From: Connie
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2004 4:30 am
Subject: [Dreamkeeper] WM Love in Action Series - 7: Indian spiritual
leader's address at UN Anniversary + Images from 'Life of Pi'
To: [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected]
WHAT MATTERS, LOVE IN ACTION
SERIES-7, January 25, 2004
# Indian spiritual leader's
address at the United Nations 50th Anniversary Celebrations
# Images from the novel 'Life
of Pi' by Vann Martel
Dear list members,
In 1995 the United Nations
celebrated its 50th Anniversary of service to the global community.
Below are the words spoken by the Indian spiritual leader Sri
Sri Ravi Shanker in an address at the Anniversary celebrations.
Reading the talk has been an uplifting experience for me. I hope
it will be that for you, too. The call for a spiritual education
that leads to a full understanding of all religions in the world
is more obviously relevant today than they were nine years ago.
The talk is featured in a
book, 'Wisdom for the New Millenium', which I assume is now out
of print as it is not listed amongst the books on offer at the
web site of the Art of Living Foundation, headed by Sri Sri Ravi
Shanker, the author - http://www.artofliving.org .
The book was given to me from
his bookshelf by Jörg Frey, an artist friend and writer
on money matters who is visiting me this weekend. Interestingly,
it dovetails neatly with another gift book from my daughter Carla-Maria
and her husband Fergus, the novel 'Life of Pi' by Vann Martel,
winner of the Man Booker Prize 2002. Pi, the Indian hero, at
just 16 years old is baptised Christian yet is as actively Muslim
and Hindu.
I enjoyed these images from
the novel:
# The reason death sticks
so closely to life isn't biological necessity, it is envy. Life
is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous,
possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over
oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance,
and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.
# I'll be honest about it.
It is not atheists who get stuck in my claw but agnostics. Doubt
is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of
Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ
spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the
Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on.
To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility
as a means of transportation.
# [With reference to a French-speaking
lady, who slips on occasion on the understanding of English sounds]:
And so, when she first heard of Hara Krishnas, she didn't hear
right. She heard, 'Hairless Christians', and that is what they
were for her for many years. When I corrected her, I told her
that in fact she was not so wrong; that Hindus, in their capacity
for love are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in
the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians,
in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.
A bit of fun, to counterpoint
the call of Sri Sri Ravi Shanker.
In friendship,
Boudewijn Wegerif
http://www.whatmatters.nu
ADDRESS AT THE UNITED NATIONS
50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS
by Sri Sri Ravi Shanker
Beloved souls, I am glad that
we are gathered here to ponder the ways and means to bring back
human values to society. Today, I see the crisis in the world
as one of identification: a man identifies himself with his profession,
religion, race, culture, nationality, language, region, or sex.
Only after that does he identify with being a human being. Limited
identification leads to war. Through education we need to bring
about a change in our basic identity. We are all first part of
the Divine, and secondly, we are human beings. This can happen
only through right spiritual knowledge.
Here I would like to make
a clear distinction between 'religion' and 'spirituality'. Religion
is the banana skin and spirituality is the banana. All religions
have three aspects: values, symbols and customs. While values
are the same in all the religions, symbols and customs differ.
Today we have forgotten the values and simply hold on to the
symbols and customs. Only spirituality can nourish human values.
It can eliminate frustrations and bring back contentment and
happiness in life.
Right education is that which
creates in each person a sense of belongingness with the whole
world. A person learns to embrace all the religions of the world
as his own and can choose to practice one without decrying the
other. Members of a family can practice more than one religion.
This should be the strategy for the 21st century.
In this age, when technology
has advanced, we have cared very little for the emotional and
spiritual needs of people. Neither at home nor in school have
we been taught how to release negative emotions. Neither at home
nor at school does one learn to handle one's own mind.
Breathing techniques, pranayama,
meditation and yoga can release the tension and negative emotions
and help one to live in the present. Man either worries about
the past or the future and gets stuck in negativity. Only spirituality
can help him to get rid of the negativity and live in the present.
Prayer, when combined with silence, can connect us to the infinite
source of power deep within our hearts.
A stress-free mind and a disease-free
body are the birthright of every human being. This august assembly
can draw a syllabus and implement a plan to introduce spiritual
knowledge at various levels in the society, such as in schools,
colleges and rehabilitation centers. Only then can we reduce
the crises and the diseases in our own environment.
Due to lack of proper spiritual
education and lack of a total and comprehensive understanding
of all religions of the world, religious fanaticism has taken
root in many regions. Spirituality, without dogma, and with understanding
which is all encompassing, is the need of the 21st century.
Now is the time to attend
to this. Human evolution has two steps: the first is from being
a 'somebody' to being a 'nobody', and the second is from being
a 'nobody' to being 'everybody'. This knowledge can bring sharing
and caring throughout the world.
________________________
This Love in Action E-letter is posted at
http://www.whatmatters.nu/LoveinActionE-letters/WM-LoveinAction-2.html#LIA-7
* The What Matters Programme
is an initiative by Boudewijn Wegerif, to spread information
about what is happening in the world today, and how things could
be, given a schooling at all levels to free the self and the
world from debt/guilt oppression and money madness - a schooling
for Satyagraha, truth and love force. The trustees of the What
Matters Programme are the collegiate of Folkhögskola Vårdinge
By, an adult education residential college south of Stockholm.
From: glen
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2004 1:49 am
Subject: [Dreamkeeper] CLEVER MATHS
To: [email protected]
Subject: CLEVER MATHS
hi All,
you may enjoy the send up
of maths nuts here, and the administration in the USA too...
Glennys
THIS IS VERY CLEVERLY PUT
TOGETHER
Jeffrey Francois
At New York's Kennedy airport
today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher
was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of
a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator.
At a morning press conference,
Attorney general John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a
member of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being charged
by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.
"Al-gebra is a fearsome
cult,", Ashcroft said. "They desire average solutions
by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a
search of absolute value. They use secret code names like "x"
and "y" and refer to themselves as "unknowns",
but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of
the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.
"As the Greek philanderer
Isosceles used to say, 'There are 3 sides to every triangle',"
Ashcroft declared.
When asked to comment on the
arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have
better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more
fingers and toes. "I am gratified that our government has
given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these
math-dogs who are willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard.
Murky statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of
influence," the President said, adding: "Under the
circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our point,
and draw the line."
President Bush warned, "These
weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything
in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become
exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts
of vertex." Attorney General Ashcroft said, "As our
Great Leader would say, read my ellipse. Here is one principle
he is uncertainty of: though they continue to multiply, their
days are numbered as the hypotenuse tightens around their necks."
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