Asanas and Ayahuasca
Last month, Reality Sandwich and Jivamukti Yoga School presented Evolver: Wake Up and Dream, which brought together some 750 people from a diverse array of NYC tribes for a night of presentations, performances, art and dancing. It was in many ways a true success, amazing connections were made across multiple channels, and the party was still driving hard into the wee hours.
The evening began with a discussion between Jivamukti co-founder Sharon Gannon and Reality Sandwich editorial director Daniel Pinchbeck. Within hours of the talk, visitors to RS were posting furious comments, outraged at things either Sharon or Daniel said – or were thought to have said. A few courageous souls replied in defense of the speakers. Debate raged for a couple of weeks before finally settling into more thoughtful ruminations. Finally, in an act that demonstrates the mindfulness of the RS community, a couple of the original flame throwers apologized for kicking off the discussion in such heated tones.
What could Daniel and Sharon have possibly said to spark such controversy? Now you can hear for yourself. Here's a video of the infamous dialog, "Asanas and Ayahuasca."
Video filmed and edited by Drew Meeks. Animation by Travis Spangler.
- 3-5-08
- Ken Jordan's blog
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Animal vs. Human Consiousness
I noticed a comment or two where someone might be offended. But I think it was obvious that they were not said in a way to offend or belittle anyone.
Putting all arguments aside over misunderstandings of comments..
I want to attempt to frame both Daniel's and Sharon's points of view in relation to my own.
First of all, Daniel gave his understanding of consciousness as it relates to facets of intelligence, comprehension, intelligence, intellect, and things of that nature. By Daniel's definition, he believes that humans have a higher capacity for consciousness. Sharon responded by pointing out that the definition of consciousness refers to "knowing wholly." She used the example of how animals connected into a consciousness where they know wholly their environment and how to be in sync with it. It is a sense that they consciousness is not limited or tainted to a degree where an wild animal would destroy the ecosystem it lives in.Her idea opposes the way that humans destroy their own ecosystems and thus might not be as "conscious" as animals.
I have to say that I cannot disagree with either of them but that I have another viewpoint. The thing I noticed with both of their viewpoints is that they are limited to a certain degree. My viewpoint that I will present is also limited until someone else points out what I miss. However I think it incorporates and expands on both viewpoints. Thus, I agree with Daniel that consciousness deals with intelligence and some of the mental capacities and limits. I also agree with Sharon on the knowing wholly idea; and that animals are very conscious as they are connected to their environment, and even more connected to it than most humans.
This is where I add my thoughts: I believe that humans are conscious no less than animals. I believe that humans are conscious enough to know wholly, and to be connected with their environment just as much as wild animals are. However, I think that humans are unique in that their mental capacities allows them to defy their connectedness to nature. Humans have the intellect to choose not to be connected whereas animals only go on their instinct and consciousness that forces them to be connected.
Furthermore, humans have the capacity to be connected to more than just nature and their environment. Humans have the capacity to know wholly and be connected and conscious of oneness and all aspects that persist beyond this physical life, and these physical limits.
I realize Daniel and Sharon didn't get the opportunity to continue expanding their definitions as I have here. They probably both could have elaborated even more if given the time and place. However, I just wanted to point out the aspects that could summarize and build on their definitions.
What do you think?
consciousness
What is consciousness?
It is something we and animals share, and some ancient traditions, and thinkers now, and meyself, believe consciousness to be feeling which cannot be measured, but is rather how matter-energy, which creates all forms, from gross to subtle, feels-from-the-inside. Yet isn't 'inside', because consciousness does not have location (Christian de Quincey).
So you cannot pinpoint consciousness. Judge its location. For how do we judge a location when there isn't one?
Also, how can we judge another being, and member of another species as being xyz. Hasn't this been done, and its result being the vilest cruelty. For example Rene Descartes assuming knowledge of 'consciousness' and assuming animals did not possess it, and thus could be tortured quilt-free because they were mere 'automata'?
So are we so enlightened now we can trust our judgements of animals, which are a myriad of different species, and individual unique individuals within those species?
How can we have the nerve, the state we are in, with what we have done and continue doing to the Land and other animals habitations, and incarceration of millions of them in concentration camps, to assume we have greater consciousness.?
Yes we can choose not to be part of Nature. What is doing that deciding? Is it some feedback loop, some self-consciousness which defies instinct? Which looks down on instinct as being part of the animal world which we want no part of?
In the book An Unnatural Order: The Roots of our Destruction of Nature, by Jim Mason--which I highly recommend --he often uses the term "misothery" to define fear and loathing of the animals, and is a word connected with "misogyny". Because both animals and women became slaves, most likely in that order!
I wonder what you mean when you say:
"Furthermore, humans have the capacity to be connected to more than just nature and their environment. Humans have the capacity to know wholly and be connected and conscious of oneness and all aspects that persist beyond this physical life, and these physical limits."
That is not my experience, even though I have had a fair share of psychedelic experience. For I wonder why you would think that there is anything outside 'Nature', and that animals could not experience the wonders of Nature in spiritual ways maybe not accessible to us, especially us modern city-livin humans!
verily
zezt asked: { I wonder what
zezt asked:
{
I wonder what you mean when you say:
"Furthermore, humans have the capacity to be connected to more than just nature and their environment. Humans have the capacity to know wholly and be connected and conscious of oneness and all aspects that persist beyond this physical life, and these physical limits."
}
My Response:
I suppose the point I am getting is that humans have the capacity to understand that they are part of oneness. That is, all things are connected and are essentially one. And by all things i mean animal, human, environment, dust, nature, universe, soul, thought, cocoa pebbles, etc. I would argue that the One is what people might think of as God. Personally, I don't see anything outside of anything else in the big picture. I suppose when we try to classify things as you and I have done, we are essentially separating them from eachother. Having said that, I don't discredit animals from maybe experiancing spirituality in ways we don't understand. The dung beetle lives a life that I have no perception of. I can't speak on behalf of the dung beetle or yourself either for that matter. This is why three beings have three different viewpoints- we have different eyes and different perceptions.
And having mentioned that, I am saying that we might percieve that we are not connected to oneness (nature, ecosystems, consiousness, animals, cocoa pebbles). When in reality (if there is such a thing, or an absense of such a thing), we are connected in ways we just don't quite understand.
Feel free to disagree with me. I like to put my thoughts out there. Im ok with taking a beating if I am wrong. The worst thing that could happen is that I am corrected and I will learn.
Animal Consciousness vs. Human Consciousness
After alot of thinking I realized that what seperates animals from humans is that humans can make a decision baised on their beliefs of what they think their diet should be, whereas animals do not have that faculty. The way our society is now I think we should shift our focus away from a diet baised on animal consumption. What seperates us from animals is that we can make the choice to stop eating them.
-Justin Marchi-
justin_marchi@yahoo.com
ok let the cat take a stab at this historikal exchange
i have read some of the comments, on this event, and this is what i hear.I hear the back sweep of two types of approaches.AT this rather post nine 9/1l pre 2012 cosmic heart beat.I think these two different approaches are not at odds, but are more about the resonant clash of symbolic and harmonic dissonance.Between a mind that has plunged into the shamanic/philosophic/cultural nexus, and one that has been drawn into the new vegan karma/dharma community of gentle practice. obviously these two approachs are going to sound strange tones and some octaves of the nada, that are beyond the normal hearing level.Make you feel a tad rowdy rowdy in mucho buckola seats.
No Blame. cross the great river...my two hay pennies tossed in.
Character is Fate
Yeats, in his books of occult philisophy, speculates on the reasons for the widely different destiny or fate of various passionate great individuals who had achieved, in Yeats' words, "unity of being." We might today call these people "self-realized," recognising the truth of Heraclitus profound statement that "character is fate." In other words, why do men of extraordinary sensitivity and sensibility, like Shakespeare or Dante or Eliot not renounce the world of illusions, of maya? Why do they continue to act within it? Yeats suggests that they are in fact great saints, but because of the nature of their character, of their soul, they plunged into the world of passionate action - into theatre, love, politics, culture, warfare, and following their true being found enlightenment strengthening its hold on them, transforming them even though or perhaps because they acted in our world of illusion. Yeats himself, who was deeply involved in passionate political action - and yet also translated the "ten principal upanishads" and was intimately familiar from adolescence with Patanjali's work - conceived his task to be the restoration of ancestral heroism and defiance to the subjected and shamed Irish. Can we say that their vision of being is less accurate than that of the great renunciate sages? Yeats has a famous line, "Hatred of God may bring the soul to God." Who can say what consummation in eternity would occur were an individual to take up that eerily numinous machine gun of Daniel's analogy? How many of us would refuse out of fear of death. Maybe for the SS guard those bullets might be a blessing - releasing him from his suffering of ignorance into the transparency of understanding and forgiveness. A thorny issue.
For Yeats, every man or woman has a fate and quest and salvation that is theirs alone. It is a view of life that is fearless and joyous, conceives of eternity and immortality, yet also embraces the profound significance of flesh and blood action and experience. It is ultimately a vision of diversity, in that one woman's salvation is anothers damnation. Passion might drive a man to meditate for decades over some religious mystery or it might equally drive a man to struggle for social justice - "for spirits" as he wrote, "do not tell a man what is true, but create such conditions, such a crisis of fate, that the man is compelled to listen to his Daimon." If that man listens with sensitivity, and honesty, he will hear things that only he can perfectly understand.
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds...
We must strive to recognise from our immediate psychic context exactly what our authentic action must be. For one man that may mean turning the cheek, but for another may mean taking up the sword and casting the money changers from the temple. Authentic action unifies the being, inauthentic action scatters it in fear and sorrow. The key is the development of an inner sensitivity that can discriminate between the babbling wants of the fragments, and the authentic needs of the Daimon - that elusive often silent true self that exists free of time, indifferent to fear and death, and recognises no authority but is sufficient unto itself. Difficult of course - as Omar Khayyam writes: "only a hair's breadth separates the false from the true."
All the world's a stage...
i guess that's why the poet
It is only fair if you share your elephant
Semi-new lurker posting for the first time.
This may have been covered already, but I feel the need to address the "elephant in the living room", namely Sharon's actions at the outset of the talk. In my opinion they were attention hungry, childish, and rude. (I hesitate to describe her actions as childish because i love kids and their energy but the description still fits. I wouldn't watch a talk on Ayahuasca with Daniel and a three year old.)
If you're going to splay out on a mini-elephant, fine. Just bill the talk as "I'm fabulous and splayed on a mini-elephant" not Ayahuasca and Asanas. At least I can then make an informed decision about weather or not to watch it. I'll leave it at that.
Daniel, I don't know if you read these comments, but if you do I'd recommend you checking out Derrick Jensen. He shares what I can gather is your thinking around the passive tendencies of the New Age movement. I'll share a common analogy he likes to use.
You are locked into a room with a psychopathic killer. There is no way out and you've already seen this person kill others in the room. What do you do?
The killer is a metaphor for the planet killing culture and you are of course you. I'd love to see you two share a stage together, as long as you both got Elephants!
http://www.derrickjensen.org/
jensen etc
Sharon did say before we went on that she wanted to make it light and playful - she thought we were going to do some kind of performance art up there. I take the blame for not being clear enough that I had no concept for a performance art piece and had really hoped we would communicate in a direct way about ideas.
As for Derrick Jenson, I like his work a lot and would love to hold a discussion with him at some point. Yes, his point about the psychopath is exactly what I am saying.
By the way, I also went back and reread the Bhagavad Gita and in it, Krishna states clearly that the warrior should fight against evil, and can't shirk that responsibility. It is not a text of nonviolence.
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
Light and playful?
I completely agree with ausername (I love your username, by the way!) about the mini-elephant. Maybe that was Sharon's way of making the discussion a performance art piece as you suggest, Daniel. But even before the mini-elephant shenanigans I got the sense she was trying to belittle you and your viewpoints rather than have an intelligent, balanced discussion. The proof stacked up as the video rolled on. And after the lecture she gave Orrin for bringing up some some very good points in a mild, non-combative manner, Sharon's conviction about the superiority of her (fundamentalist?) views seems undeniable.
A little humility goes a long way.
I have no doubt practicing yoga is "the way" for Sharon to find divinity within herself. But to suggest that following the Bhagavad Gita or any other practice is The Way for anyone besides oneself is pure ego-driven nonsense.
mini elephant
I wonder what exactly Sharon meant by performance art with regard to the mini elephant?
I would be nice to have had these ideas expanded on.
I agree 100%
Ms. Gannon had no need for chewing that poor guy out the way she did...it was clearly obvious that she felt the need to do so in order to defend her reputation as an all-knowing-leader who could not dare be "disgraced" within her own halls in front of her dear, well-financed and loyal followers...in doing so, and claiming that Krishna was teaching Arjuna how to "not be" a warrior, she contradicted herself and fell prey to the very thing she was accusing Daniel of...off-the-collar definitions (in this case the definition of a text rather than a single word; she re-wrote the Gita to suit her needs in the moment).
I've only read the Gita twice (though I've spent much time in each reading, re-reading and analyzing stanzas and lines over and over again for hours at a time), and went beyond the first page and then some, and it didn't take a supreme invocation of all-knowing consciousness for me to realize that Krishna was clearly giving Arjuna all this divine wisdom SO he would be motivated to fight! He didn't just say "Do what I say and fight you damn pansy, (btw here's some yogi techniques for when you're done!)", he went through an entire discourse focused on motivating Arjuna by showing him how it was his divine duty to carry out the Dharma (a word you don't see or hear so often nowadays...)
That guy in the yellow shirt deserved a much better response than that since he was clearly educated, well-rounded and engaged in his studies and spiritual path...he brought conscious thought into the matter, not dogmatic tendancies and attachments, and did not have a hidden self-serving agenda. Sharon just didn't want to hear anything about it being "ok" to be volatile, kill and eat animals...apparantly there's a pressing need to make it seem horribly wrong and make the people who don't agree seem bad and stupid. I mean...come on...seriously...why all the passionate insisting and attacking on behalf of the animal topic? How was that relevant at all?
Despite all that I'm saying I'm certain Ms. Gannon knows a lot about Yoga and the deeper esoteric parts of it that are not easily perceived (I listened to one of her seminars through the Omega Institute website and was quite impresssed), but I can't help but say that there's a huge dogmatic addiction in her make-up that's serving her business and the ego.
And yes, I have to agree with someone else here; she was writhing with fear. I could see her literally writhing and then staring off to focus and recollect her mind, probably through some Pranayama (I'm serious not being sarcastic), and try to regain a superficial composure at the very least. There was obviously a large amount of unrest within her that was compelling her to keep pressing certain issues and burn that poor guy in the yellow shirt.
I mean, yeah, no one's perfect (yet ;) but I thought that at the very least experienced Yogi's were supposed to be somewhat selfless, focused on serving others and Compassionate and not so pre-occupied with supporting vegetarian fads and other such idealistic concepts.
Supporting Elitism, bashing anything that is not congruent with your personal views, bashing free-thought and anything that supports free will and sovereignity outside of dogmatic adherance and desperately struggling and insisting on maintaining control over other's perception and the flow of a situation are all signs of the mindset of a tyrannical-type leader...the one who "needs" power and control for a false sense of security. And this is just an objective statement.
Gotta say, she really proved Daniels' initial statements about modern Yoga supporting the consuming Capilotist egoic new-age psuedo culture correct...
following our Will and Wind, we may just go where no One's been
Spiral Out
Communication
Wow... There's so much here. I feel like I could have interjected in at least a dozen places here, not to offer ideas on the subjects, but to point out the failures in communication taking place.
To summarize, it looks very much like a masculine vs. feminine communication battle going on here, where one person says something in feminine language and the other hears it in masculine language, thus distorting it in interpretation. And vice versa as well.
One other small point. At one point, Daniel mentions "you have to make distinctions." And naturally what Sharon is focusing on is the complete dissolving of distinctions to recognize the wholeness and connectedness of things. Again, I see a dichotomy of languages being used here. Daniel speaks in distinctions, individualities, and Self-based language (that is to say, not talking in Collective language).
I find myself caught smack between the two kinds of communication and even here I do not feel that there is a good balance. Unlike these two, I do not perceive myself to have strong language skills that can be used to my advantage, though I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong (I've never tried to prove it much). Rather I tend to speak either in multiple/mixed gendered language, or more often I speak a single wrong language to the wrong crowd.
I think the contention (or just tension) that arose from this discussion is the fact that the audience seemed to be charged to both ends of the spectrum. This is just a perspective from the video (I was not there), but it felt like there were ardent supporters of Daniel there and ardent supporters of Sharon there and few that were neither or both.
This could be an interesting lesson in communication for everyone, especially Daniel and Sharon, and anyone that organized this gathering.
Raw food
My raw food freak friends somehow don't want to hear about raw meat. Why not raw, organic meat?
How many ayahuasca using tribes are peaceful vegetarians? How many of them do not hesitate to kill, animal or human prey, if that is necessary?
Does the Ayurveda not teach that each person is made of different proportions of energetic elements (water, air, fire) and so each of us requires a different diet?
Does it not follow that not everyone can be vegetarian, regardless of what ethical trips they are on?
Are many modern vegetarians sufferring from protein deficiency and malnourishment, leading to a weakness of mind and morals?
Has the ego of "spiritual" people in the west expanded so much as to fill all available space?
Are many "new" agers actually crypto-judaeo-christians, still regurgitating the same failed metaphysics and morals of religion?
Is modern man a perpetually frustrated and depressed being, because his hunting instincts have been suppressed?
What was Country Joe Mcdonald thinking of when he wrote and sang:
And now my friend we meet again and
We shall see which one will bend
Under the strain of death's golden eyes
Which one of us shall win the prize
To live and which one will die
'Tis I, my friend, yes 'tis I
Shall kill to live again and again
To clutch the throat of sweet revenge
For life is here only for the taking.
http://www.tranceparents.org/
but
A little civility
Hi cjmoore,
I just want to ask you as a favor to helping support this community that we're trying to build. Perhaps you might refrain from using alienating, fire-storm words like "ignoramus." It's purpose just seems to be to divide unnecessarily, which isn't very in line with the intention of this site.
you just latched on to one word
really there are ignorant matters, that need to be adressed, for instance, the post above mine, was deliberately spreading the information, that people that don't eat meat become undernourished, it was implied that was the emphasis, where as i have heard and read about such cases, of vegetarian that don't eat enough protein, in that case they are indeed ignorant, of how to be a vegetarian, without having enough protein.I have been mostly a vegetarian most of my life, so i had to learn the difficult way, and for a while i was indeed ignorant.So people that bcome vegetarians really need to read some books, and educate themselves. And the fact that you used this obvious reference, as an excuse to attack me, shows ignorance also, because my post was ment to point out that education in this matter will keep people from becoming undernourished.And that should be so obvious, that i see you have a motive that has nothing to do with my post, to find a reason to make a huge big deal out of a word was was used in a proper context. ok substitute the word ignoramus with ignorant, And if you have any other alterior reasons to attempt to make yourself look superior let me know.But i really thing this is about some personal grudge, and anyone with a modicum of reserve can see that i was using the word merely in lue of using the other definition of the word"ignorant" it was not met obviousy to put down vegetarians, i am a one.YOU just have an agenda to control others on this board, namely me, where as you said nothing about the other guys ppst that was deliberatly impling that vegetarians are dumb or not with it, or ignorant onto undernourishment,
so can you keep your personal grudge against me, away as it is not in the spirit of RealitySandwich, to find a reason to belittle me in any case.
a poem i wrote today, an offering
The empire rises and the civilization falls the words have always been written on the walls when the hangman blows through the heavens when trees bow low to global disease when the last hope comes in two's and threes and the last pope hires exorcists to move locusts and when plagues are blamed on hurricanes and signs of the times
spin like mad and the bad is bad and the sad is sad,the civilization rises and the mire falls, the empire never died as mister Philip K. Dick spake,
oh no matter how insane the upper crust of Rome, they all ate lead and then they led the people over the cliff they were all on the take and the gods were too,
nothing left to do but vote for Hillary or Obamba,will the real fall guy or gal please stand up for the people, because the very foundation of this world is calling for justice and a way of life that is truly good for all living beings and the other dimensions too,
if the summer of love ever comes again if beauty and innocence are not called a sin and the leaves in the trees smile true green and the skies shine stars that are not covered in pollution and when the oceans ever get back their luster and there are no more cluster bombs if the native people are allowed to make this earth a paradise and harmonic sanity can once again rain into rivers that sing with wild salmon,
then we will all breathe deep and say a word of praise again
the yogi-'alien'-shaman thread
debate???
how to tell "pseudo-controversy"
from crudo-controversy
how to tell it from deludo-controvresy
how to tell it from foofoo-controversy
how to tell it from contra/contro-controversy
from neocondo-controversy
and just plane the plan that plan conspiracyo-controversy
and that all time favorite down and dirty controversy
and last but not least, pseudo-intellectual-hippie-yippie-in yer-face-controversy
and if that is not enuff we can wheel out vegi-matic-chant-until-the-sacred-purple-cow comes home-controversy
Mc-jivamukti, oh that has got to rise eyebrows!
the great master-game debaters?
but please do not change that dial
your RealitySandwich is served!
it has real-fake ham and real -organic lettuce and tomato
all the way from meheco...let us chant...Om shanti shanti and all the kosmic debris...
but please keep the kootie-karma off my SpiritualSandwich
??? brothers and sisters, chant the realitysandwich mantra
and can you hand out stolen Hilton hotel towels with the shower?
In response to all the nay-sayers...
I personally did not attend the event, but I did watch the video and I read the advertisement. Nowhere did it say that a lengthy, amazing, enlightenment-inducing lecture was going to take place. It was advertised as a discussion. It was a discussion. And if it wasn't what you were hoping for then perhaps you should see if you could put together a better presentation if given similar circumstances.
I understand the concept behind "Mc-jivamukti" and yes, there are some hippie-dippie people out there with their heads simultaneously in the clouds and up their asses and there are some schools and some people out there that are buying all the mats, straps, and balls they feel necessary to keep up with the trend. And the sad thing is I know people personally who feel that this alone, along with regular classes, has somehow given them a karmic advantage. And there are others who are very devout and don't take their practices materialistically and still hold the same superior attitude. To a certain group of people it does incite elitism, I could not agree more with Daniel on that and I think it needs to be addressed because some people truly need a reality check. However, I do not agree at all that that egoism was present in this discussion. I think, if given more time to elaborate, Ms. Gannon would have better explained how she felt about that subject, but because of the setting and the polarized audience it wasn't possible. Seriously, shesravingmad, if you had a problem with the subject matter it was more likely than not your perspective that was causing your unease, and not the content. That appears to be the case with most more often than not...
be there or be square
i remember going to open-mics to read poems that were written on the run on the bay bus, and when my turn came, the poets were rowdy rowdy, i sounded like a chicken little in my Duck soup of spontaneous alphabet soup, when i ment to sound like Rimbaud on Mind manifesting bouillabaisse.My poet friends put on a reading and we invited all the local poets and some artists and in order to use the little auditorium the people that were in charge of the place said we had to show the woman's home movies of her natural child birth for about a half hour, before the poets got to rip the joint. I got to introduce William Everson a great local poet, I introduced him as the Rimbaud of Davenport.What a hoot, Bill was like a nature poet that had been a monk in a catholic monastary, with his long white hair and his Buffalo Bill Cody coat.
what does this have to do with the content of the thread?
prolly absolutly nothing, but you never know.
Seriously Ildri....
sharon is afraid of something...
..
well this is great-
sharon exudes fear like a politician....
i guess all the sucess of the yoga business has made her hold on to her 'eastern' traditions....
it's a pretty box, but still a box.
..
The 3 A's Ayahuasca Ahimsa Asana
Tough Questions
wanderlust
Relentlessely Craving
"I am leaving this harbor
Giving Urban a FareWell
Their habitants seem to keen on God
I cannot stomach their rights and wrongs
I have lost my origin
And I don't want to find it again "
following our Will and Wind, we may just go where no One's been
Spiral Out
Turn the other cheek
Anyway he could have beat her down but he let her stand or lay upon her own folly of a belief that plays the game of all faith and no action except to run away inside (People become wallowers when they do this). Thinks the whole mind game of suttleness will will the world into a grand new day... Yippi hurrah.
Turn the other cheek? Maybe once but after there are no more cheeks to turn you got to let um taste there own medicine. Because after they get done with you they won't stop slapping until finally some warrior slaps them back.
I think Pinchbeck showed us what a fool she is. Enlightened us all I believe. In her speech about elightment is mere folly... nothing about justice in the real world in which most of the issues lay in the shade of gray -- sometimes you got to pull the string of the bow for the justice of surviving. You just have to do what you have to do to -- help yourself and others survive in this wacked out world we live in... Zen for me.
Love? Seeing yourself as your own self? Love (unconditional) is not judgeing yourself but giving yourself limits so you yourself or others around you will not be harmed. And one of those limits to self love is to not allow yourself to be slapped around. Instead of turning the other cheek, become one with them, grab them in a big fat hug and wrestle them to the ground? Or you can really do it in a non-violent manner without ever touching them... spit... it's only a dab of water from your mouth. Never hurts anyone except those that have huge egos. Sometimes that does the trick.
Now, I got to go eat my buffalo burger.
Today is part of forever.
Wade Davis/History Channel: Peyote to LSD- A Psychedelic Odyssey
left brain right brain, asanas and ayahuasca
this discussion has had me
I enjoyed watching this
Old Zen Stink (Now Updated With That Smooth Postmodern Shine!)
"Splitters!!" Yeah baby, let's all sit around on 'fair' trade ethnic cushions (made by the hard working indigenous people of.. wherever), trying to out-do one another in the old "I'm more Enlightened than you"™ game. What a crock of the most succulent BS. This reality sandwich smells moldy. Now I dig Dan and what he's saying generally, but this particular video really did sccccratch the present surface of New Age = Sewage 'niceness' that pervades its whole rich, white-skinned middle class Scene.. and what lies beneath reminds me of eg. Wikipedia - slick, smiling and superficially intelligent on top, but in truth completely seething with Ego-driven space monkey idiocy and aggressive assertion - ie. no different or more 'spiritually evolved'® than anyone else! Which should hardly surprise anybody really.. (Having said that however, this Sharon bird really does appear to have several large aquatic Brazilian centipedes stuffed up her AUM-humming, patchouli-scented vagina and should, along with her entire kult of lukewarm Believers, kindly stfu.) // you no eat reality in bits: reality eat you whole L8ers, you crazy kids Henry Swanson
I enjoyed hearing the