Flowery Feet

Flowery Feet Daniel Clark © 1999

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx A Pandevotional Creed 1. The human body is wonderful. It enables the soul to achieve self-realization. 2. Human nature at its deepest joins with Earth nature and God nature. 3. When we join the Earth in her worship of God, God heals us and the Earth. 4. I am always part of Nature. Nature is always part of God. Nature is Service. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Human Nature The source of a deep natural ecology can be found deep inside human nature. Every species has its own unique nature, and a nature that is common to all. Every being has its own unique self, and a self that is common to all. Beings exist to act on their natures, and when they do they fit into the world. Human beings who act on their human nature do not disturb the nature of the world. The unique nature of the human body is the spiritual capacity for self awareness. The human nervous system allows humans to be conscious of the self as consciousness. This experience is deeply fulfilling and defines the being of humanity. When humans are satisfied deep inside, they don't have to use up the world. Those who experience their self realization are also conscious of the self in every being. They are able to perceive as others perceive and to comprehend a nature common to all.

The nature that's common to every self is the urge to serve another self. The self that is common to every self is the creator of all the creatures. Everything in creation serves the creator, so every creature is worthy of respect. Human beings who develop self awareness serve the creator and the whole creation. Deep inside human nature lies the source of a deep natural ecology for our world. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx An Ecology of the Body of God God is a naked dancer. God's body is Love. God's body is the environment of environments. Relations among life forms take place within the context of the environment of the love-body of God. We are decorations on the body of God. We exist to share love with God. Love is the environment of all life forms -- the biological, the geological, the astronomical. Let us join the rest of Nature in giving pleasure to God. Dancing with God is a deep ecology. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The problem is that people act politically. There is no political solution. Politics itself is the problem. Gaining power over others -- the essence of politics -- is the problem, whether it's power over human beings or power over the rest of nature, or over God. When politics started, the problem started. It was a historical event. And history doesn't move backwards. So we can't return to the past. Instead, we can evolve into a new humanity centered on (dare I say it?) Love. We don't need an act of Congress, we need an act of Consciousness. The politicans will trot along behind, as they always do, like dogs following the chuck wagon. E. F. Schumacher said it: "The problem is metaphysical, and the solution must therefore be metaphysical." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Krishna's words in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna's words in the Bhagavatam there isn't any speaker who says it any sweeter than Lord Shri Krishna Bhagavan xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Hi Is the desire for more complex and more powerful tools 1. the human condition? (Samuel Florman) 2. the European political condition? (Betsy Barnum) 3. the male primate condition? (Lee Henderson) 4. the post-Edenic condition? (Genesis 3:23) I'll take all of them, but mostly the fourth. There are many instances of human societies deliberately rejecting the "next step" in technological complexity. The best example I know of is the Tasmanians. At a certain point in their history, they decided to backtrack. They tossed out new technologies they considered harmful, and stabilized their culture where they wanted it. That worked for them -until the big ships arrived, of course. (Here's a case where the Europeans were the disease-bearers.) Tim Flannery, in his book The Future Eaters, tells the story in detail. The Ojibway that Betsy mentions sound like an instance of deliberately standing still in order to be in the right. We shouldn't omit the Amish. On a lighter note, in London a few years back a group of aesthetes decided the 18th Century was their ideal. They stopped paying their electric bills, used (whale oil?) for light, rode around on horses, and so on. I don't know if they're still at it. Any number of individuals or small groups have lived a radically simplified life. Religious types such as the Essenes, or Himalayan yogis, or Franciscan monks, did it. The neo-Luddites do it. People

everywhere have slammed the brakes on "progress" and have taken up the simple life. However, most humans haven't. Most humans have been trying strenuously to conquer nature. This goes not only for Europeans. For centuries, China and India were much farther along the techno trail than the Europeans. (Maybe we can blame our ills on the Asians. Modern technology would be impossible without the zero, and the Hindus invented it.) Early human cultures in the Western Hemisphere also steadily made "advancement" in their tool-making. That's evident from the archeological record. As their tools and weapons became more complex, the impact of humans on the rest of nature became more noticeable. Even within Paleolithic cultures, we see "progress" made from hand-held flaked stones to bows and arrows. We'll never know what sort of cultural evolution they would have had if the Europeans hadn't intervened. But why would they have gone a different route from most other cultures on the face of the Earth? What we do know is that when the Spanish brought horses, the Americans eagerly made use of them. Who wants to lug a travois across the plains when you can load up the noble beast? This "labor-saving" thought process is found worldwide. So I don't think it's just a European problem. Can we limit the drive for power to them? No. It's the human condition. Or, better to call it the human conditioning. We've become conditioned to think and feel this way. I suggest it's not the way we started out. But that was a very long time ago. Long before the Industrial Revolution -- or the Agricultural one. For my text, I take Andrew Bard Schmookler's The Parable of the Tribes. He makes a convincing case: once the drive for political power started, there was no stopping it. Immediately, technology was pressed into its service. When was it? 10,000 years ago? 25,000? A million? Where was it? Europe? Africa? Pago-Pago? No matter. It started, and societies everywhere took it up. (With significant exceptions, as noted above.) The problem is primarily political, a question of human attitude rather than human nature, and not restricted to any region of the globe. Are we basically good or evil? Schmookler sets aside that terminology. He says we're

evolved to be good enough. Good enough to live happily on the planet that evolved us. When we forced a split between ourselves and the Earth by seeking domination instead of cooperation, that's when we kicked ourselves out of "Eden." The problem is that people act politically. There is no political solution. Politics itself is the problem. Gaining power over others -- the essence of politics -- is the problem, whether it's power over human beings or power over the rest of nature, or over God. When politics started, the problem started. It was a historical event. And history doesn't move backwards. So we can't return to the past. Instead, we can evolve into a new humanity centered on (dare I say it?) Love. We don't need an act of Congress, we need an act of Consciousness. The politicans will trot along behind, as they always do, like dogs following the chuck wagon. E. F. Schumacher said it: "The problem is metaphysical, and the solution must therefore be metaphysical." Meanwhile, here we are, moralizing via the most complex and potentially dangerous technology yet devised -- the Cybersystem. Is it simply a coincidence that the Internet was built by the most powerful military establishment in the world? The techno-utopians think we've stolen the Net away from the bad guys. But if the proliferating dystopian novels about the near future are any indication, we have some sobering surprises ahead of us. The Net ain't the answer. But we can use it to ask provocative questions. As Betsy does on her website. All in all, I personally feel we humans went wrong when we started to use fire as a tool. Prior to fire, we were cool dudes. Nowadays we gather around glowing cathode ray tubes, having forgotten that our bodies are uniquely designed for another technology, that of self-awareness. The human body is a wondrous instrument we can use to direct spiritual energy in the most ingenious ways. But, to accomplish it, one must be free from the tyranny of materialists. No national government wants that freedom for us. Would a global government be any different? Not likely. A massive centralization of political power would probably be accompanied by an increase in the number of glowing screens seducing us into ignorance. Wisdom, on the other hand, comes from folks like the Ojibway. When we assimilate that wisdom, we "have no

choice but to press ahead," as Florman said in an opposite context. What will prevail, reality or illusion? A faith in the power of reality motivates us. For an eco-mantra, you can't do much better than Thoreau's words: "simplify, simplify." Daniel xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Hi When we talk about nature -- or Nature -- it's often hard to know which of its many meanings is being referred to. For a long time I stopped using the word entirely. It was too confusing. Recently, however, I read two issues of the quarterly Parabola. In each there were references to the connections between nature and birth and creativity. It's a new-old signification that I found satisfying. Investigating further, I went to the index of word derivations at the end of the American Heritage Dictionary. There I saw that the term "nature" is one of a group of modern English words derived from the Indo- European root gene, "to give birth." Other words in the group include gender, generate, genealogy, genus, germinate, indigenous, genital, progeny, pregnant, kin, kind, nascent, native, innate. Like the last three words in the list, nature comes to us through the Latin gnasci or nasci, "to be born." The past participle is natus. The noun form is natura, meaning birth, origin, the world, inborn or original quality. From this etymology I decided to make two inferences. First, nature is that which gives birth. Second, nature is the world where births take place. In both instances, there's no room for considering anything to be inanimate. Rocks and clouds and safety pins are alive. Everything's alive. It all has taken birth from a living source, nature. The natural world is a creation, or The Creation. Birth may be followed by death, but in using the term "nature" we center on the origins of things, the beginnings more than the endings of individuals. Nature is the mother who gives birth to children. And nature herself has no ending. She never dies. She's always in a state of giving birth. Isn't it interesting that nature is equated with birth! The

natural or material world is the world of birth. Conversely, we might say that the supernatural or spiritual world is the world of death. That is, from the point of view of nature, it's "the realm of the dead." Here I'm opposing birth and death, not life and death. I think the etymology suggests that both worlds are alive. But the life of the spiritual world exists on the other side of death. On this side, the material world, our life is dedicated to birthing. Well, that could point to sex. On the other hand, birthing is synonomous with creating. The material world is the creation, and it's a place where creativity brings out the original quality of things. In birthing and in creating, something emerges out of nonbeing into being. From potential to actual. From invisible to visible. There's a transition from one state to another. Creativity can bring out the original state of the self. It can be a path to self realization. If spirit is the invisible and matter is the visible, then Mother Nature -- who gives birth to the visible -- is between the two worlds and partakes of both of them. She is Becoming. Perhaps she's the God of Process that Whitehead wrote about. So nature has two aspects. It is a Goddess. And it is a world of time and space, with particles interacting across a distance. Religion and science, then, can cooperate to describe what nature is. And the arts can unite religion and science while uniting us with our natures. Humans don't have to stop the great adventure that brings us joy -- the spirited drive toward the unlimited. But it's true that in order to proceed unabated on that quest, we must limit our greed. We haven't done that. So our creativity, within the scientific and allied disciplines, has taken us to the brink of disaster. We've thought that nature is our enemy. Or a helpless maiden to be conquered. But a period of training can bring us around. Nature herself is the source of our zest. By learning from her how to live and create, we can go on expanding our consciousness without wasting away the ground of our being. So here's a theory, based on a couple of articles and some dictionary research. To take this theory and put it into practice, we might, for instance, encourage Goddess religions, or nature religions in general. And increase the hours spent on arts education in our schools.

Daniel xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx On Accounta Because I really love you baby but please dont ask me why cuz love is not a Q&A that only makes it die I like your pretty body I like your witty mind I know you are the best that I could ever find but is that why I love you its really hard to say youre askin me this question and it just won't go away why do I love you Im clutchin at straws why do I love you on accounta because you want to know the reasons why I keep comin round well love is like a magic spell and I cant pin it down I kiss you on your shoulder I kiss you on your nose I rhapsodize your gorgeous eyes I poetize your toes then you say that youre not perfect and I might fall for someone new well I never thought that you were God its cool that you are you why do I love you in spite of your flaws why do I love you on accounta because I know my feelings Im not out of touch but dont ask me why I love you and dont ask me how much we are a groovy couple we share a lot of things we both like arty movies

and gardens in the spring we got the same religion and eat Italian food yeh we know when the other one is feelin in the mood those are the details but I know in my heart oh love is a wholeness that is greater than the parts so why do I love you I cant quote any laws why do I love you on accounta because I'll go international to broadcast my plea loves not rational love is a mystery why do I love you on accounta because why do I love you on accounta because xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Auw Auw, the twenty seventh letter of the alphabet, all universe worship, the union of the duality, all universe worship, the union of the duality. Auw, the twenty seventh letter of the alphabet, all universe worship, the union of the duality, all universe worship, the union of the duality. Auw, the twenty seventh letter of the alphabet, all universe worship, the union of the duality, all universe worship, the union of the duality. (continue) (This poem is intended to be written along with the inscribing of the letter Auw on an appropriate surface. Auw is a vertical line with an ellipse intersecting its upper half, and a dot above. In writing the letter you start with the ellipse. Its axis can be horizontal. Or it can have a 60-to-240 degree axis. Draw the vertical starting a little above the ellipse. Extend it below the ellipse a little more than the length already inscribed. End with the dot above the line.)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Every Body Everybody's physical body is not an individual self, but it behaves individually according to its location. Everybody's physical body is connected at the edges to other physical bodies in a tapestry of threads. Everybody's physical body is a picture on a sheet we all sleep underneath dreaming the pictures. Everybody's physical body lies on an endless landscape made of everybody else with not a soul in sight. Everybody's physical body is real estate we buy and enjoy and cash in to buy the next lot. Everybody's physical body is the same as every other -there are billions of them but there is only one. Everybody's physical body dances in its position, inside a larger pattern whose choreography is unknown. Everybody's physical body is not a spiritual body, but we are spiritual bodies forgetting the body of God. Everybody's spiritual body is part of the body of God, so it's like a physical body, except it is what it is. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Oh Mother My Father : A Cycle Of Chants In December, 1966, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada translated the Hare Krishna Mantra as "Oh mother Hara, please help us in achieving the grace of the supreme father Hari." About a year later he wrote me a letter, stating that "translation of prayers is good." Taking Prabhupad's own words as a starting point, I have translated the Hare Krishna Mantra into English forms suitable for repetitive chanting. They can be spoken or sung. Each chant rests on a simple foundation, which is a mantra in itself: Oh Mother My Father Here's a versified form of Prabhupad's translation. Oh mother Hara Oh mother please Oh please help me Help me achieve Achieve the grace Of the supreme The supreme father My father Hari Retaining the Sanskrit names from the original mantra, here's a mostly-English version. O Mother Hara My Father Krishna My Father Krishna O Mother Hara O Mother Hara My Father Rama My Father Rama O Mother Hara Both Hara and Hari mean Deliverer or Savior. Krishna means Black, literally, but also Attraction or Allure. Rama means Pleasure or Enjoyment. Here are nine chants that substitute English names for the Sanskrit. Oh Oh Mother, Oh Deliverance, My Father All-Attractiveness;

Oh Oh Mother, Oh Deliverance, My Father Pleasure-Happiness. O, O Mother Deliverance, My Father The Attraction; O, O Mother Deliverance, My Father Satisfaction. Oh Mother Saviour, Mother Saviour, Father Allure, My Father Allure; Oh Mother Saviour, Mother Saviour, Father Pleasure, My Father Pleasure. Oh Mother Deliverance My Father The Allurement Oh Mother Deliverance My Father The Enjoyment Mother Savior Mother Savior Lord Allurement Lord Allurement Mother Savior Mother Savior Lord Enjoyment Lord Enjoyment Oh Savior Allure Savior Allure Allure Allure Savior Savior Savior Pleasure Savior Pleasure Pleasure Pleasure Savior Savior O Lady Savior Lord Allurement O Lady Savior Lord Enjoyment Oh My Savior The Allure Oh My Savior The Pleasure Oh My Saviour Love of Allure Oh My Saviour Love of Pleasure In his translation, Prabhupad substitutes Hari for Krishna and Rama. As a verse, it might go like this. Ohh Mother Hara My Father Hari

Substituting English for the Sanskrit names: Oh Mother Dear Oh Mother Deliverer My Father Dear My Father Deliverer A more specific name for Hara is Radha. Oh Oh Mother Radha My Father Krishna We might meditate on the colors of their bodies. Oh Golden Mother My Blue Black Father Here's a version that indicates the exalted position of the Mother and the Father. Oh Mother Goddess My Father God The divine is immanent in the world around us too. These chants draw from the religious life of pre-agricultural peoples. Mother Earth Oh Mother Earth Father Sky My Father Sky Oh Oh Mother Luna My Father Sol The sacred duality can even be found in the subjects of our fears. Making a chant out of them can help us come to terms with them. This prayer is devotional, but it centers more on the mind than on God. Oh Oh Mother Spider My Father Snake Nature religion is implied in the phrase Oh Mother, and Christianity in My Father. When combined, they designate the divine feminine-masculine couples found in those spiritual traditions and in many others. My spiritual master's South Asian religion (Bengali Vaishnavism) is the particular

inspiration for Oh Mother My Father, but the chant may be applied globally. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Swallowing Silhouettes Swallowing the struggle in our porcelain garden, with fragile temperature she rustles to ask, "Why observe sanctuary between angry voids to protect this monument to sympathy?" With her question lingering in feline comfort by the vegetable shadows of our dead language, we dance now beneath the lazy smoke in our shimmering lathered forest. O gorgeous prisoner, I murmur no metaphor that smears you lividly. A thousand species surround you and manipulate your honor deeply: diamond bouquet, bright music, plump lizard. So run, white tiger, though the rain gets you wet. We will emerge, wearing pierced silhouettes. [The words were taken from a collection of words on a 4' X 5' metallic easel called a Poetry Board. Each word (letter size 18 pts.) is fixed onto a thin, magnetic strip. The left half of the board holds the words to be chosen. People arrange them into poems, such as the above sonnet, on the right half.]

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Prayer Holy Mother, deliver me to my all-attractive Father; Holy Mother, deliver me to my pleasure-giving Father. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Self Acceptance This present moment is eternity. This place is the spiritual world. I am here now, contemplating Goddess and God. But I'm not meditating on serving them. I'm meditating on

becoming them. I've lost touch with myself and my natural activity. I'm in illusion. I'm imagining that everything is mine and everyone should be serving me. I'm dreaming I'm in a world made for me alone. Oddly, countless others are in the dream with me. We're all trying to transform ourselves and improve ourselves. However, our dream is a nightmare. Our plans for changing reality have failed. It's time to wake up and accept reality as it is. My reality is that I'm a servant of Goddess and God. But I want to change. I want -- to be God! The Personal Growth Industry feeds off that motivation. The forlorn call out, "I want to improve myself. I want to grow. I want to change. I want to be transformed." In response, the counselors gather around. "Yes, yes, well I have here a scientific system of selfimprovement. It's only $79.95 for the first lesson!" The techniques of change exact a heavy toll. But acceptance costs nothing and is instantly available everywhere. Nobody can get rich off acceptance. It has no method and no equipment. It just is. Everything is all right as it is. The spiritual world is here and now. No techniques are necessary, and no science. All we have to do is be what we are and see things as they are. Let's stop trying to change the world. Let's accept the world's worship of Goddess and God. Changing things won't solve the problem. Wanting to change things is the problem. Tantric procedures employ matter in techniques that transmute our material consciousness into spiritual consciousness. What used to be matter is changed into spirit. But matter is already obeying the laws of Goddess and God. It doesn't have to be changed. And my consciousness becomes material only when I want to change into something other than what I am. I'm a servant of Goddess and God, but I want to become them. So when I stop wanting to change, I'm right where I ought to be. Alchemy is vanity. The Olympian gods were right to punish Prometheus. When we mortals started to play with fire, our problems multiplied. Fire is the spark of science and industry. Fire transmutes. Fire works for us as a tool expressing our desire to transmute ourselves into Goddess and God. Fire pollutes. In

our attempt to change Earth into Heaven, we're making it into Hell. If I say that I am Goddess and God, and differences don't exist, and All is One, I really mean that All is Zero. A one without form or variety or personhood is a zero. The Vedic philosophers are the culprits. They invented the zero as the foundation of their mathematics. That made science possible. Then everybody wanted to improve things by adding zeros. Our technological advancement is just a lot of zeros -- nothing at all -- an illusion. The zeros have obscured our view of reality. Reality includes one, two, three, and every number, except zero, which is not a number at all. It's nothing. Try to change reality and you end up with nothing. Goddess and God are the great vagina and the great erection. Our ecstasy is to be decorations on them. When we feel like becoming them instead of serving them, we identify with them and think of ourselves as cunts and cocks. We try to be happy by imitating them. But it's always a false happiness. There's always something lacking. We press on, striving to possess that something, which is nothing. At the end of many births, we finally remember who we are, laugh at our foolishness, stop trying to improve ourselves, and happily accept our natural ecstasy. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Pedagogy Mother Nature's only cruel to the one who breaks the rule. Mother Nature's teaching school; learn the truth or be a fool. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Prayer Mother Matter, oh bring me to Father Spirit, to live with you.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The Beautiful Names of Radha - Krishna Especially Dear - Alluring Qualities Especially Dear - Alluring Qualities Especially Dear - Alluring Qualities Especially Dear - Alluring Qualities xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx A Religion In the temple of the body there's an altar of the mind, where the soul can offer worship to the name of the divine. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Beginning Prayers I bow to the one at Vishnu's feet, Krishna's dear one here on Earth, to you, O beautiful Bhaktivedanta, liberated master known by that name. I bow to the servant of Saraswati, preacher of the teachings of Lord Gaura, to you, O liberator of the western world from impersonal philosophy and voidist thought. Beautiful deity Krishna Chaitanya, eternally blissful Lord Nityananda, beautiful Adwaita,

Gadadhar, Shrivas, the foremost among all of Gaura's devotees. Oh Savioress, Oh Savioress, the Lord Allure, the Lord Allure, Oh Savioress, Oh Savioress, the Lord Pleasure, the Lord Pleasure. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Savior Allure Mother Savior Mother Savior Father Allure Father Allure Mother Savior Mother Savior Father Pleasure Father Pleasure xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The Tao of Love I accept, I accept, I accept love. I allow, I allow, I allow love. I accept, I accept, I accept it all. I allow, I allow, I allow it all. (I trust that when I accept and allow, I lose nothing but that which keeps me from love. I trust that when I accept and allow, then the layers of illusion fall away and I am myself, in the reality of love. When I accept and allow, I have it all and I give it all away. I am in the presence of it all. I am in the presence of love. I trust that I am practicing and following my religion.)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Love It All Love It All Love It All Love It All xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To dance is to massage. To massage is to dance. In dance and in massage, bodies move sympathetically. To move is to

love. To love is to move. Movement starts everything at the loving heart of existence. Everything is personal. Every soul is a personal body. Movement is the beating heart of God. Worship of God starts with dancing with God, with massaging God's lotus feet. To massage is to worship. To worship is to massage. The dance of God produces sounds, beautiful musical sounds that when sung or spoken are names of God. Movement is primary. Sound is secondary. But they always exist together, along with everything else in the essential massage of love. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Why do I walk a lot? To be real. My footsteps teach me what's real. I'm assuming there is a reality. There's no reason for me to assume it. I just feel its existence. I feel it most when I walk and concentrate on the walking. That experience is the major premise that initiates my deductions. I assume there is one source of the many. One thing that's the origin, the essence, of everything. It's beyond my ability to conceive of it. Because I'm just a part of the whole. But walking gives me a sense of it, enough to say a few words. To start, I draw from the language of physics. The terminology of physics is the bedrock of my philosophy. I have confidence in its factuality. The word I settle on is energy. Reality is energy. I don't mean something blank and featureless. It's not nothing. It's not a void. Energy has many features. The word "energy" means "work." It signifies action and motion. Reality is motion. What is motion? Something that is always other than what it is. That's why some people think it's nothingness. You can never put your finger on it. As soon as you say here it is, it's gone.

I'm talking about pure motion. Not motion as a property of an object in relation to other objects. Motion itself. Movement moving. A state that's always becoming. What else can we say about the reality of moving energy? If it's always moving, then it's alive. Reality is life. Motion has a direction, thus a purpose, thus consciousness. A living, purposeful consciousness is a person. Reality is a person. If it's a person, then it has form. An inconceivable form! The purpose of that essential form is to move into otherness. It's dedicated to the other. Reality is a person always giving itself up into the other. The urge toward the other is love, devotion, service. Reality is love. The activity of walking teaches me that. Now I walk and turn to the language of geometry. I think of a circle that extends its center. The center moves toward the other. As in walking : two footsteps. The one center becomes two : two foci. The circle becomes an ellipse. Between the two foci is a straight line. The circle gives up its circularity to produce a line. Yet it's never a circle and a line. It's always an ellipse. It's always becoming, or potential. Yet it's always a circle and a line. It's always being, or actual. It's inconceivably different and non-different from itself. A paradox. The circle is Goddess, the Yin. The line is God, the Yang. The ellipse is Love. The ellipse is It All. I accept, I accept, I accept Love. I allow, I allow, I allow Love. I accept, I accept, I accept It All. I allow, I allow, I allow It All. It All is within Love. Everything is within the essence. God is within Goddess.

Goddess manifests God out of her urge to love the other. Goddess gives up her majesty into God to worship God. Their love is the essential story of life. The love of Goddess and God is the realized urge of the essence. Everything, ourselves included, is within Goddess. Everything, ourselves included, worships God. God is the supreme controller, possessor, and enjoyer. God is the only masculine emanation from Goddess. Everyone else shares her feminine nature. We assist her in her glorification of God. Mother Savior, Mother Savior. Father Allure, Father Allure. Mother Savior, Mother Savior. Father Pleasure, Father Pleasure. We all take part in their dance of love. That's all there is. Love It All, Love It All, Love It All, Love It All. That's the reality my walking reveals. That's why I walk a lot. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The Making of the World This is the story of the making of the world as told by the sages of Bengal. In the center of the picture are Radha and Krishna, whose emanations radiate everywhere. Out of perfect joy they manifest themselves in countless duplications of their forms. Goddess and God, they're always found together, each replica the same and yet distinct. Radha, a cowgirl, expands as other cowgirls, living in a simple woodland town. Then springing out from them are opulent queens, living in palaces of gold. Each queen has a planet in a spiritual sky that goes on without coming to an end. Ramaa is one. Her duplicate: Prakriti, the Mother and the Womb of our world. Krishna, a cowboy, becomes brother Balaram. The black makes his opposite in white. Balaram expands into Primal Sankarshan, who produces many other four-armed forms.

Those forms are the source of numberless more, all kings on their planets with their queens. Sadaashiva is one. His duplicate is Shiva, who inseminates the souls into the Womb. The origin of the souls is the body of Radha, so we share her deep love for her God. But when we get a notion to take the chance of getting everyone to worship ME, Goddess and God make elaborate arrangements to allow us to act out our dream. We go on a journey deep into the Sea of Karma and into a God-form drifting there. The Goddess is the Ocean, God is Maha-Vishnu, he's in her, we're in him, asleep. God opens up his eyes. His glance is Shiva, whose shape is the organ of a male. The souls rush into it. Shiva goes to Prakriti, who displays a female organ form, and injects us all into the Womb of matter, where we wait for the cosmos to be built. Maha-Vishnu, like a fish, is breathing underwater. As he exhales, many bubbles float away. Growing in the ocean, they become golden spheres, universes, thick-shelled, void within. Inside each Prakriti makes a Kala-Shakti who bears a portion of the souls. Simultaneously Vishnu makes for each a Vishnu who perspires and makes half the void a sea. He manifests a serpent large enough to hold them on coils of iridescent scales, Goddess Kala and God Vishnu, ready to be worshiped (or forgotten) by the souls still unaware. Now a lotus sprouts far upward from the navel of Vishnu, made of atoms each of which is Kala's form. In the stem, along a spiral, are the planets of creation. On the petals is Brahma, quite confused. His wife, Saraswati, teaches him meditation. Then Brahma gets his orders from God. He learns how to build the bodies of the creatures. The souls from Kala populate the worlds. On one of the planets is yet another Vishnu, who radiates his form in every heart, every atom, every place, and all the space between, and the Goddess going with him: always two. In the golden universes the histories evolve as the souls follow through with their careers.

They take on different bodies, trying each in turn, until they tire of it and want to go back home. How long does it take? Maha-Vishnu keeps on breathing, creations and destructions on and on. I can stay within the Karma or go to Radha-Krishna. They're giving me all the time I want. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Search and Destroy Search for a toy. Select and enjoy. Possess and employ. Reject and destroy. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Universal Master (Incantations in honor of the three Deities on the altar of the Jagannath temple in Puri, Orissa, India. They are wooden forms of Subhadra, Balaram/Baladev, and Krishna/ Jagannath. Subhadra is the sister of the two brothers. She is yellow. Balaram is white. Krishna is black. Subhadra means "very pretty." Balaram means "strength + pleasure." Baladev means "strength + god." Krishna means "black" or "allure." Jagannath means "lord of the universe." Subhadra is in the middle, Balaram on the left, Krishna on the right, from the worshipper's point of view. They appear as they were seen by Radha. She faced them and begged Krishna to return to the village where she and he were lovers. The devotees in the temple are, so to speak, standing behind Radha, serving her in her love of God. The lines of these little poems can be sung spontaneously, without strict adherence to the written order.)

So Beautiful Lord of the World So Beautiful Almighty God Sister Beauty Brother Allure Sister Beauty Brother Pleasure Goldy Blacky Goldy Whitey

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To the Lord of the World So Beautiful Lord of the World So Beautiful Almighty God xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Peter A. Campbell and Edwin M. McMahon, Bio-Spirituality : Focusing As a Way to Grow xxv There is an awareness within our bodies that leads beyond ourselves. xxx ...step beyond doctrines into this realm of bodily experience... xxx

...our body's awareness of meaning...

xxxi People out of touch with themselves have no real alternative than to constantly prepare for war. Anyone in conflict with himself or herself must inevitably view the world in exactly the same manner. 12 The critical factor for change is not understanding but an experience of give, shift, or movement in the bodily awareness of a problem or life situation. 58 I have to risk letting the answers come as they will, not make them up myself. Focusing invites me actually to believe in my body, not just my mind. It invites me to live my faith in a benevolent, loving Providence as a whole person. [statement of a workshop participant] 59 ...to allow that story of The Whole which is in us, to appear. 95 Focusing helps us become aware of the movement, the felt shift, the being carried forward. It is within such an experience that we can be drawn inside the Mystery.

98 We find God or the Mystery of Human Destiny within the surprise around each bend of our unfolding. 134 Focusing becomes an effective agent of healing transformation not because we do it, but because we, finally, can allow it to do itself! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Bhagavata Purana 9.15.40 kshamayaa rochate lakshmiir braahmii saurii yathaa prabhaa kshaminaam ashu bhagavaamgs tushyate harir iishvaraha The duty of a brahmana is to culture the quality of forgiveness, which is illuminating like the sun. The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Hari, is pleased with those who are forgiving. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Bhagavata Purana 9.18.40 (second line) aviditvaa sukhamg graamyamg vaitrishnyamg naiti puurushaha "Without experiencing bodily happiness, a person cannot attain indifference to it." Purport by Shrila Prabhupad: "...during youth the material desire to enjoy the material senses is certainly present, and unless one fully satisfies these lusty desires in youth, there is a chance of one's being disturbed in rendering service to the Lord. ...many sannyasis...fall down..." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shrila Prabhupad, Purport to Bhag. 8.19.2 A devotee is always sober. He is never disturbed by any conditions. Even if a devotee remains in grihasta life and does not renounce material possessions, he should still be understood to be prashanta, sober, because of his pure devotion to the Lord. Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu therefore said: kibaa vipra, kiba nyaasii, shuudra kene naya yei krishna-tattva-vettaa, sei "guru" haya "Whether one is a brahman, a sannyasi or a shudra -regardless of what he is -- he can become a spiritual master if he knows the science of Krishna." (CC Madhya 8.128) Anyone completely aware of the science of Krishna, regardless of his status in life, is a guru. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Relating To It How do I respond to the world? Repulsed by It, Indifferent to It, Attracted to It ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Repulsion (pain) Category: Fear ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Indifference (neutrality) Category: Ignorance (or lack of interest) Category: Knowledge (or following the experts) ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Attraction (pleasure) Category: Registration (to perceive) I don't react Category: Appreciation (to praise) I react Category: Assimilation: (to possess) I react ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The most positive response is Appreciation.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The never-fallen souls are innocent, like children. They've never been touched by evil or doubt. But the innocent are not free. They're bound by their ignorance of their possibilities, and even of themselves as individual beings. They're aware only of the other. It's love, but not mature because it's not chosen. When their desire for freedom arises, as it must, it first appears as jealousy -- because they can think only in terms of the other. They think, "I want to possess what God possesses. I want to be God." The dark crime was always within but unmanifest. Now it's out in the open. They are guilty. Well, the guilty must suffer. So God lets them act out their desire to be God, which then turns into a desire to destroy God, and they suffer. But through suffering they gain self-awareness. And through selfawareness they gain liberation, freedom. Knowledge has replaced innocence. They return to the spiritual world stronger, now fully developed in love for God. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Why do we love God? Because he is glorious. What is the glory of God? The Goddess is his glory. She is the power of God. What is her power? Her love for God. We love God because we are part of her. We are the glory of God, too. Why do we love God? Because we are love for God. We are the glory of God, and God's glory glorifies God. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Prabhupad's Orders To Me "Translation of prayers is good." "Use your American intelligence." "Write according to your realization." "(Attract both the mass and the class.)" xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Where Is the Goddess? Where is the Mother? Where is her island? Go to the other side of the silence. Cross over the death of the ego, my friend. Take a deep breath of life without end. The Goddess's form is not an illusion. The void's there to warn her of any intrusion by those who desire to be God themselves. They fall in the fire of oblivion's hell. Silence is golden, but metal will tarnish. Sing! And behold her without any varnish. She's pulling us now and she'll never stop. She's a person, you know, she can walk, she can talk, she can tell us that love goes beyond nothingness, that the blinding white light is the trim of her dress. Where is the Goddess? Cross the void to her planet. In a heart that is honest lives a love that can span it. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx It all comes together in the end. You may rest assured of that one my friend. At first it looks chaotic. But hey dont get neurotic. Cuz it all comes together in the end. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Krishna Krishna standin on the bank of the Yamuna Krishna had I only met you sooner Krishna decorated with a peacock feather Krishna Im so happy were together Krishna plays a tune on his flute you never heard such a beautiful sound Krishna dances with the cowherd girls its a love that makes the world go round Krishna slayer of the demon Aghasura Krishna make my devotion purer Krishna only you can stop me from sobbin Krishna dont ever leave Vrindaban Krishna plays a tune on his flute you never heard such a beautiful sound Krishna dances with the cowherd girls its a love that makes the world go round Krishna standin on the bank of the Yamuna Krishna had I only met you sooner Krishna decorated with a peacock feather Krishna Im so happy were together xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Planet, p. 115 To me, the human move to take responsibility for the living Earth is laughable -- the rhetoric of the powerless. The planet takes care of us, not we of it. Our self-inflated moral imperative to guide a wayward Earth or heal our sick planet is evidence of our immense capacity for self-delusion. Rather, we need to protect us from ourselves.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Egg Prayer O Egg, albumen and yolk -O Egg, what you sang, and spoke! O Egg, source of all that be -O Egg, show yourself to me! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Cinema '61 (What was it about film that made me become a film maker? I'm diving back into that old feeling.)

The dream factor: hallucination, narcosis, "vision!" The wonder of embalming. The secret life of ghosts. Death in life, life in death, the undead, the living dead. My camera is my soul, my disembodied consciousness. The screen is a graveyard on a full moon night when the dead walk again, destroying time. The sadness of the moment of loss preserved and reconstructed into a delirious ice palace of necrophiliac thrills. I am the ringmaster of a circus of wraiths performing for an audience of corpses. Electro-chemical veils of the seven arts shimmering, displaying the silver platter, the severed head of life. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

God is Everything Existence exists. (Non-existence does not exist.) Existence is a whole composed of parts. (Both the whole and the parts exist.) The whole and the parts are interdependent. (The whole and the parts influence each other.) The parts are more dependent on the whole than the whole is dependent on the parts. (The whole influences the parts more than the parts influence the whole.) The whole of existence is God. (The parts of the whole are parts of God.) God exists. (Non-God does not exist.) God is everything. (Everything is God or part of God.) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx How To Minimize Your Interpersonal Pain 1. Accept the situation as it is. Don't try to change people. 2. Think of your possible responses to the situation. 3. Estimate the consequences of each response, both for yourself and others. 4. Act according to the most favorable consequences, not according to who's "right" and who's "wrong." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Ma Jaya, June 18, 1999: My pujas and prayers go out this day to Mother Radha. I am asking the beloved of Krishna to teach my children about replacing desire for worldly things with desire for God and Guru. The idea that one can rise above one's desires is not true at all. Worldly desires must be replaced by higher desires. Mother Radha bring about this transformation in my chelas. Teach them my Mother of your love for Krishna and let them

bask in your love. Show them Divine love is the greatest love of all. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Footsteps "Subtle secrets of feet that come and go..." -- Mallarme

Walking meditation is my subject. I want to approach it by first discussing the mind. The mind is a cosmic computer owned by the universe. There's only one mind in the universe. All souls in the world use that computer to access the bodies they've chosen to identify with. Bodies are made of atoms. The atoms are spinning in a dance of love for God. A body is an individual form that lasts as long as the atoms cling together. The mind is an individual form that lasts as long as the universe lasts. The soul is an individual form that lasts forever. The body and its activities always worship God. Even the most horrifying deeds are part of the dance. The dance goes on. When will the soul wake up out of its addiction to the computer and recognize itself? When will the soul learn to dance as the atoms and material bodies do, but as a spiritual body that needs no computer to perceive the glory of God? The soul is its own mind and body. Souls in the world usually communicate by way of their material bodies. A few contact each other through the computer-mind. How many touch each other directly, as souls, and join together in loving God? The atoms, the material bodies, the universe, are all innocent. The soul alone bears the guilt in having turned away from reality and toward illusion -- away from itself (the soul-self) and toward the body made of atoms -- away from God and toward the material world. How can we detoxify ourselves? One method is to sense the devotion of the body. Meditate on simple bodily activities as religious events. I meditate on walking. The feet are the most sacred part of the body because they are the most in touch with Mother Earth. The phenomenon of walking can inspire an entire personal religious life. By sensing how matter is directed toward spirit, the soul is encouraged to do the same. And God gives assistance from inside and

outside. The feet are always worshipping. Now it's up to me to learn from them. I put one foot forward and say something to God. Then the next foot, and repeat what I said or say something new. With each footstep I complete a thought, or a syllale of a chant, or an emotional reaching for God. With each footstep I get closer to God. The footsteps punctuate my prayers. The decisive placing of the foot on the ground places my love at the feet of God. Now, how can everything in the world -- my breathing, the beat of my heart, the rush of the wind, a fish waving its fins, the moonrise, and even the artifical constructions of humanity -- appear to me as priests of love? As I walk, the footsteps themselves will enlighten me. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The Equality of All Beings Now we know it can be done. Anti - WTO demonstrators in Seattle showed us. A common opponent can unite apparently disparate movements. Previously thought to be separate causes were human, environmental, and religious concerns. Human concerns (democracy, economic justice, workers' rights), environmental concerns (biodiversity, conservation, animal rights), and religious concerns (personal salvation, nonviolence, righteousness) -- they were thought to be separate causes, until a truly separate phenomenon rose up. Then their similarity became obvious. Activists for the people, for the planet, and for purity of heart, all advocate one cause: Equality. The World Trade Organization represented something else: Inequality, a tyranny of the privileged corporate elite. The WTO represented the real problem: Abuse of Power. Abuse of Power has always been the disease behind human rights violations, environmental degradation, and spiritual corruption. No remedy will cure our ills until the power problem is solved. Even the best laws and projects are easy to avoid obstacles on the power elite's path to ever greater domination, unless the offenders are reined in, as happened in Seattle. The large number of protestors, and the force and duplicity of the official reaction, display the urgency of our common cause -- the Equality of All Beings -against the real enemy -- Abuse of Power.

However, this new-found unity must solidify. Labor unionists have to see that jobs destroying our natural foundations will end up destroying workers. The philosophers of Deep Ecology have to see that we humans are a species with a justifiably human point of view. The preachers have to see that differing beliefs don't make any difference to God. Equality is a principle that must reach out to all living entities. Arne Naess called this "Self-realization." It challenges us to extend our self-concept out to something larger than the self of narrow, short-term concerns. It's time for a universal self to arise in the citizenry. It's time for the body politic to expand to include the cosmos. We saw a glimpse of that in Seattle. The confrontations will continue as the anguish of people around the world who are repressed by corporate control cries out. We demand release. But unless our resistance movement is based on a clear understanding of the implications of social, planetary, and spiritual equality, and of the necessity for an evolution of consciousness to the stage of Self- realization, then the outcome of our struggle will merely be another reversal of roles in the dreary drama of dominance and submission. Still, how is it possible for six billion humans to come to this awareness? What school will teach us? And who's willing to enroll? Is this for everyone or just a special few? It's life that will teach us. Events will force us to act. As the scales tip to one side, our need for balance will drive us toward Equality. The shouts of pain -- our own shouts -- will wake us out of our dreamy passivity and impel us toward the goal of the Equality of All Beings. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Wakan Mantra I walk to you, Wakan Tanka. I walk to you, Wakan Tanka. I walk to you, I walk to you, Wakan Tanka, Wakan Tanka. I talk to you, Wakan Tanka. I talk to you, Wakan Tanka. I talk to you, I talk to you, Wakan Tanka, Wakan Tanka. Every minute of the day, you're in my heart, you don't go 'way.

Every minute of the night, you're in my heart, you make it right. I walk to you, Wakan Tanka. I walk to you, Wakan Tanka. I walk to you, I walk to you, Wakan Tanka, Wakan Tanka. I talk to you, Wakan Tanka. I talk to you, Wakan Tanka. I talk to you, I talk to you, Wakan Tanka, Wakan Tanka. Not gonna just walk down the street any more. I'm walkin' to you. You're always there. You're everywhere. Not gonna just talk to myself any more. I'm talkin' to you. You're always here. You're near and dear. I walk to you, Wakan Tanka. I walk to you, Wakan Tanka. I walk to you, I walk to you, Wakan Tanka, Wakan Tanka. I talk to you, Wakan Tanka. I talk to you, Wakan Tanka. I talk to you, I talk to you, Wakan Tanka, Wakan Tanka. (repeat) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Such a view of God as personal yet impartial, having the qualities but not the limitations of personality, is known as personalism. -- Deb Whitehouse, "God: Personal, Eternal, and New," Unity Magazine, April 1996 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Strictly speaking, nothing but persons exist. -- Bishop Berkeley, Philosophical Commentaries xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Edgar Sheffield Brightman, "Personality As a Metaphysical Principle," in Personalism in Theology, Boston, Boston University Press, 1943. 41 A personalist is one who holds that everything real is a self at some level of its existence; what seems to be not a self is a part or aspect or experience of a self or selves. Nothing exists except in, of, and for a self. For personalism, personality or selfhood is a first principle. 42 Personalism is the view that personality or self is the first principle which unites and explains all other "first principles." As Bowne and Knudsen have often said, "personality is the key to reality." 44 When a personalist speaks of a self or person, he [sic] means a conscious unity; he does not mean to include in the self its interaction with what is not its consciousness. Hence the physiological organism is not the self or part of it. Quite literally, the self has a body, but is not a body, not even in part. The self sometimes causes, sometimes is caused by bodily processes; but the self is not part or process of the body, and no part or process of the self is the body. 56 What, then, is the essence of personality, philosophically considered? According to Dr. Knudson the basic traits of personality are "conscious unity, identity, and free activity," or, as he sometimes described them, "individuality, consciousness, and will." In this definition there is nothing any more anthropomorphic than in the definition of space and time, although there may be a greater psychological difficulty for some in accepting the existence of nonhuman persons that in accepting nonhuman space and time. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Krishna love Krishna peace Krishna lotus hands and feet Krishna flute Krishna dance Krishna feather and romance Krishna black Krishna boy Krishna gives us endless joy Krishna truth Krishna God Krishna is the Supreme Lord

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To Savioress Oh Savioress Oh Savioress The Lord Allure The Lord Allure Oh Savioress Oh Savioress The Lord Pleasure The Lord Pleasure xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx May you prosper, may you flourish, may you grow and may you nourish. May your life be at peace and united with God. May God bless you and keep you and fill you with love. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx END