Wisdom and Spirit
Art & the like
Love, Passion & Compassion
Waging Peace
Politics as Usual
Environmentics
Odds, Ends and Beginnings
(note: I found all these floating around cyber space, so am not certain of their validity.)
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Wisdom and Spirit
"The greatest wisdom is to realize one's lack of it."
Constantin Stanislavski
Without Wisdom, Knowledge is either useless or destructive.
Traditional
"Words of Wisdom should be ways of Wisdom."
Arrested Development
"Truth lies within ourselves: it takes no rise from outward things,
whate'er you may believe. There is an inmost center in us all, where truth
abides in fullness and to Know rather consists in opening out a way whence
the imprisoned splendor may escape than in effecting entry for light
supposed to be without."
Robert Browning
"All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards
the rest."
Paul Simon
It blows my mind that we have minds to blow.
"Minds are like books. They don't work unless they're open."
Bumper Sticker
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in
your philosophies."
William Shakespeare
"Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of
any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of
existence."
Robert Anton Wilson
"Everything you know is wrong."
The Firesign Theatre (and a few quantum physicists too)
"Nothing is Real."
John Lennon (or maybe it was Einstein)
"Reality is a Rorschach ink-blot."
Alan Watts
"First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is."
Zen Aphorism
They live happiest who have forgiven most.
Traditional
"The question to everyone's answer is usually asked from within."
Steve Miller
Everything in the Universe is connected to everything else in the Universe.
Everything, Everywhere, Everywhen, all right Here and Now.
What makes the Universe so hard to comprehend is that there is nothing to
compare it with.
Be Here Now.
Traditional
There is nothing to be Conscious of but Consciousness itself.
"God Dwells within you as You."
Paramahamsa Muktananda
"Life flows on within you and without you."
George Harrison
"Tis an ill wind that blows no minds."
Malcalypse the Younger, Principia Discordia
"1. Thou shalt not alter the consciousness of the neighbor without his or
her consent.
2. Thou shalt not prevent thy neighbor from altering his or her own
consciousness."
Dr. Timothy Leary
"If a pickpocket meets a holy man, he will see only his pockets."
Hindu Traditional
"I've found that the chief difficulty for most people was to realize that
they had really heard new things: that is things that they had never heard
before. They kept translating what they heard into their habitual language.
They had ceased to hope and believe there might be anything new."
Ouspensky
"By letting it go it all gets done The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try The world is beyond the winning."
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Stephen Mitchell
The shortest path between any two points is an altered state of
consciousness.
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
John Lennon (?)
"So you think you can tell heaven from hell
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail,
a smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts
hot ashes for trees, hot air for a cool breeze, cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange a walk on part in a war for a lead role in a cage?"
R. Waters/D. Gilmor
If you don't look where you are, you won't know where you're going or where
you've been.
"The fly that touches honey cannot use it's wings; so too the soul that
clings to spiritual sweetness ruins it's freedom and hinders
contemplation."
Aurobindo
"Dislodging a green nut from it's shell is almost impossible, but let it
dry and the lightest tap will do it."
Ramakrishna
Say what you mean. Mean what you say.
Traditional
"Whoa, I'm tellin' you now, the greatest thing you ever can do now, is
trade a smile with someone who's blue now."
J. Page/R. Plant
"Perform Random acts of kindness and senseless beauty."
Bumper Sticker
Live and Let Live.
Traditional
"Loose end tend too often to unravel."
Delbert McClinton
"It ain't what you eat, but the way how you chew it."
Delbert McClinton
"Evil is always possible. Goodness is a difficulty."
Anne Rice
"Hatred isn't something you're born with. It's something you learn."
Mississippi Burning
"Desire is the creator. Desire is the destroyer."
Hari Dass Baba
"Come out of the Garden baby. You'll catch your death in the fog."
David Bowie
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt,
and where thieves do not break through nor steal; for where your treasure
is, there will your heart be also."
Jesus Christ
"You never see what you want to see, forever playing to the gallery."
R. Davies/R. Hodgson
"If there is a God, man's immortality is certain. If not, Immortality would
not be worth having."
E.S. Brightman
"The devil can cite scripture for his purpose."
William Shakespeare
"If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to
work."
William Shakespeare
Call in Well
Life is a picnic, but sometimes you have to pick up the blanket and use it
as a tent.
Do people think of each other at the same time?
"No matter how close to yours another's steps have grown, in the end there
is one dance you'll do alone."
Jackson Browne
Recreation. Re-creation.
"Regret for the past is a waste of Spirit."
The Big Book
"When we come into the present, we begin to feel the life around us again,
but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding. We must have the
courage to face whatever is present - our pain, our desires, our grief, our
loss, our secret hopes our love - everything that moves us most deeply."
Jack Kornfield
Acceptance and celebration of our diversity is our future or we have none.
Never trust anyone who never trusts anyone.
"The more internal freedom you acheive, the more you want: it is more fun
to be happy than sad, more enjoyable to choose your own emotions than to
have them inflicted on you by mechanical glandular processes, more
pleasureable to solve your problems than to be stuck with them forever."
Robert Anton Wilson
"No one is more interesting to anybody than is that mysterious character we
all call "me," which is why self-liberation, self-actualization,
self-transcendence, etc., are the most exciting games in town."
Robert Anton Wilson
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of body and
mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
Thomas Jefferson
"If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high
you'd laugh and say 'nothing's that simple,
but you've been told many times before
messiahs point you to the door
though no one's got the guts to leave the temple."
Pete Townsend
The following was found on an inside wall of the box office of the Seattle
Group Theatre. It said upon it that it had been found on a refrigerator
door:
Rules For Being Human
1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it , but it will be
yours for the entire period this time Around.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time school called
life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn
lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and
error, experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a partof the
process as the experiment that ultimately "works."
4. A lesson is repeated until it is learned. A lesson will be presented to
you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it,
you can then go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not
contain it's lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
6. "There" is no better than "here." When your "there has become a "here,"
you will simply obtain another "there" that will, again, look better than
"here."
7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something
about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate
about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and
resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is
yours.
9. Your answers lie inside you. The answers to life's questions lie inside
you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.
10. You will forget all this.
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Art & the like
"I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate
way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is
to be a human being."
Thornton Wilder
"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through
you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression
is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other
medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to
determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is
your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel
open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to
keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the
channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at
any time. There is on a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest
that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."
Martha Graham
"The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit,
that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious
creation."
Constantin Stanislavski
"Our demands are simple, normal, and therefore they are difficult to
satisfy. All we ask is that an actor on the stage live in accordance with
natural laws"
Constantin Stanislavski
"Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something
that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you."
Constantin Stanislavski
"Let me say something about ethics in the theatre. [One] reason for the
collapse of well-intentioned venture after venture is sloth and egomania.
We must accept the fact that the theatre is a communal adventure. Unlike
the soloist we can't perform alone in the theatre... The better the play,
the more we need an ensemble venture. We must recognize that we need each
other's strengths, and the more we need each other's professional
comradship, the better the chance we have of making theatre. We must serve
the play by serving each other, an ego-maniacal "star" attitude is only
self-serving and hurts everyone... We must aim for "character" in the moral
and ethical sense of the word, compounded of the virtues of mutual respect,
courtesy, kindness, generosity, trust, attention to the others,
seriousness, loyalty, as well as those necessary attributes of diligence
and dedication."
Uta Hagen
"Intimate or drastic elements in the work of others are untouchable and
should not be commented upon even in their absence. Private conflicts,
quarrels, sentiments, animosities are unavoidable in any human group. It is
our duty towards creation to keep these in check in so far as they might
deform and wreck the work process."
Jerzy Grotowski
"Acting provides the fulfillment of never being fulfilled. You're never as
good as you'd like to be. So there's always something to hope for."
Glenda Jackson
"One musn't allow acting to be like stockbroking - you must not take it
just as a means of earning a living, to go down every day to do a job of
work. The big thing is to combine punctuality, efficiency, good nature,
obedience, intelligence, and concentration with an unawareness of what is
going to happen next, thus keeping yourself available for excitement."
John Gielgud
"Love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art."
Constantin Stanislavski
"To paint bamboo: spend ten years observing bamboos, become a bamboo
yourself, then forget everything and-paint"
Zen Aphorism
"We have as many planes of speech [as does a painting planes of
perspective] which create perspective in a phrase. The most important word
stands out most vividly defined in the very foreground of the sound plane.
Less important words create a series of deeper planes."
Constantin Stanislavski
"The direct effect on our mind is achieved by the words, the text, the
thought, which arouse consideration. Our will is directly affected by the
super-objective, by other objectives, by a through line of action. Our
feelings are directly worked upon by tempo-rhythm."
Constantin Stanislavski
"We are aware that the conductor is not really making the music, it is
making him - if he is relaxed, open and attuned, then the invisible will
take possession of him; through him, it will reach us."
Peter Brook
"Many audiences all over the world will answer positively from their own
experience that they have seen the face of the invisible through an
experience on the stage that transended their experience in life. They will
maintain that Oedipus or Berenice or Hamlet or The Three Sisters performed
with beauty and with love fires the spirit and gives them a reminder that
daily drabness is not necessarily all."
Peter Brook
"Stage charm guarantees in advance an actor's hold on the audience, it
helps him to carry over to large numbers of people his creative purposes.
It enhances his roles and his art. Yet it is of utmost importance that he
use this precious gift with prudence, wisdom, and modesty. It is a great
shame when he does not realize this and goes on to exploit, to play on his
ability to charm."
Constantin Stanislavski
"In spite of my great admiration for individual splendid talents I do not
accept the star system. Collective creative effort is the root of our kind
of art. That requires ensemble acting and whoever mars that ensemble is
committing a crime not only against his comrades but also against the very
art of which he is the servant."
Constantin Stanislavski
"Unless the theatre can enoble you, make you a better person, you should
flee from it."
Constantin Stanislavski
"Success is transient, evanescent. The real passion lies in the poignant
acquisition of knowledge about all the shading and subtleties of the
creative secrets."
Constantin Stanislavski
"Remember this practical peice of advice: Never come into the theatre with
mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little
worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing - all the
things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art - at
the door."
Constantin Stanislavski
"The actor searches vainly for the sound of a vanished tradition, and
critic and audience follow suit. We have lost all sense of ritual and
ceremony - whether it be connected with Christmas, birthdays or funerals -
but the words remain with us and old impulses stir in the marrow. We feel
we should have rituals, we should do 'something' about getting them and we
blame the artists for not 'finding' them for us. So the artist sometimes
attempts to find new rituals with only his imagination as his source: he
imitates the outer form of cermonies, pagan or baroque, unfortunately
adding his own trapping - the result is rarely convincing. And after the
years and years of weaker and waterier imitations we now find ourselves
rejecting the very notion of a holy stage. It is not the fault of the holy
that it has become a middle-class weapon to keep the children good."
Peter Brook
"A true priest is aware of the presence of the altar during every moment
that he is conducting a service. It is exactly the same way that a true
artist should react to the stage all the time he is in the theatre. An
actor who is incapable of this feeling will never be a true artist."
Constantin Stanislavski
Bad critics judge a work of art by comparing it to pre-existing theories.
They always go wrong when confronted with a masterpiece, because
masterpieces make their own rules.
Source Unknown
I have long believed that one of the many things that this society is
suffering from is the failure to make use of an arena where a community can
gather together with a shaman (or several) to be lead through a cathartic
experience in which to process, in a safe and healthy way, emotions which
are otherwise kept within, where they fester and are then released as
violence, selfishness and oppression. To me this is the service that actors
and actresses who realize the true power and potential of their craft
provide. That of the healing shaman. Together with the help of each member
of a production staff and the emotional participation of a willing
audience, a cast and director can use their talent and gifts for healing.
Whether an audience and cast of players are conscious of this process or
not, it happens daily in theatres, and many other forums the world over.
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Love, Passion & Compassion
"Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you
because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the
market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even
to feel that you are giving something- and it is only such love that can
know freedom."
J. Krishnamurti
"She opened up a book of poems and handed it to me
written by an Italian poet from the 13th century
and every one of them words rang true and glowed like burnin' coal
pourin' off of every page like it was written in my soul
from me to you..."
Bob Dylan
"They shall gather my children into their fold; they shall bring the glory
of the stars into the hearts of men. And the sign shall be my ecstasy, The
Consciousness of the continuity of existence, the omnipresence of my
body... For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of Union."
Nuit - Egyptian divinity of the stars
"No more turning away
from the weak and the weary.
No more turning away from the coldness inside.
Just a world that we all must share.
It's not enought just to stand and stare.
Is it only a dream that there'll be no more turning away?"
David Gilmour
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Waging Peace
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not
spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of it's laborers, the genius
of it's scientists, the hopes of it's children."
Dwight David Eisenhower
Peace begins within.
Traditional
"Convince an enemy, convince him that he's wrong. To win a bloodless
battle, the victory is long. A simple act of faith, reason over might. To
blow up his children would only prove him right."
Gordon Sumner (Sting)
"It will be a beautiful day when the schools have all they need and the Air
Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."
Bumper Sticker
There is no way to Peace. Peace is the Way.
Traditional
"The pioneers of a warless world are the young men and women who refuse
military service."
Albert Einstein
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. "
Albert Einstein
"We're beating plowshares into swords for this tired old man that we
elected king."
Don Henley - 1989
"The world is ruled by butterflies adding to their weapon piles. Imagine
what your taxes buy. We hardly ever try."
Gordon Sumner
Operation "Just Cuz." Operation "Desert Shame." Operation "Redefine Hope."
There is no us and them. We're all in this together.
"To get Peace you must work for Justice."
John Paul VI
"You can't teach a hunter it's wrong to kill."
Hari Dass Baba
"No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective
judgements are wrong. Only racists make them."
Elie Wiesel
Holocost Suvivor, Nobel Laureate
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Politics as Usual
"Children don't vote,children don't contribute to [politicians], children
don't get involved in campaigns, so children will go hungry. "
- Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), arguing against a welfare reform
provision that would allow states to take control of the federal food
stamps program.
"Security in human systems we're told will always, always last. Emotions
are the sail, and blind faith is the mast. Without the breath of real
freedom we're getting nowhere fast."
Gordon Sumner
"When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's
subjects, 'this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are
forbidden to know' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how
holy the motive."
Robert Heinlein
CO-INTEL-PRO (Counter intelligence Program) - An F.B.I. and C.I.A. project
which involved in filtrating Civil Rights groups, Peace groups, New Left
groups and other dissident organizations, in a deliberate attempt to incite
violence, destroy the reputations of those opposing the establishment, and
spread paranoia against dissidents.
"Instead of talking about how he's got the troops and the strength to put
his foot on their necks, he should be talking about how he can use that
awesome power to insure that they have a better quality of life, that they
have a chance."
U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters
of South Central L.A. in response to George Bush's Riot response speech,
May 1992.
"The rope by which the great blocks of taxes are attached to any citizenry
is simple loyalty."
Stephen King
"A man with a briefcase can steal millions more than any man with a gun."
Don Henley
If you choose not to decide you have still made a decision.
"Sure you can trust the government, just ask a whale or an Indian."
Button
"Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom which makes the
emblem so revered."
Supreme Court Justice William Brennon
Save the Bill of Rights. Let the flag fend for itself.
U.S. out of Central America! U.S. out of the Middle East! U.S. out of Asia!
U.S. out of Europe! U.S. out of the Caribbean! U.S. out of my uterus! U.S.
out of my mind!
"If you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?"
Bumper Sticker
"Fight AIDS not people with AIDS."
Act up Slogan
The person who cannot wait five days to buy a gun is the very person who
should not be allowed to have a gun.
"The language of the Second Amendment shows the framers intended to secure
the right to bear arms essentially for military purposes and not to
guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she
desires."
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger
In 1992, handguns killed:
33 people in Great Britain.
36 in Sweden
97 in Switzerland
60 in Japan
13 in Australia
128 in Canada
And 13,220 in The United States.
Source - The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence
More Americans were killed by guns in their home country in the last two
years, than died in all 11 years of the Vietnam war.
"How long will they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?"
Bob Marley
Censorship is the true obscenity.
This is your brain. This is your brain misrepresented by special interest
groups.
Any Questions?
"It is in the interests of our society to promote those things that take
the edge off, keep us busy with our fixes, and keep us slightly numbed out
and zombie like. In this way our modern consumer society itself functions
as an addict."
Anne W. Schaef
Maintaining Traditional Values? Would that mean that the people who've
traditionally been oppressed will continue to be oppressed?
Hate is not a family value.
"I love my country but I fear my government."
Bumper Sticker
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of body and
mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
Thomas Jefferson
"The longest single research project with LSD in the U.S., at the Spring
Grove Hospital in Maryland, showed an average 10 percent intelligence
increase for all subjects."
Stafford, Psychedelics Encyclopedia
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Environmentics
We are fighting World War III right now. We are fighting it against the
environment and we are winning it hands down.
"We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on it's
vulnerable reserves of air and soil, all committed, for our safety, to it's
security and peace. Preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work
and the love we give our fragile craft."
Adlai Stevenson
"Better active now than radioactive later."
Bumper Sticker
We are a virus in the body of the earth. Global warming is the fever.
On June 20, 1990 Midnight oil did an outdoor gig in N.Y.C. across the
street from Exxon's world headquarters. One of their cover tunes was John
Lennon's Instant Karma.
Good Planets are hard to find.
"If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of
spirit, since whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man. All
things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the
earth."
Chief Seattle, 1855
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Odds, Ends & beginnings
Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most.
Traditional
I just want to be a non-conformist like everybody else.
You
There was a young lady named Bright
Whose speed was much faster than light
She departed one day
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night.
Traditional
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magick."
Arther C. Clarke
It's maintenance free. You can't fix it.
When my best friend was a dealer ... Umm ... What was I saying?
Bice. Plural form of Bus.
Life is too short because math works.
It's been a long day this week.
"When I drink milk it takes me to a place called grandma's mobile home."
A 4 yr. old in a Coffee Shop
Friends don't let friends wear neon.
"Curiouser and Curiouser."
Lewis Carrol
Leave no turn unstoned
Traditional
Mr. Cactus is a prick.
Theory: Experiences such as the one described in the song Swing Low Sweet
Chariot and U.F.O. abductions are the same experience interpreted
differently by different human nervous systems.
I agree with you one hundredth of a percent.
Unorthadoccentricities.
And sometimes you end up with what is commonly known as groovy on your
hands.
A Nicaraguan rebel's view of the world could be described as
contra-ception.
Jackson Browne: I gotta take either more of it or less of it. I can't quite
figure out which one.
David Lindley: Well, I'll tell you what it does take. It takes a clear mind
is what it takes.
Jackson Browne: You mean it takes a clear mind to take it or a clear mind
not to take it?
David Lindley: It takes a clear mind to make it.
"You watch the television because it tells you that you should."
R. Davies/R. Hodgson
Ya dig?
Sho nuff.
"Up and down the road in worn out shoes, talkin' 'bout good thangs and
singin' the blues."
D. Bramhall Sr./B. Logan
"Her name was Mcgill and she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as
Nancy."
Lennon/Mcartney
There's a special froth event in the pall of the spare dough.
"Danger Will Robinson ... My arms are flailing!"
An attempt at visualizing the Fourth Dimension: Take a point, stretch it
into a line, curl it into a circle, twist it into a sphere, and punch
through the sphere.
Albert Einstein
Technology has advanced more in the last thirty years than in the previous
two thousand. The exponential increase in advancement will only continue.
Anthropological Commentary
You can lead a horses ass to wisdom but you can't make him think.
"The opposite of a trivial truth is false; the opposite of a great truth is
also true."
Niels Bohr
"People will use and abuse drugs in many ways, desirable and otherwise. The
most intelligent will use them in the most intelligent ways, i.e., to
increase their own neurological feedom, to deprogram their irrational
programs, and generally to expand their consciousness and increase their
intelligence."
Robert Anton Wilson
"Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means."
William S. Burroughs
"Hedonic Engineering - The human nervous system studying and improving
itself: intelligence studying and improving intelligence. Why be depressed,
dumb, and agitated when you can be happy, smart, and tranquil?"
Robert Anton Wilson
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