhart Tolle

The law of nature is that one can never unknow what one knows. So all of us are getting wiser and wiser. There’s no stopping it!

Change is inevitable. And it’s up to us to make it a good change.
- Yoko Ono

☮Peace will be victorious. — Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995)

‎”Ambition is bondage.”
–Ibn Gabirol

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.
♥ Buddha

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.
♥ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.
♥ Buddha

The BIG question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty YES to your adventure!
♥ Joseph Campbell

You cannot travel on the path until you become the path itself.
♥ Buddha

“The seemingly impossible is possible. We can have a good world.”
~ Hans Rosling

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.
♥ Horace

“It’s not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing it.”
— Terry Pratchett

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
— Henry David Thoreau

“The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now
mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)

“However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?”
— Siddhārtha Gautama

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”
— Albert Einstein

“Love doesn’t just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin (The Lathe of Heaven)

(I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.)”
— Pablo Neruda

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious – the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
— Albert Einstein

“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC”
— Kurt Vonnegut

“By virtue of being human, each of us has the capacity to choose, to change, to grow.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

“This is the central principle of meditation: we become what we meditate on.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

I claim to be an average man of less than average ability. . . . I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.
– MAHATMA GANDHI

Our body needs peace of mind and is not suited to agitation. This shows that an appreciation for peace of mind is in our blood.
- Dalai Lama

I understand Being in all and over all, as there is nothing without participation in Being, and there is no being without Essence. Thus nothing can be free of the Divine Presence.
~ Giordano Bruno ~

Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat him as he could be, and he will become what he should be. ~ Anonymous

There is one simple Divinity found in all things, everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings. Without her presence nothing would have being, because she is the essence of the existence of the first unto the last being. ~ Giordano Bruno (died 17 February 1600)

Even to have come forth is something, since I see that being able to conquer is placed in the hands of fate. However, there was in me, whatever I was able to do, that which no future century will deny to be mine, that which a victor could have for his own: Not to have feared to die, not to have yielded to any equal in firmness of nature, and to have preferred a courageous death to a noncombatant life. ~ Giordano Bruno (executed 17 February 1600)

A voiceless song in an ageless light
Sings at the coming dawn
Birds in flight are calling there
Where the heart moves the stones
It’s there that my heart is calling
All for the love of you.
~ Loreena McKennitt ~

All things are in the Universe, and the universe is in all things: we in it, and it in us; in this way everything concurs in a perfect unity. ~ Giordano Bruno

The Divine Light is always in man, presenting itself to the senses and to the comprehension, but man rejects it. ~ Giordano Bruno

Writing…is an art; and artists…are human beings. As a human being stands, so a human being is…

Poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality….poetry is being, not doing….if poetry is your goal, you’ve got to forget all about punishments and all about rewards and all about selfstyled obligations and duties and responsibilities . . .

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel …
the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time —and whenever we do it, we are not poets.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. ~ e. e. cummings

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. ~ Henry Adams (born 16 February 1838)

The counsels of impatience and hatred can always be supported by the crudest and cheapest symbols; for the counsels of moderation, the reasons are often intricate, rather than emotional, and difficult to explain. And so the chauvinists of all times and places go their appointed way: plucking the easy fruits, reaping the little triumphs of the day at the expense of someone else tomorrow, deluging in noise and filth anyone who gets in their way, dancing their reckless dance on the prospects for human progress, drawing the shadow of a great doubt over the validity of democratic institutions. And until people learn to spot the fanning of mass emotions and the sowing of bitterness, suspicion, and intolerance as crimes in themselves — as perhaps the greatest disservice that can be done to the cause of popular government — this sort of thing will continue to occur. ~George F. Kennan

Public opinion, or what passes for public opinion, is not invariably a moderating force in the jungle of politics. It may be true, and I suspect it is, that the mass of people everywhere are normally peace-loving and would accept many restraints and sacrifices in preference to the monstrous calamities of war. But I also suspect that what purports to be public opinion in most countries that consider themselves to have popular government is often not really the consensus of the feelings of the mass of the people at all, but rather the expression of the interests of special highly vocal minorities — politicians, commentators, and publicity-seekers of all sorts: people who live by their ability to draw attention to themselves and die, like fish out of water, if they are compelled to remain silent. ~ George F. Kennan

All experience is an arch, to build upon. ~ Henry Brooks Adams

What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn. ~ Henry Adams

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education. ~ Henry Adams

To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.
–Walter Benjamin

I’m sick of following my dreams. I’m just going to ask them where they’re going and hook up with them later.
- Mitch Hedberg

When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.
- William Wrigley Jr.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.
- George Bernard Shaw

‎”The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.”
- Benjamin Disraeli

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.”
—
Siddhārtha Gautama

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
- Swami Vivekananda

Love is invisible except here, in us.
Sometimes I praise love,
sometimes love praises me.
Love, a little shell somewhere
on the ocean floor,
open its mouth.
You and I and we, those imaginary beings,
enter that shell as a single sip of seawater.
- Rumi

“Be Yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”
- Oscar Wilde

“The actions of men are the best interpreters of thoughts.”
–Zig Ziglar

Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.
♥ Albert Einstein

☮Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
- Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

Friends and enemies do not exist as such; friendship and enmity depend on many factors, of which the primary one is our own mental attitude.

Whoever wants to tell a variety of stories ought to have a variety of beginnings.
–Marie de France

“We all need joy, and we can all receive joy in only one way, by adding to the joy of others.”EKNATH EASWARAN(1910–1999)

As Plato sometimes speaks of the divine love, it arises not out of indigency, as created love does, but out of fullness and redundancy.
– JOHN SMITH THE PLATONIST

“The widest possibilities for spiritual growth lie in the give-and-take of everyday relationships.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

“This is the central principle of meditation: we become what we meditate on.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

“The capacity to be patient, to bear with others through thick and thin, is within the reach of anyone”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just. ~ Blaise Pascal

via nasa.gov

via nasa.gov

via nasa.gov

via nasa.gov

via apod.nasa.gov

“The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can’t be organized or regulated. It isn’t true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.”
—
Ram Dass

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
– WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

“By virtue of being human, each of us has the capacity to choose, to change, to grow.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

If God gave the soul his whole creation she would not be filled thereby but only with himself.
– MEISTER ECKHART

“Nothing can be more important than being able to choose the way we think.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

‎”Your progress depends upon your degree of sustained intensity in a given direction.”
- Roger McDonald

‎”This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening, because everything happens within you.”
— Paulo Coelho

look at water and fire
earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once
- Rumi

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, and engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
—
John Keating (Dead Poets Society)

The house of my heart is empty,
devoid of desire, like paradise.
Within it is no work but the LOVE OF GOD,
no inhabitant but the image of union with Him.
I have swept the house clear of good and bad -
my house is full of love for the One…
- Rumi

The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined.

Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell – keeping perfect time for eight minutes and twenty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping a year.

The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases.

The wilful filing off of gear teeth, the wilful doing without certain obvious pieces of information.

Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut

“Fuck every cause that ends in murder and children crying.”
– Iain M. Banks

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
♥ Martin Luther King Jr.

Fear breeds fear. Hate breeds hate. And Love breeds love.
- Yoko Ono

A given situation can be viewed as either unbearable or beneficial: it depends how we look at it. We must make certain that things don’t begin to seem unbearable. If we look too closely at problems we will see nothing else and they will appear all out of proportion with reality; that is when they become intolerable. If we can stand back from them, we will be better able to judge them and they will seem less serious.
- Dalai Lama

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.
- Paul Valery

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
- Ronald Reagan

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

Special-interest publications should realize that if they are attracting enough advertising and readers to make a profit, the interest is not so special.
- Fran Lebowitz

Now I know what a statesman is; he’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen.
- Bob Edwards

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
- Robert Heinlein

God wasn’t too bad a novelist except he was a Realist.
- John Barth

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us ~ Bill Watterson

Never give in and never give up.
- Hubert H. Humphrey

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.”
- T.S. Eliot

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made.”
- Robert Browning

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
- Samuel Johnson

You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.
- Warren Beatty

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
- Gustave Flaubert

The only things in my life that compatibly exist with this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit.

No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied — it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.
- Ansel Adams (Born February 20, 1902)

“I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.”
- Kurt Kobain (Born February 20, 1967)

via en.wikiquote.org

The truth comes as conqueror only because we have lost the art of receiving it as guest.

Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance.

Let this be my last word, that I trust in thy love.

God, the Great Giver, can open the whole universe to our gaze in the narrow space of a single land.

My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.

In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play, and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.

Love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us. It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at the root of all creation.

When we define a man by the market value of the service we can expect of him, we know him imperfectly.

Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity.

The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.

Joy is the realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.

The infinite being has assumed unto himself the mystery of finitude. And in him who is love the finite and the infinite are made one.

Your idol is shattered in the dust to prove that God’s dust is greater than your idol.

The wise man warns me that life is but a dewdrop on the lotus leaf.

In the world’s audience hall, the simple blade of grass sits on the same carpet with the sunbeams, and the stars of midnight.

Wishing to hearten a timid lamp
great night lights all her stars.

God seeks comrades and claims love,
the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.

Life’s errors cry for the merciful beauty
that can modulate their isolation
into a harmony with the whole.

Color may, by combination with lines, create great pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value.
- Rabindranath Tagore

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/gPn87l

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage – Disk 3 (Carl Sagan)

Episode 4: “Heaven and Hell”
Episode 5: “Blues for a Red Planet”

If you like this series, buy it!
- http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Carl-Sagan-DVD-Set/dp/B000055ZOB
- http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/4774/cosmos-carl-sagan/

1st collector for Cosmos: A Personal Voyage – Disk 3 (Carl Sagan)
Follow my videos on vodpod

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage – Disk 2 (Carl Sagan)

Episode 2: “One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue”
Episode 3: “The Harmony of the Worlds”

If you like this series, buy it!
- http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Carl-Sagan-DVD-Set/dp/B000055ZOB
- http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/4774/cosmos-carl-sagan/

1st collector for Cosmos: A Personal Voyage – Disk 2 (Carl Sagan)
Follow my videos on vodpod

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage – Disk 1 (Carl Sagan)

Episode 1: “The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean”

If you like this series, buy it!
- http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Carl-Sagan-DVD-Set/dp/B000055ZOB
- http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/4774/cosmos-carl-sagan/

1st collector for Cosmos: A Personal Voyage – Disk 1 (Carl Sagan)
Follow my videos on vodpod

Silence of the Press: US media turns blind eye to RT crew arrest

An RT crew was locked up in a U.S. jail for 32 hours after filming a protest against a controversial military training facility in Georgia dubbed the School of Assassins.

Silence of the Press: US media turns blind eye …
Follow my videos on vodpod

Wikileaks revelations emerge

Some 250,000 confidential diplomatic cable sent by US officials have been released to newspapers by the Wikileaks website.

.

1st collector for Wikileaks revelations emerge
Follow my videos on vodpod

The First Lady Receives the White House Christmas Tree

The First Lady is presented with the Official White House Christmas Tree.

1st collector for The First Lady Receives the White House Christm…
Follow my videos on vodpod