MotherShip by Sam Wise ___ PLEASE REFRESH PAGE FOR WEB FONTS

Sunday 3 March 2013

Monstaville Book I. Chapter 7


7

“Love is triumphant in attack and invulnerable in defence.”
- Laozi (Daodejing 67).

“Love vanquishes all attackers.
It is impregnable in defence.
When Heaven wants to protect someone
does it send an army?
No, it protects him with love.”
- Jonathan Star’s translation (Daodejing 67).

Serge Kahili King, Hawaiian Shaman and Huna philosopher, on love:

…many times there must be understanding before there is acceptance. The unknown has to become known before the fear it causes can be overcome. Very often where there is a lack of love, it is because fear is present. Fear is the father of hate, which is rejection and selfishness, the opposite of love. And ignorance can be said to be the father of fear. Where ignorance is replaced by understanding, fear is dissipated and love can enter.
                But love will enter only if it is invited. It is an active thing, and does not exist unless there is action on the part of the one who loves. I mentioned acceptance, but I'm not talking about a passive acceptance which is no more than indifference. I mean the kind of acceptance that opens the door and extends an invitation to come in. And when the guest is inside, the other aspect of love comes into play - giving. Not the giving of things, but the giving of self, with no strings attached. Love is best done for the sake of loving and not for the sake of getting something in return, nor even just to please someone. For these kinds of love are false and empty.
                There is a great secret to loving others and being loved in return. It is to love yourself first. Unless there is already water in the tap, nothing will come out when you try to turn it on. Unless you have learned to accept and give to yourself, you will have great difficulty in doing the same for anyone else. Accepting yourself means acknowledging all your good and bad qualities and realising this is the material you have to work with, then making the decision to go ahead and work with it. The love type of giving is not indulgence, but care, attention, and the effort to polish what is good and improve what is bad. To love yourself also means to accept the fact that you are worthy of love. Many people have the idea that they are unworthy of love, because of things they have done or the way they have been treated. This is absolutely wrong! As it has been so beautifully stated, "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here." You are worthy of love simply because of the fact that you exist. Nothing you have done, nothing you have thought, nothing anyone has told you can alter that fact.

As the ancient Hawaiians also said so beautifully:

He punawai kahe wale ke aloha (Love is a spring that flows freely) - meaning that love is boundless and is available to everyone.

“When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable.” - Thich Nhat Hanh.

“How could we learn fortitude if we were not subject to suffering? How could we learn courage if we did not know fear? How could we learn trust in God, if we have not discovered that all finite and earthly things can let us down?” - Raynor C. Johnson (Light of All Life, p.64).

"Courage is the greatest virtue, for it allows all others." – Socrates.

“Relax; in courage there is peace.” (Alice Mortley in The Shining Brother. Recording the spirit return of St. Francis of Assisi and its sequel Francis Speaks Again by Laurence Temple, Psychic Press, London, U.K., 1941, p.108).

(A female friend) said I should move. If not, I must have courage. I must overcome fear, convince myself there is no reason to live in fear, no reason to be scared. Otherwise, the quality of my life will be dreadful.

The most important thing is not to feel any fear. Do not feel fear. Love can help overcome fear. Fear is what a bully seeks to invoke and perpetuate. Fear is what gives him his sense of power. Feel no fear. Show that you are not afraid. You might be nervous or scared on the surface, but he can’t reach the inner you, so you cannot be a victim. You will always survive any intimidation and the he has to live with the fact that you too are a free individual and can do as you please. And there are options open to you.

“Domination often shows itself as weakness. The dominating person can be a bully, but is much more often the victim. When a bully finds a victim, the victim, we would suggest, is the one in control. Consider this: In a relationship between a bully and a victim, when the bully stops being a bully, the victim can still be a victim. However, when the victim stops, the bully must stop, too. Bullies need victims. Victims do not ‘need’ anyone.” - Lazaris (channelled through Jach Pursel, The Sacred Journey. You and your Higher Self, NPN Publishing Inc., Florida, U.S., 1987, p.53).

My boss (who is from Pakistan but of the good-natured sort) said I worry too much. He says it to me often! He said that when I saw the pig monster outside I should have gone out and said, ‘Hello, how are you?’ I said I’m a nervous person. Then, I read in FHM men’s magazine, a copy left behind by a passenger, Anna Friel saying she doesn’t like macho men who are always trying to prove themselves by competing and imposing themselves aggressively on others. She prefers confident men.

Colonel Binns (Morgan Woodward): Well, a man who fights like ten tigers must have had a lot of training.
Caine (David Carradine): I was taught a good soldier is not violent, a fighter is not angry, a victor is not vengeful.
                - Kung Fu (Season 1, Episode 8, ‘Sun and Cloud Shadow,’ 1973).

The viper attacks everyone in sight. It is a pest. It is a dangerous snake but it only bites, can only cause temporary damage. Do not receive poison that does not exist, and the viper cannot really harm you. It cannot penetrate to your core. ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ Nietzsche wisely pointed out. (“What does not destroy me, makes me stronger”).

The cobra is still, posed and confident. Centred, mature and powerful. It does not react but stays true to its heart, it needs and purpose. It is not restless. It contains its power. The viper is jealous and seeks to agitate, disturb and shake up, to destroy one’s power and cause chaos so that it can feel powerful. It feels inferior and insecure. That is why it attacks. The cobra is silent and conceals itself - camouflaging itself to resemble ‘part of the furniture,’ or the environment in which it finds itself. It remains undeterred and pursues its goal with determination, staying out of danger and making a slow but sure and steady path to its destination. It does not worry about anything and accepts no obstacles. It bides its time, pregnant with (natural, inborn) power which it uses not for petty and irrelevant fears and conflicts but for its ultimate victory; its own fulfilment - sustenance, both physical (food) and spiritual (the power of Being).

“The ways are two: love and lack of love - that is all.” - Mencius.

“Start the Day with Love;
Spend the Day with Love;
Fill the Day with Love;
End the Day with Love;
This is the way to God.”
- Sathya Sai Baba.

“The quickest and most direct way to God is to fill the day with love.” - Sai Baba.


Retrospective inserts.

Blessed are the ignorant: A darshan diary by Osho (Chapter 16, ‘If you Know how to Receive the Answer then just Being Close to me the Question Disappears,’ 21 December 1976, Chuang Tzu Auditorium, Rajneesh Foundation, Pune, India, 1978).

Ordinarily what people think is strength is nothing but ego - and real strength is not ego. The strength that comes through ego is not real strength either...it is just a facade. You hide all your weaknesses inside and you paint your outside. You write on it in large letters, 'VERY STRONG.' You create an armour around you.

                This is what has been done down through the centuries, and people's souls have been killed. The armour is of course, of steel, and if somebody clashes with you he will feel that you are strong because you have an armour. But deep behind the armour, you are very, very weak. Only a weak person needs an armour.

                To me, strength means a personality without any armour - and that is a totally different concept of strength. That is real strength - no armour.

                So to me, strength and vulnerability are not two different things - they are one. A really strong person is vulnerable. A really strong person is very receptive, very fragile, very liquid. He is more like water than like rock.

                That is what Lao Tzu says, real strength should be like water - soft, feminine...not like rock. From the outer, the rock seems to be very strong and the water seems to be very weak, but one day you will find that the water is still there - the rock is gone. The rock has become sand - the water has broken it into millions of pieces.

                This is the Lao Tzu-ean concept of strength - and that's what I teach.

                To me Lao Tzu remains the greatest world teacher who has ever really penetrated the very innermost core of human beings.

                Be soft and that will bring you strength. Be feminine and that will bring you strength. Be surrendering and that will bring you strength. It is paradoxical.
                The West creates strong people like Adolf Hitler - very strong as far as their armature is concerned, as far as their armour is concerned - but deep down absolutely non-substantial...nothing is there! Strong, because they don't cry...But I would like you to be strong and to be able to cry. I would like you to be strong and yet able to bend, able to bow down, able to love, able to be defeated - because otherwise you will not be able to love.
                The western psychology still persists with the idea of a strong ego. It has not yet known the strength of egolessness.

“Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness to pull another hand into the light.” – Norman B. Rice.

“It is alright to be afraid but you don’t have to be afraid of being afraid. That’s usually what stops you. It’s alright to be afraid. Let yourself dive into the fear, process it and then you will know, through your feelings, through your emotionality, what it is about yourself that you have been taught to separate, to segregate, and what you can bring back and absorb and integrate within you. More often than not, you do not allow yourselves to feel, or to be in touch with feelings that would help you integrate yourself because you are afraid of being afraid. You remove yourself two steps beyond the original feeling. It is alright to be afraid. You can be afraid and you can still do anything you want even if you’re afraid. Being afraid does not stop you from doing what you want. Being afraid stops you. Understand the difference. Just being afraid about something directly does not ever stop you from doing what you want.” – Bashar (channelled through Darryl Anka,
www.bashar.org).

“Be willing to be in the presence of fear. Allow fear a place in your comfort zone.” - Betty Perkins (Lion Taming. The courage to deal with difficult people including yourself, Tzedakah Publications, CA., U.S., 1995, p.53).

"Your most profound and intimate experiences of worship will likely be in your darkest days - when your heart is broken, when you feel abandoned, when you’re out of options, when the pain is great - and you turn to God alone." - Rick Warren.

“I know it seems hard sometimes but remember one thing. Through every dark night, there’s a bright day after that. So no matter how hard it get, stick your chest out, keep ya head up...and handle it.” - Tupac Shakur.

“Let your smile change the world, but don't let the world change your smile.” - Unknown.

“It’s been a rough day. I got up this morning, put on a shirt and a button fell off. I picked up my briefcase and the handle came off. I’m afraid to go to the bathroom.” – Rodney Dangerfield.

Visual scene from ‘Steamboat Bill Jr.’ starring Buster Keaton.  To dispel some myths:  this was done in one take and it IS Buster Keaton standing there when the facade falls down through him.  No… it is not a figment of ‘movie magic. In fact, many stage hands after measuring and calculating where Mr. Keaton should stand, actually left the lot, as that they were afraid that their measurements might be off.  The window opening brushed Keaton with 2 inches to spare on both sides.  Gutsy move, if I do say so myself.

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