A starting point for those who need to know

Last week I saw an item stating that George Soros was urging the Chinese to step up and become the leaders they are in the global money world, control the price of their currency in a way that helps all, etc.  This morning’s news had a piece on the Nobel Prize to a Chinese dissident which drew my mind back to Mr. Soros’ and I found this article that describes an interview he gave a couple of weeks ago.  There are enough links and references in this for anyone interested in the global economic outlook to pursue.  Mr. S is dubbed an eternal optimist, but we always need at least one of those at any time.

An Argument from Right Field that explains the root of confusion

I don’t know how I find these things … well, that’s not exactly true, since they are, apparently, revealed in a pretty timely manner. 

Exhibit A:    Richard Wetherill writes in 1952 The Tower of Babel (free download) a description of human behaviour independent of religion that suggests we are responsible for distortions in our view caused by rationalizing wrong choices … Alpha Publishing gives away his writings.  Irritating and enlightening, they remind me of the precepts and the 8-fold path, summarized splendidly by

Exhibit B:  U Pandita in another freely offered work, In This Very Life, The Liberation Teachings of the Buddha. (1992) He begins by stating that the rock bottom foundation of buddhism and practice is sila, morality and goes on to artfully label this, “A Basic Sense of Humanity”

Bottom line here is that lying (especially to oneself) is what confines us to an experience of confusion.  Our glimpses of the possibility of transforming various poisons often lead us to imagine that we can skip over this basic stuff and then wonder why our practice is often lost in a fog of distractions.  Oy vey!

The first reference gives a stepwise description of unwinding the distortions we have built into our view.  Mindfulness gives us a choice to operate such a process.

After sleeping on this I realize that I am making a judgment, but feel justified in doing so, a dangerous position, for sure … Exhibit A suggests there is an Absolute Right in terms of right/wrong (and that we know what it is) and we moderns/post-moderns recoil, but the buddha did describe a whole series of “rights” … the following paragraph illustrates CTR’s take on one of them:  (arrived just in time forwarded by Jan Watson)

RIGHT SPEECH:  In Sanskrit the word for speech is /vac/, which means /utterance/, /word/, or /logos/. It implies perfect communication, communication which says, "It is so," rather than, "I think it is so." "Fire is hot," rather than "I think fire is hot." Fire /is/ hot, automatically – the direct approach. Such communication is true speech, in Sanskrit /satya/, which means "being true." It is dark outside at this time. Nobody would disagree with that. Nobody would have to say, "I think it is dark outside," or "You must believe it is dark outside." You would just say, "It is dark outside." It is just the simple minimum of words we could use. It is true.

From "The Eightfold Path," in /The Myth of Freedom and the Way of
Meditation/, page 121 in the Shambhala Library edition.

What's Happening Here?

Why these dark rooms appearing on the light background?

Simplest explanation is that I have begun to do most of my writing in dark rooms ... a green room and an orange room that are how computer screens appeared into the 90's until the advent of Windows (I know; Macs never did) ... we are now so used to the clutter of 100 options, gadgets and tools that the flow of words to "paper" is subject to many distractions.

I am also teaching meditation in various ways and talking to myself about it as well.  So putting the tracks, opening up the dark rooms, here is a way for my dear readers to experience the contrast described in the piece below.

STOP for Being: A meditation instuction

This happens in another room; A present place with others learning meditation …

To see it completely, Click on it (Press Ctrl + to enlarge) … to return, Click the back arrow in your browser.

John Sherman cuts the crap out of Advaita

Advaita, often the headline name for non-dual philosophy these days  …  and while stating that our True nature is one with the infinite and that our imagined lives are, well, just that … this view often puts people’s backs up, or does not get enough traction to form a path out of the human maze …  check out this statement which is the intro quote in John’s recent ebook, available free on his website:

In spending our lives learning to tell our story, mostly to ourselves, we really only meet ourselves in terms of either reflections of our bodies in a mirror or in comparing concepts we have of our “self” with what we imagine other “selves” are or think, etc.  Self-definition  …  hard and frustrating work, that nobody really has to do.  Who cares?  John is talking about looking directly at our experience of being alive, of existing … without regard for what we find or not.

Video clip of John in action with a questioner …  doesn’t get much clearer than this  … part 2 if you’re interested.

… and finally a quote of direct pointing what to DO …

“Most important is to hold your attention on something that you believe to be your self. Since your self is everything whatsoever, it does not really matter! There is no way of determining, of defining, of pointing to some particular experience that is your self. Most important is to find some location in the mind that seems to be you, and to hold your attention there — without regard to all the Advaitic nonsense. I say nonsense because, in the context of one who is earnestly seeking for an end to their belief in the experience of separation, all of these ideas are nonsense.  For the one who believes oneself to be the doer, the thinker, the sufferer, all the ideas that deny the existence of the doer, the doing, the done, the sufferer, the suffering, all of these ideas are useless.

You must start where you are. Make this effort, just for
today. Find some thing that feels like “me”, and hold onto it. And
when your attention skitters away from it, hold onto it again.
Ramana promises that a) the actual entry into the core of ego is
the dissolution of ego, which does not mean that ego disappears;
and b) if you try for nothing other than this, with all your heart,
you will be successful, you will be unable to fail.”

… this is from another free ebook found on John’s site, “Meeting Ramana Maharshi”

In a pretty small nutshell

Pointing out the nature of human experience beyond the fantasized “self”  … This is Jean Klein in his 90’s at the time of this speaking.  I have stalled in his book, “Transmission of the Flame” on these opening paragraphs.  What further can be read?

Right Here, Right Now …. John Wheeler

"There is no ordinary life. Life is a grand display or flowering within the vast and clear presence of the divine intelligence. Every leaf and piece of dust is cradled in an expanse of light and presence. That presence-awareness that contains all things is also the deep presence of love and peace always. It is your own real being. The universe being revealed in each moment is aflame with the presence of exquisite love. In that, even the most ordinary thing is a unique and wonderful expression of the underlying oneness of all."

Poke around in here to find more ….  John is always pointing to direct experience, so if “you” think you need a “break” and can forget about “yourself” for a nanosecond or two … the fabled Kingdom may appear.

Catch you if I can …

It has been a moving experience for the last 3 months  …  settled into 3 times the area, room to breathe for both of us and the cats and a pretty decent space to work in … 2 months off “work” and out of sync with what used to be my world account for the gap here as well.  Worth it for sure and a lot of information has flooded my gates and will soon, I hope, appear here for those of you who can only keep up with me this way.

David Wilcock has also been busy writing a book he had not planned and releasing a new video … he describes all of that in his blog.

Here is the workspace … I know, not much different from the point of view of 2 screens and some books …

And the view from the 10th floor window at night … main thing is still big sky, like at “home”  … both places deservedly called Grand View.

Daytime view … looking over the arm Cowie Hill and Fairview/Rockingham …

“Feature wall in living room”  …  plus the added feature of open space indoors ….

Dining set that sort of fell from the sky  …  Dakin place sold and Ethan had to get rid of a lot of stuff fast, so we “helped”

Most Important Post here thus far

Big claim, available for all readers to test in experience/understanding … this document represents as far as I can comprehend the unification of all the traditions and most significantly the inner, often secret facets of them i.e. Kabbalah. Christian mysticism, Sufism, Vedanta, Tantric schools, the high Masonic degrees etc.  I would think and hope that you will feel a thrill of recognition as you read this … with the dawning realization that none of us is separated from our sincere brothers and sisters, no matter the differences in symbols, myths and cultural stories.  I am experiencing a personal healing of conceptual pain from past, more shadowed judgements tossed out by those who taught us our traditions.  I know that as you read this, that ancient, habitual, cultural judgements will be stirred, but at the same time it is calling us to see the Unity we inhabit and we can read words that surprise us; power words that are common in origin and intent to remind us of our Unity (cf footnotes).  All of this, even the seeming differences, exist within each of us.  We can allow this co-existence and also allow peace to enter.

It seems to me, that the relative is honoured here, within a Song of Praise to the Absolute and both are seen as integral to our human source and experience.  The ultimate realization is that each of us is experiencing a call to allow for this larger understanding to play out in our own lives and experience as we learn to let go of separative judgements in order to bring our own disparate parts into harmony by our inner work.

It is long and deep and requires some patience to pursue this and my understanding is meagre … those of you like Ray and Scott who have much stronger connections to your respective traditions may be able to help the rest of us come to further insight and I encourage you in the most heartfelt way to attempt to do so.  I believe that this is what we are here for.

Link to Gerald O’Donnell’s New Year 2010 message

Please leave whatever comments might occur to you, so we might wrestle with this challenge together somehow.  A most cheerful and blessed New Year to all of you, David

________________________________________________

Footnotes in the headlights:

Gospel of Thomas

This all strikes me as the ultimate message of Basic Goodness

His use of Ra ”the one across”  and David Wilcock’s bedrock reference in The Law of One material which is spoken by Ra.  Also appearing as: The Egyptian Sun God.

While the Tantric schools are non-theistic and therefore do not speak of the One, Unity is the Absolute pointed to continually.

Could Zen be somehow associated with Zion?

I remain, full of concepts, while having mixed minds most thoroughly in this life with Rod (non-conceptual buddhist), Ray (non-conceptual Hebrew), Rainer (non-conceptual Shambhallian) and Scott (non-conceptual Christian), constantly encouraged to go forward, allowing everything by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

In some ways, this is all going too quickly and I am going to have to leave cookie crumb trails in public for some of you, in order to not have duplicate efforts.  Here is one for Scott, if interested in the Gospel of Thomas as a sermon topic.  (article by F. F. Bruce, who is)

What might be a multi-coloured herring showed up doing this work.  It certainly is part of the 2012 theme.

Interesting … Chinese … times … eh?

whether it is “true” or not, the following is a bit like smelling salts … pungent and awakening, an old friend used to say, “we sit here half-asleep and then all of a sudden both feet hit the floor and we experience full sobriety”

______________________________________________

GAME-CHANGING EVENTS NOW UNDERWAY -- THE DRAGON RISES

Benjamin Fulford gave additional insider detail on how this story of the tungsten forgeries fits into the 'big picture' on the November 17, 2009 entry on his website (emphasis added):

China quietly introduces new financial system

China has stealthily introduced a new financial system based on the renminbi, which is well on its way to becoming fully convertible -- according to a high-level Chinese source.

In addition, China is purchasing 10,000 tons of gold to back up a new fund designed to develop and market heretofore forbidden and suppressed [i.e. UFO-related free-energy] technologies.

The fund will be based outside of China, and will be controlled by prominent members of the Chinese overseas community.

The gold purchase will take some time because of the logistics of transporting it -- and the Chinese wish to test it thoroughly. Both the Chinese government and MI6 now confirm reports that much of the gold sold by the Federal Reserve Board over the past decade is in fact gold-plated tungsten.

For its part, the renminbi is now convertible with South American currencies, the rouble, Middle-Eastern currencies, the yen, South East Asian currencies and African currencies.

“We will slowly introduce our new financial system in parallel with the old one and hope that people steadily migrate towards it,” the Chinese official says. 

Meanwhile, the latest G20 meeting ended in acrimony and chaos.

The leadership of the West is in total disarray, and will remain so until the Federal Reserve Board’s bankruptcy becomes visible even to the most brainwashed section of the Western public.

This is now expected by January or February.

Both MI6 and a senior Chinese government source now predict the collapse of the Federal Reserve dollar by that time.

We are also hearing various reports that many Pentagon and other US alphabet suit agency figures with both US and Israeli citizenship have recently fled to Israel. Things are coming to a head.

the above quote popped out of a massive David Wilcock transmission on Christmas eve … he knows how to give a timely gift … this takes time to read and may need some grains of salt, but your intuition will guide you and if you make it through, leave a comment here.  I’d like to see what we’re thinking.

How Ironic … well that’s a nice way of putting it.

They say Mohamed El-Erian was “having a heart attack” at the way Larry Summers, then Harvard president was handling the large cash element of the University’s finances.  He only lost 1.8B there … and it is less than reassuring that he is now the head of Obama’s Economic team.  I got a small kick out of the the Moslem gentleman’s distress over the mad American’s foolhardy fearlessness.  The cash part is usually what is not used for gambling, except by opportunistic males on their way to infamy either at home or elsewhere.

It’s ALWAYS a Question of Balance

This rock washed up on the Nova Scotian shore at Arisaig … an overnight appearance, balanced on less than 2 inches of space.

You really have to click on this to see it properly and in full perspective.

amazing, eh?

Primarily for Photos

Are these paragraphs intriguing?

A mathematical representation of an action at a distance effect is called a field, such as a gravitational or electric field. It was Albert Einstein’s foremost hope to find a single relation which would express the effect of both electric and gravitational phenomena; in fact, a theory which would unify the whole of physics, a unified field theory. Einstein believed that this was a creation of total order and that all physical phenomena were evolved from a single source.

This unified field theory, describing matter as pure field, has been
accomplished now. It seems that the entire situation was analogous to the solution of a ponderously complex Chinese puzzle. If you can find that the right key turns among so many wrong ones, the puzzle easily falls apart. Dewey B. Larson found the solution to this problem, and the puzzle not only fell apart, but revealed an elegantly adequate unified field theory rich in practical results; and, like a good Chinese puzzle, the solution was not complex, just unexpected. Instead of assuming five dimensions, Larson assumed six, and properly labelled them as the three dimensions of space and the three dimensions of time. He assumed that there is a three-dimensional coordinate time analogous to our observed three-dimensional space.

The result of this approach is that one can now calculate from the basic postulate of Larson’s theory any physical value within our physical universe, from sub-atomic to stellar. This long-sought-after unified field theory is different because we are accustomed to thinking of time as one-dimensional, as a stream moving in one direction. Yet once you get the hang of it, coordinate time is mathematically a more comfortable concept with which to deal. Professor Frank Meyer of the Department of Physics at
the University of Wisconsin presently distributes a quarterly newsletter to scientists interested in Larson’s new theory which explores perplexing questions in physical theory using Larson’s approach. I was interested in testing Larson’s theory and made extensive calculations using his postulate. I became convinced that his theory is indeed a workable unified field theory.

Here is Larson’s 3 volume, The Structure of the Physical Universe. (pdf can be downloaded, with a right click …), a reference to  Frank Meyer’s website and to the International Society of Unified Science, Inc.

(my apologies for dumping this on you like this …. after my shower this morning the command was, “get this to Photos” … I had many other thoughts about how to do it gradually and politely which might have ended up being, “never” … so it is what it is.)

Let me know if you get it here, otherwise I will put this link on Facebook for you.

burkhold@gmail.com

Reality Tunnels vs The Science of Peace

Two pieces have come to my attention which I think are suggesting a common view, but which, at least on the surface seem like different approaches.

First, a scientific view, with Reality Tunnels in focus pointing to our tendency to not only believe our own version of Reality, but to produce/project it.

 

Coming from a more metaphysical direction, David Wilcock is also undermining the cultural dualism which binds us to our “position” rather than opening to the Present.  In his introduction to The Science of Peace there is much to reflect on.

The Mayan Prophecy of 2012 update

Jose Arguelles, early student of CTR, promoted the 1987 Harmonic Convergence event(s) and has not stopped working on the revolutionary lunar calendar since.

Here is an update from his site.  This is as close to horse mouth you can get on this topic.  20 Questions answered.

While no one can say with any certainty if this type of occurrence will come to pass, this is definitely a hot topic among scientists who are forecasting that we are nearing the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. This is significant because we are in a whole new technological era than we were fifty years ago. According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research: "The next sunspot cycle will be 30-50% stronger than the last one...

Reality as Opera … Metaphorce be wit u: Rainer

The music plays, turns ominous, bad news arrives, people react … sun comes out another day, a flute plays, we feel better … as information begins to shape our worlds as surely as the weather or the music … Al Gore publishes An Inconvenient Truth which turns out to turn on one piece of data that is misinterpreted in his movie … Counterpoint – a BBC production:  The Great Global Warming Swindle

Which jibes with David Wilcock pointing out that the significant warming effects are coming from cycles that are larger than our solar – planetary system.  Climate change is occurring on the other planets in the solar system.

Could it be that all of these information flows are like the music and libretto of an opera, massaging our awareness to become more open and awake … to see more clearly rather than run hither and thither like Henny Penny.  Perhaps we can relax and not worry excessively today about which part of the sky is reported to be falling and behave decently with our fellows on this spaceship.

Do not get me wrong … climate change is very real, but it is only fair to point out that this being entirely man-made is now, once again, in question.  The following snapshot shows that temperature went down, during the 4 most industrial decades.  I get as nervous about green evangelicals as about the other variety.  This Calvinist thaang is hard to shake.  To a scientist, Al Gore’s key graph below shows CO2 as a lagging “indicator” … i.e when there is warming C02 increases follow.  This makes sense, as gases are released from melting ice.

The green line is the Earth's overall temperature. There is a steady warming trend through the first half of the 20th century, up until the end of World War II -- where everyone could "chill out" and relax. Temperatures immediately started going down, worldwide. Then, global temperatures CONTINUED decreasing, steadily, through the entire "Post-War Economic Boom" -- even while our production of "greenhouse gases" was skyrocketing.

At the exact point that the 'boom' ends, thanks to the sudden gas crisis and widespread economic recession in the early 1970s, global temperatures started INCREASING... and have been going up ever since.

David Wilcock goes on to say that the best scientific warming data suggests that our own state of consciousness is far more potentially "toxic" and damaging to the planet -- the way we think each day, as we move through our apparently private lives -- than any industrial emissions we are creating.

Maybe the youthful injunction to Chill makes sense.

sometimes we forget … here’s less than 10 minutes to remember

Reggie muses about intimacy … and how it cannot be held on to …  Press arrow to play.

Then he speaks of love, not as Kahil Gibran would, but in a realistic way that touches our hearts at a deeper place than mere poetry ... Click here to watch.  …  use back arrow to return here.

Finally, whispering “the Beauty”, the way Kurtz whispered, “the horror”  …  in awe of the magnificence of the moment we never leave even though our mind strays quite far …

In case you just have to see that bag dancing one more time ….

 

Poetry trips the thinking mind, we fall awake … immersed in that deeper place.  For those whose thinking mind is tripping anyway, video clips can release the trap door.

Warren Buffet bets on the future Big Time

Looks like Rapid Rail Service and all the Green advantages of that might be in the works with a massive vote for Mr. B, buying an entire railway … this is HUGE!

Another special voice

Could you be tempted to do something you think you don’t believe in?

This link will show you only two pictures.  Comment if you dare.

That one needs a chaser and Kate Schutt will do it.

I wake to CBC radio 1 and on weekends Stan Carew is playing music that is often very fresh … the purity of this voice startled me awake and all week has not lost its verve.  The other tunes offered are also of similar wonderful quality … AND … she played the Carleton in Halifax last Tuesday night.

Study isolates virus in chronic fatigue sufferers

This should be good news … Reuters reports “Researchers found the virus, known as XMRV, in the blood of 68 out of 101 chronic fatigue syndrome patients. The same virus showed up in only 8 of 218 healthy people, they reported on Thursday in the journal Science.”

Then this line had me screaming,”NO, NO, NO!”

“the study offers hope that CFS sufferers might gain relief from a cocktail of drugs designed to fight AIDS, cancer and inflammation.”

So now that we know you’re not crazy, we can give you a “cocktail” of all the worst poisons we have discovered will not quite kill you.

This ain’t the evening TV news …

David Wilcock is always a source for stimulating and challenging information that is definitely NOT Infotainment.   This will take me a few posts to do justice to and I’ll start by briefly introducing the characters:

Brian O’Leary is a Physicist who was training to be an astronaut on the Mars mission that never happened.  He aborted his academic career when he discovered that scientific methods could be applied to the huge territory outside the official box of Scientism, the modern religion.  Brian is now an advocate for Free Energy solutions and uses methods he learned from years in the peace movement.

“Henry Deacon” has been talking to David as an Insider who feels he must reveal what he knows and in these pieces finally actually appears as Art Neumann, his real identity.  He seem somewhat strange, but I think that’s because he has realized that he is now fulfilling his mission in life and is no longer afraid of the consequences.

Pete Peterson is an inventor-genius and has proven that acupressure not only works but is the way the body functions.  He also has worked on inside government projects and has contacts in there.

Steven Greer is an emergency room doctor who has found his mission to be advocating for government disclosure of the UFO and ET contacts that have continued over many years.  He created a remarkable event with many congress people in July of 2001 which probably would have led to disclosure much sooner if 9/11 had not occurred.

When these people get together there is lots of fascinating information revealed, but it is also work on the part of the viewer, because it is not polished, edited and massaged and some of the interviewers are tremendous obstacles to hearing the story of the persons we might want to hear.  Their projections get smeared all over the place.  The key quality of these people is their tremendous heart and bravery in the face of cultural, business and government suppression of the knowledge they have pursued.  I feel like I am meeting fellow warriors in these videos.

I am going to introduce them in the order I watched them myself.  (if you want to bypass my blah, blah go here) Pete Peterson is in the middle of a 4 hour session when he began to talk about medical diagnosis and treatment based on acupressure and demonstrates as he is speaking a way to tone up your meridians.  (15 – 30 minutes in)  The interaction between Pete and David seems odd at times, but I concluded that the first 2 hours were interviewed by Bill who is running the camera and Pete is still focused mainly there.  At the end of the 4 hours he expresses a strong connection with David going forward, so don’t let that put you off.

Medical “science” is now claiming to get 6% accuracy in diagnosis up from 5%.  Pete is claiming better than 80% by examining the organs through the acupressure points, then correlating with a database of substances that includes Every Thing … creating an electro-magnetic simulation in the body of what a substance will do, then measuring the point under observation.  When a match is found that affects that point, the amount (dosage) is adjusted for optimum, MEASURED effect … all of this BEFORE the person ingests anything.  Not surprisingly, the results are excellent and felt almost immediately by the person.  Of course, very few of the substances selected in this way are Big Pharma’s “best sellers” … probably why your local MD doesn’t have one of these devices yet.

After going deeper into this in the last couple of days, I am now thinking in the following metaphor:

The acupressure grid is like an electro-magnetic matrix that the rest of the physical hangs on to as condensed light … this in contrast to our usual assumption that we are meat hanging on a skeleton of condensed mineral matter.  With this view, it is understandable that your hands and fingers feel buzzed when you begin to probe and massage some of these points.  I found a great little pamphlet that gives you all you’ll need to start working with specific aches, pains and groans.  Nice pictures to help you find the “Spot”

Is this the ONE … Microsoft gives some hints

Watch this and see if you might be able to read on it and do some useful work even … or at least dream in colour.

Drunvalo Melchizedek Video

He starts by stating categorically that the spirituality of Tibet and India is moving to South America ... and then goes on, and quite far on ... fasten your psychic seatbelt for this. Not your usual grandpa reminiscences ...

Part 1 of a series from an old friend.  Merkaba if you get there is a very interesting meditation vehicle (more on that in other clips) and he does, in part 2 talk quite a bit about it … this fellow talks of himself as a “walk-in” … someone who appeared here from elsewhere with “inside” info … always fascinating and a tad mind-blowing to listen to him talk about vanguard stuff as if its, well, ordinary. I'm going to paste part 2 here and then let you explore it further if you wish.  When a section ends the Youtube offerings to further material are very relevant.

For Disorganized Writer wanabees

I’m browsing the torrent listings and see The Power of Less and have to find out what that’s about … discovering that the author learned how to make substantial changes in his own life and has become a very widely read blogger on Zen Habits.  He has also has produced an organizational approach, taking off on GTD, calling it Zen To Done (ZTD) … streamlining and enhancing David Allen’s very popular methods.  I like his bend on this.

Not stopping there, he developed Write to Done which encourages writers in their writing and also has some focus on how to find readers.  With the ubiquitous context sensitive ads in the sidebar I found How To Sell Your eBook.  

Combine all of this with Suite 101 the 5th most popular Canadian web site which is a place for free-lance writing in all categories to be gathered and promoted.

Now don’t say I never publish anything useful.

Lehman brothers as Sacrifice for the Global Economy

Ironic indeed, but today some people are saying that allowing Lehman Brothers to fail a year ago, panicked the US government into making the funds available to save AIG and probably B of A and, of course Goldman Sachs.

But this chap thinks it was luck rather than brilliance on the parts of Messieurs Paulson and Bernanke.

Now here is a globalism that is more global

Magna wins Opel bid. After months of deliberation, General Motors decided to sell a 55% stake in its Opel unit to the consortium of Magna International (MGA) and Russia's Sberbank, while keeping a 35% stake for itself and a 10% stake for employees. The deal is a victory for Germany's Angela Merkel, who had lobbied for Magna's bid and could get a boost in the upcoming elections, as well as for Russia, which has aggressively pushed for a role in the consolidating global car market. Details of German financing for the deal will be finalized in the next few weeks. (Read GM's press release)

Ya Gotta Wonder …. not quite over the top, but close

What would a Beer Bike be?

Some kind of vehicle with up to 22 people and a central bar with many litres of beef careening through the streets of Amsterdam.

Reuters Article

 

Introducing, “The Man from Brazil”

Paulo Celho is a phenomenon … who else has sold 100 MILLION books … and many of them by giving them away.  The interior story is more interesting, still.  He takes a walking 500 mile pilgrimage in 1986 and writes about that.  He then writes, The Alchemist, which sold 900 copies, but since then 65 million … a story of spiritual search, discovery and awakening.  Oh yes, he had a spiritual awakening on the Road to Santiago.  He is amazingly prolific and does not stop … you can discuss The Alchemist with him on line; he checks 2 – 3 times a day to see if someone is there … he has a website called “Warrior of the Light” that has a sharp, incisive piece every couple of weeks. 

To make this all the more challenging, his books mostly start with, “

O Mary, conceived without sin,
pray for us who turn to you. Amen

The Prologue to The Pilgrimage, begins the movement from a man as mystic acolyte to the one whose heart opened to the world … read:

‘And now, before the sacred countenance of RAM, you must touch with your hands the Word of Life and acquire such power as you need to become a witness to that Word throughout the World’.
     The master raised high my new sword, still sheathed in its scabbard. The flames on the bonfire crackled – a good omen, indicating that the ritual should continue. I knelt and, with my bare hands, began to dig into the earth.
     It was the night of January 2, 1986, and we were in Itatiaia, high on one of the peaks in the Serra do Mar, close to the formation known as the Agulhas Negras (Black Needles) in Brazil. My Master and I were accompanied by my wife, one of my disciples, a local guide,
and a representative of the great fraternity that is comprised of esoteric orders from all over the world – the fraternity known as ‘The Tradition.’ The five of us – and the guide, who had been told what was to happen – were participating in my ordination as a Master of the Order of RAM.
     I finished digging a smooth, elongated hole in the dirt. With great solemnity, I placed my hands on the earth and spoke the ritual words. My wife drew near and handed me the sword I had used for more than ten years; it had been a great help to me during hundreds of magical operations. I placed it in the hole I had dug, covered it with dirt, and smoothed the surface. As I did so, I thought of the many tests I had endured, of all I had learned, and of the strange phenomena I had been able to invoke simply because I had had that ancient and friendly sword with me. Now it was to be devoured by  the earth, the iron of its blade and the wood of its hilt returning to nourish the source from which its power had come.
     The Master approached me and placed my new sword on the earth that now covered the grave of my ancient one. All of us spread our arms wide, and the Master, invoking his power, created a strange light that surrounded us; it did not illuminate, but it was clearly
visible, and it caused the figures of those who were there to take on a color that was different from the yellowish tinge cast by the fire. Then, drawing his own sword, he touched it to my shoulders and my forehead as he said, ‘By the power and the love of RAM, I anoint you Master and Knight of the Order, now and for all the days of your life. R for rigor, A for adoration, and M for mercy; R for regnum, A for agnus, and M for mundi. Let not your sword remain for long in its scabbard, lest it rust. And when you draw your sword, it must never be replaced without having performed an act of goodness, opened a
new path, or tasted the blood of an enemy.’

     With the point of his sword, he lightly cut my forehead. From then on, I was no longer required to remain silent. No longer did I have to hide my capabilities nor maintain secrecy regarding the marvels I had learned to accomplish on the road of the Tradition. From that moment on, I was a Magus.
     I reached out to take my new sword of indestructible steel and wood, with its black and red hilt and black scabbard. But as my hands touched the scabbard and as I prepared to pick it up, the Master came forward and stepped on my fingers with all his might. I screamed
and let go of the sword.
    I looked at him, astonished. The strange light had disappeared, and his face had taken on a phantasmagoric appearance, heightened by the flames of the bonfire.
     He returned my gaze coldly, called to my wife, and gave her the sword, speaking a few words that I could not hear. Turning to me, he said, ‘Take away your hand; it has deceived you. The road of the Tradition is not for the chosen few. It is everyone’s road. And the power that you think you have is worthless, because it is a power
that is shared by all. You should have refused the sword.  If you had done so, it would have been given to you, because you would have shown that your heart was pure. But just as I feared, at the supreme moment you stumbled and fell. Because of your avidity, you will now
have to seek again for your sword. And because of your pride, you will have to seek it among simple people.  Because of your fascination with miracles, you will have to struggle to recapture what was about to be given to you so generously.’
     The world seemed to fall away from me. I knelt there unable to think about anything. Once I had returned my old sword to the earth, I could not retrieve it. And since the new one had not been given to me, I now had to begin my quest for it all over again, powerless and
defenceless. On the day of my Celestial Ordination, my Master’s violence had brought me back to earth.
     The guide smothered the fire, and my wife helped me up. She had my new sword in her hands, but according to the rules of the Tradition, I could not touch it without permission from my Master. We descended through the forest in silence, following the guide’s
lantern, until we reached the narrow dirt road where the cars were parked.
     Nobody said goodbye. My wife put the sword in the trunk of the car and started the engine. We were quiet for a long time as she carefully navigated around the bumps and holes in the road.
     ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, trying to encourage me. ‘I’m
sure you’ll get it back.’
     I asked her what the Master had said to her.
    ‘He said three things to me. First, that he should have brought along something warm to wear, because it was much colder up there than he had expected. Second, that he wasn’t surprised at anything that had happened up there, that this has happened many times before with others who have reached the same point as you. And third, that your sword would be waiting for you at the right time, on the right day, at some point on the road that you will have to travel. I don’t know either the day or the time. He only told me where I should hide it.’
    ‘And what road was he talking about?’ I asked nervously.
   ‘Ah, well, that he didn’t explain very well. He just said that you should look on the map of Spain for a medieval route known as the Strange Road to Santiago.’

     This writing crackles with authenticity … I have the main works in electronic form.  Let me know if your appetite is whet enough. 

     He believes in peer-to-peer sharing of books and even created a Pirate Cuelho site to distribute his books.  Got him in trouble with his publisher, HarperCollins.