Sunrise Ceremony

“The land is my mother. Like a human mother, the land gives us protection, enjoyment and provides our needs – economic, social and religious. We have a human relationship with the land: Mother, daughter, son. When the land is taken from us or destroyed, we feel hurt because we belong to the land and we are part of it.” – Djinyini Gondarra

"Every seed is awakened and so is all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being and we, therefore, yield to our animal neighbors the same right as ourselves, to inhabit this land." - Sitting Bull

"Never take over the world to tamper with it. Those who want to tamper with it are not fit to take over the world." - Tao

"So to breathe in and be aware of your body and look deeply into it and realise you are the Earth and your consciousness is also the consciousness of the earth. Not to cut the tree not to pollute the water, that is not enough."  - Thich Nhat Hanh

"Our task must be to free ourselves, by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty.”-Albert Einstein

“We have a mother, and that mother is our territories, our common home of all the Indigenous peoples and everyone who inhabits this earth” – Maximiliano Ferrer

Knowing something is nothing like understanding the thing you think you know about. Life isn't just life as lived by humankind. Life is life beyond the conceptual thinking of humans. Life isn't small nor is it large for only humans visualise things in sizes. Atoms are small. You don't need to know your shoe size to understand you have feet. You don't need to know your shoe size to know you can walk. Life enters us as when we are conceived. Life stays with us when we are born. Life stays with us when the body dies. Living is what connects us to life. a life lived on the planet we are part of. There is no better adage than 'home sweet home.' Earth is home.

Passion

 

Do not be afraid of that word `passion’.

Most religious books, most gurus, swamis, leaders,

and all the rest of them, say “Don’t have passion”.

But if you have no passion, how can you be sensitive to

the ugly, to the beautiful, to the whispering leaves, to the sunset,

to a smile, to a cry? How can you be sensitive without a sense of passion

in which there is abandonment? Sirs, please listen to me, and do not

ask how to acquire passion. I know you are all passionate enough in getting a

good job, or hating some poor chap, or being jealous of someone; but

I am talking of something entirely different: a passion that loves.

Love is a state in which there is no `me; love is a state in which

there is no condemnation, no saying that sex is right or wrong, that

this is good and something else is bad. Love is none of these

contradictory things. Contradiction does not exist in love. And how

can one love if one is not passionate? Without passion, how can one

be sensitive? To be sensitive is to feel your neighbor sitting next

to you; it is to see the ugliness of the town with its squalor, its

filth, its poverty, and to see the beauty of the river, the sea, the

sky. If you are not passionate, how can you be sensitive to all

that? How can you feel a smile, a tear? Love, I assure you, is

passion.

True Religion Doesn't Have Labels or Sides

 

“The question has often been asked; Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? It does not matter what you call it. Buddhism remains what it is whatever label you may put on it. The label is immaterial. Even the label 'Buddhism' which we give to the teachings of the Buddha is of little importance. The name one gives is inessential.... In the same way Truth needs no label: it is neither Buddhist, Christian, Hindu nor Moslem. It is not the monopoly of anybody. Sectarian labels are a hindrance to the independent understanding of Truth, and they produce harmful prejudices in men's minds.” – Walpola Rahula

The parable of The Good Samaritan exemplifies true religion. A person is injured very badly having been beaten and is left half-dead on the road. Another person bearing a label which thought has manufactured arrives sees the injured person and then walks on leaving the injured to their fate. Another person arrives. Another person with a label, a concept manufactured by humans, arrives. They see the other person beaten near to death and then go on their way. A third person arrives bearing yet another label. This persons' label, the side he has been falsely placed within, makes him a bitter enemy of the others with their labels. Their groups which are an invention. This third-person sees no labels. Does not recognise a fellow human as belonging to anything apart from humanity. This third person is a religious person for he accepts all humans are of one species, one race. This third-person helps the one left to die.

All labels are unnecessary. All labels are human-made. Labels create division. That division has people taking sides. There are no sides. There is only the truth. There is only one true religion.

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” – Marcus Aurelius

Whit Sunday

Rather than dismiss all and every day certain faiths celebrate, I would rather join in that celebration even if my path hasn't taken me down that particular route. The whole point of celebrating anything is for everybody, no matter their way, to join in with respect and love for our fellows.  If you encounter a celebration you find doesn't follow the Golden Rule then simply don't celebrate it.

Whit Sunday is a Christian day of celebrating when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus' disciples. For me, that means becoming aware. For the brothers and sisters who are Christian, the meaning is different. My mum always called today Whitsun. A sort of shortened version of Whit Sunday which is fact the Pentecost. Pagan's celebrated Beltane. Which bears similarities even though that day is on the first of May. Therefore I shall celebrate Whit Sunday as I missed the first of May.

Happy Pentecost.

.

God Bless

Today is another Sunday, a day when Christians gather in worship of the Sabbath. It is a fine day to worship even if the day itself, the naming of it, has nothing to do with God but everything to do with man. All the same, it is a fine day to gather and praise the God of their faith. 

Jews worship the Shabbat. From Friday evening to Saturday evening. For Jews, it is time without television or telephones, without work or stress. Of calm in observance of God.

Muslims prefer Friday as their day of worship, of praise to Allah. Three different days of the week. Three days by which to pay respect to the God of love. Of peace and of compassion. Three days out of seven all of which deserve praise to God, to Allah unless you live in Gaza.

God doesn't fire missiles. God doesn't bomb. God doesn't fire bullets. God doesn't kill his people. God doesn't divide his people into nation-states. Jews don't 'mow the lawn.' Communities don't desire wars or conflicts. Nation-states, their administration's do though. Administrations, and opposition parties

The bombs are falling on Gaza. Innocent people are dying. Men, women and children are dying. This is not the way of Judaism. This is not the way of Islam. It isn't the way of  Christianity. This is the way of governments and of militancy. It certainly isn't the way of God.

If Sunday is a day of reverence then so is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday too. After all, "God has no religion." - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Living in the Present Moment

 

Dealing with the facts and not the fictions, ask only these questions. 

Question one.

Am I going to die? The answer is not a possibility not even probability but a resounding yes, we all are going to die at some point in our lives.

Question two.

If we were to converse is either one of us dead? The speaker or the listener? If no then you are very much alive as is the speaker. Alive in the only moment that exists, now.

Following recent events, I am very much alive. I am alive now. Therefore I love now. See now. Hear now. Laugh now. Whatever may occur hasn't happened. If and when it does it will be in the present not the past nor the future. Whatever may happen, happens only in the present and at present I am alive. There is only ever the present moment.

Yamma Ensemble