Alan Watts-Music and Life

Mike

Alice and Reality

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?'

In this quote Lewis Carroll was hinting at the illusion of perceived reality and all its enticing trappings. It’s all too easy for one to drift through life in a five sense bubble, (sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell) thinking this is all there is, and believing one is the centre of all that exists. One needs to recoil from this premise and free one's self from the illusory nature of this blinkered, conditioned perception.

Imagine yourself sitting in a cinema, enjoying the latest blockbuster on the 50foot screen in front of you. One is engrossed in this movie and one feels an infinity with the car chases and the fight scenes. Sitting there in this darkened room of pass-time entertainment, one perceives the sequenced events on the movie screen, momentarily, as 'reality'. This is how individuals their lives, staring at the screen we call 'reality.' absorbed in the five senses, seeing it as all there is. Now, imagine for a moment in that cinema one loses interest in the movie, and starts to become move aware of surroundings; the seat one is sitting on, who is beside and behind you, how the air conditioning feel against one's skin. At once, one notices the light beaming through the room on to the screen and the dust particles dancing in the air through it's image giving path. One then follows the light, curious to know where it's source lies. To achieve this one follows the light to the rear of the room, inside a space unknown to the individual. This is what we need to do in life. Stop for a moment, and experience our surroundings, and get accustomed to them. Then we can follow that energy which causes our thoughts back to its source, here one finds the nature of reality, our pure mind. Once one has done this, one will quickly realize that we create our own reality and then project it outwardly, just like the cinema projector. Once we know this we can start dipping our toe more in the illuminated, beautiful emptiness of the mind, becoming the creator, rather than the follower of what we perceive to be real.

Mike

Who's For Soma Then?

"By this time the soma had begun to work. Eyes shone, cheeks were flushed, the inner light of universal benevolence broke out on every face in happy, friendly smiles. Even Bernard felt himself a little melted." (Aldus Huxley-Brave New World)

Just finished reading Huxley's 'Brave New World' and as would be expected, many ideas and emotions are flying round in my mind. This magnificent book has hit me like a jack hammer, jolting my perceptions with a 'We are doomed' cattle prod and reinforcing some existing opinions on the world.

Huxley's happiness drug 'Soma' which was referred to as having, "All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects," is something that resonated with me while reading.

The last few decades have seen the use of mood stabilizers and anti depressants as part of daily life in the West.

Doctors, at the beckon call of their pharmaceutical company paymasters, have been dishing out these tablets like there is no tomorrow, reinforcing the idea that internal problems can be solved externally.

I was doing a bit of searching on this topic on the net and found this article on 'The Rabbit Hole' blog.

'Scientists have been chasing after a fear-numbing pill in an effort to create the “Guilt-Free Soldier.”

Dutch scientists believe the heart drug propranolol can double as a deadener of painful memories in people with P.T.S.D. Just knowing such a pill is out there, of course, might also encourage soldiers to commit atrocities, because they will no longer have to live with the pain they have created'.

Link: http://parallelnormal.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/no-fear-factor-another-pill-dulls-the-pain/

Here is a Brief Communication Abstract from the conducted study.

[By Merel Kindt, Marieke Soeter & Bram Vervliet, Nature.com | Sunday, 15 February, 2009.]

Animal studies have shown that fear memories can change when recalled, a process referred to as reconsolidation.

We found that oral administration of the adrenergic receptor antagonist propranolol before memory reactivation in humans erased the behavioral expression of the fear memory 24 h later and prevented the return of fear. Disrupting the reconsolidation of fear memory opens up new avenues for providing a long-term cure for patients with emotional disorders.

Link: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v12/n3/abs/nn.2271.html

Thanks to 'The Rabbit Hole' for bring this story to my attention.

Pikey

Could The Leaders Of Sinn Fein Be Doing More?-Soothing Words Are Not Always Enough

With senior leader of Sinn Fein condemning the recent murders in Northern Ireland and the insistence that the Republican movement pass on any information regarding the same, people have heralded halcyon times in Republican openness.

Is this really the case, or are certain factors not being revealed?

The likelihood of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness knowing about the timing of these killings is very doubtful, but there is little doubt that the senior figures in Sinn Fein must know who the perpetrators are.

These murders where carried out in a professional, militaristic fashion, leaving little evidence or trace of identification, and is therefore unlikely to be the work of a fanatical teenager.

Those responsible fired at the victims from a distance and then finished them off from point blank range as they lay dying. This levelheadedness, in the face of such a crime points towards a more mature killer, perhaps one with many years experience.

Thus, with many members of the PIRA leaving after the ceasefire, disgusted by the democratic path taken by SinnFein, it is possible that these disaffected individuals were involved in the recent murders.

It stands beyond reasonable doubt that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness know who jumped off the ship ten years ago, and the names of these individuals should be presented to the authorities.

Northern Ireland is such a small place and the numbers involved in terrorist activities are so low, therefore individuals who left the organisation have to be compiled, profiled and handed over to the police.

If this was carried out, we really would be witnessing a new age of transparent Republicanism.

Pikey

Emptiness

The thirty spokes unite in the one nave; but it is on the empty space (for the axle) that the wheel depends.Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty hollowness, that their use depends. The doors and windows are cut out to form an apartment; but it is on the empty space that it's use depends. Therefore what has a (positive) existence serves for profitable adaption, and what has not that for (actual) usefulness.

Lao Tzu

I love this notion of nothingness being all there is. The nature of the mind, in its pure form being IT. There is nothing more, and only when you settle in this natural resting place can you truly develop and grow. External reality (as we know it) takes us away from the essence of truth, blinding us with sensory desires and tempts us towards the illusion.

The truth then lies not between the lines or in the depths of philosophical discussion, it is simple and access able to all. Its has been called 'grounded luminosity' or likened to the pause between words, or massive emptiness, but one can be sure that resting in the ego less plains of the meditative mind, can help one appreciate how beautiful and simple the moment is.

No past,
Nor future,
No worries,
Nor dreams,

Just now.


Pikey

Why Bother?

Very funny indeed.

Pikey

Tough on Crime.....

Tough on crime, rough on criminals

Plans to publicly shame criminals could be on the cards


Tony Blair promised to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. His successor Gordon Brown may be about to out-tough him.

Louise Casey, the former head of the government's Respect unit, has drawn up a series of radical measures to fight crime.

Plans to make people serving community sentences wear visible jackets identifying that they are criminals and the possible publication of posters and websites with pictures of offenders are likely to be the most controversial of the plans.

Alongside the Guardian story on the paper's front page is a picture of people kneeling in orange Guanta´namo-style boiler suits with their hands behind their heads. It sends a shiver down the spine until you realise it relates to a separate article about protests against George Bush in London.

Even if the criminals are more likely to be forced to wear high visibility bibs - according to the Mail - rather than orange boiler suits, the plans are unlikely to go down well with civil liberties' groups still fuming over attempts to extend the period terror suspects can be held without trial.

Extract from Haroon Siddique Guardian News Blog.

Scary stuff I think you will agree. It won't be long until the people not wearing high viz will be the ones standing out. Homogenize, work, consume, watch reality TV and let your leaders take control.

To borrow a phrase from the immortal Bill Hicks,

"I'm sure their motives are pure."

Aghh well, break out the victory gin I suppose.

Pikey

Pumpin or Bumkin? Belfast 2008

Belfast was once a place that struck fear into the heart of most individuals, sending shuddering electrical signals of anxiety thundering through one's mind. It was a land of terror, a divided and backward place, with men in masks acting ruthlessly under the cover of night.

This place of unimaginable pain and intractable differences is where I call home, albeit with a jaded sense of national identity.

When one takes a look around society today, a landscape comes into view that is dramatically different culturally, politically, economically and socially than the one experienced as a teenager. Once bombing and shootings were a daily reality, but now seem like a speck of dust on the horizon.

Predictable partisan diatribes were chanted on the news by educated bigots in suits, now the same bigots are sitting in government together, sharing sofas and smiling for the cameras.

Belfast city centre was once the Beirut of Ireland, but now big business has replaced the checkpoints.

On the ground there is now less talk of 'sides' and distance between individual's eyes, but new forms of hatred have been substituted in place of the traditional, such as xenophobia and overt racism.

People appear on the surface better off economically, but has this quantative rise in living standards ushered in a happier and more stable society?

Is the country really advancing, or is Belfast just a modern pretender, lagging predictably behind the pack?

Something to think about.


Pikey