20101206
"Spacing Outward" EV#19 ~ December 2010
I dedicate this issue to Ronald Anthony Ebner,
with blessings beyond space and time ***
"Aiming when the treasure is so near" (c) Claudia Dose
"Spiralis Spiritus" (c) Janice Duke
Metamagical Circuit (random excerpt)
Practice, practice, vibrant fire-red
smoke rings for my lady
Goddess grants this smiling day
ritual of play
Glory Glory fat silver swords
swashling, caressing, violating the air
You with your act of splendour, curtseys,
curses, all guaranteed to cure
a thousand years of sleep.
Once upon a forest
clip-clop horse hoofs
noses snorting change
seasons - paleo to neo
robins hopping to seed greenery
glowing owls, blessedly blind,
grant swift sanctuary beneath wingspans
illuminated in Arthurian myth,
symbols that yearn like long dormant worms
sucking out dark holes over eons
Today we go to the circus.
Gather, children,
hooked to treacly tether
sharing sweet secrets
surreptitious touch
Mind the invisible netting,
safe from trailers hurtling over highway
or perennial city bus discharge of zombie drivers
only intent on fulfilling the schedule, home before
detonation.
"Glassworks" (c) Jane Røken
The circus is superb.
Imagine a trampoline ignited by grand fireflies
sparkling dayglo spraypaint into heaven.
Imagine noble elephants, gravely kneeling,
telepathic tremolo soothing vibration
carrying dreamtime back to Earth.
Imagine a dandelion trail outside the
schoolhouse window
breathful breezes of mint and lilac
destiny swells to crescendos of urgency.
Imagine the day that dawns when
you are no longer dreaming.
Laurie Corzett/libramoon
***
**
*
**
***
"Holy Clouds" (c) Jane Røken
"Head Holder" © Tanja Udelhofen, Galeria Surreal
“NOW YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE DIFFERENT”
(c) Santiago del Dardano Turann
While riding on the L one afternoon
I saw an advertisement at a station
Proclaiming in bold glossy letters freedom
From all the thousand shocks to which we're heir.
Enlightenment is just a pill away
As what was once the soma of the devas
Can now be gained through modernized indulgences;
Prescriptions from the drug cult of the doctors.
This gospel from respected drug cartels
Proclaimed “Now you don't have to be different.”
Is 'different' now a psychiatric state
Thus casting 'health' as flat-line drugged conformity?
The hundredth monkey is the strange one;
The one that for the first time took a twig
And stuck it in an ant hill for its lunch.
How much of what we’ve done flows from that moment?
Without its hunger and anxiety
As fuel to drive its life on into new
And unknown vistas it would not have happened.
If some dark alchemy should sponge away our sorrows
Then entropy alone will fill the void
(c) Little Lightening Bolt McCoy
"Fly Out of Time" (c) Fanitsa Petrou
Hand rendered. Copyright © Fanitsa Petrou. All Rights Reserved.
Any unauthorized reproduction will automatically lead to legal implications.
Conscious Peace
(c) William T. Hathaway
"Entrance" (c) Greg Bart/turance
I was sitting in full lotus, body wrapped in a blanket, mind rapt in deep stillness, breathing lightly, wisps of air curling into the infinite space behind my closed eyes. My mantra had gone beyond sound to become a pulse of light in an emptiness that contained everything.
An electric shock flashed down my spine and through my body. My head snapped back, limbs jerked, a cry burst from my throat. Every muscle in my body contracted -- neck rigid, jaws clenched, forehead tight. Bolts of pain shot through me in all directions, then drew together in my chest. Heart attack! I thought. I managed to lie down, then noticed I wasn't breathing -- maybe I was already dead. I groaned and gulped a huge breath, which stirred a whirl of thoughts and images.
Vietnam again: Rotor wind from a hovering helicopter flails the water of a rice paddy while farmers run frantically for cover. Points of fire spark out from a bamboo grove to become dopplered whines past my ears. A plane dives on the grove to release a bomb which tumbles end over end and bursts into an orange globe of napalm. A man in my arms shakes in spasms as his chest gushes blood.
I held my head and tried to force the images out, but the montage of scenes flowed on, needing release. I could only lie there under a torrent of grief, regret, terror and guilt. My chest felt like it was caving in under the pressure. I clung to my mantra like a lifeline to sanity. I was breathing in short, shallow gasps, but gradually my breath slowed and deepened, the feelings became less gripping, and I reoriented back into the here and now: my small room in Spain on a Transcendental Meditation teacher training course.
I lay on my narrow bed stunned by this flashback from four years ago when I'd been a Green Beret in Vietnam. I had thought I'd left all that behind, but here it was again.
I sat up and was able to do some yoga exercises but couldn't meditate. Instead I took a walk on the beach. For the rest of that day and the next I was confused and irritable and could hardly meditate or sleep. But the following day I felt lightened and relieved, purged of a load of trauma, and my meditations were clear. My anxiety about the war was much less; the violence was in the past, not raging right now in my head.
Gradually I became aware of a delicate joy permeating not just me but also my surroundings. I knew somehow it had always been there, inhering deep in everything, but my stress had been blocking my perception of it. I felt closer to the other people on the course, connected by a shared consciousness. Then I started feeling closer to everything around me; birds and grass, even rocks and water were basically the same as me. Our surface separations were an illusion; essentially we were all one consciousness expressing itself in different forms. Rather than being just an isolated individual, I knew I was united with the universe, joined in a field of felicity. This perception faded after a few days, but it gave me a glimpse of what enlightenment must be like.
* * *
I had begun meditating in 1968, several months after returning from the war. I'd come back laden with fear and anger, but I had denied those emotions, burying them under an «I'm all right, Jack,» attitude. I was tough, I could take it, I was a survivor. Within certain parameters I could function well, but when my superficial control broke down, I would fall into self-destructive depressions. I finally had to admit I was carrying a huge burden of stress, and I knew I had to get rid of that before I could live at peace with myself or anyone else.
My best friend from Special Forces, Keith Parker, had started doing Transcendental Meditation and said it made his mind clear and calm. I tried it and found he was right. When I meditated, I sat with eyes closed and thought a mantra, a sound without meaning that took my mind to quieter, finer levels and eventually beyond all mental activity to deep silence. Subjectively, TM was like diving down through an inner ocean into a realm of serenity. The effects were more real than anything I'd experienced through prayer or psychedelics. My stress and pressure began to be relieved.
I started going on World Peace Assemblies, large courses led by Maharishi or one of his assistants where we meditated as a group. This strengthened the effects, making me feel both tranquil and energized. Then I attended this four-month course to learn to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation. Every day we did hours of «rounding,» repeating cycles of meditation, yoga and breathing exercises, each taking us deeper towards transcendental consciousness. Afternoons and evenings Maharishi would answer questions and teach us how to be teachers of meditation.
One of his favorite topics was the connection between modern science and Vedic science. After getting a master's degree in physics, he had studied metaphysics with one of the great swamis of India, so he could integrate both worlds. He taught us how the unified field that physics has discovered is the same as our own consciousness, that the fundamental level of the universe is the fundamental level of ourselves. And most importantly, he taught us how to experience this unity, where the duality of subject and object disappears and separation merges into oneness. This is the source of creation, a realm of bliss where even the concept of enemy doesn't exist. It's the level from which energy manifests into matter and form. Enlightened people live there all the time, but all of us can experience it, and once we do, our reality is different.
Ordinarily, our awareness is directed via sense perception outwards to physical objects. When we meditate, we reverse this direction and move our awareness back towards its source, the unified field. The mind goes inward and perceives progressively more refined levels of thinking until all thoughts drop away and we reach the ground state of transcendental consciousness, in which the mind is alert but without thoughts, pure awareness without an object. In place of thoughts, we are filled with a joy that can only be described as divine. Here we are united with all of creation. We are no longer observing the universe; we are the universe.
* * *
The deep calm of meditation is more than just a subjective experience. Physiological research has shown that during TM oxygen consumption decreases twice as much as it does during deep sleep. Brain waves become more coherent, changing from the usual scattered, disordered patterns into synchronized waves coordinating across both hemispheres, an indication of more integrated mental functioning. Blood flow to the brain increases. On the skin, electrical conductance decreases, a sign of relaxation. In the blood stream, the stress hormone cortisol decreases; serotonin, a neurotransmitter that relieves depression and promotes well being, increases; arginine vasopressin, a hormone that regulates blood pressure and improves memory and learning ability, increases; blood lactate level decreases, indicating lessened anxiety. And rather than being in a trance, the person is fully alert and aware of the surroundings. This physiological condition defines a fourth state of consciousness distinct from the three usual states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. In this rejuvenating transcendental consciousness, the physiology repairs the damage done by traumatic events and illnesses.
More than anything else I've experienced, Transcendental Meditation creates a peaceful inner change. The personality and basic self remain the same, but fear and hostility diminish. We become friendlier to ourselves, and so we can be friendlier to others. As our personal stresses are healed, the mind functions better and we gain access to more of our mental potential. We're more able to perceive and correct the sources of social stress that surround us. Recent research has shown that the effects don't stop with the individual. Large groups of people meditating together produce coherence and stability not just in themselves but also in the society around them. This extended effect has been demonstrated in experiments in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Iowa, Washington DC, New Delhi, Manila, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Iran and Holland where large groups met for long meditations. During every assembly, crime, violence and accidents in the surrounding region dropped and the composite Quality of Life Index for public health, economics and social harmony rose. All the changes were statistically highly significant. The groups of meditators improved the whole society: negativity decreased, positivity increased. After the assemblies ended, the figures returned to their previous levels. The results were calculated by comparing data from different time periods to insure that the only variable was the meditation course, thus establishing it as the cause of the change.
I attended two of these assemblies, in Washington DC and Iowa, and the experiences were wonderful. Meditating with thousands of other people strengthens the results. The mental emanations reinforce one another into a palpable effect of group consciousness. I enjoyed deeper levels of inner silence and clearer infusions of transcendental energy. Outside of meditation, we treated one another with a harmony and tenderness that I'd never experienced in a group of people before. It was a taste of what an ideal society could be like.
* * *
Wars are hurricanes of the collective consciousness. Hurricanes relieve the physical atmosphere of excess heat that has built up. They result afterwards in a more balanced climatic condition, but they do that destructively. Similarly, wars relieve excess stress in the psychic atmosphere and bring a temporary peace, but their destructiveness generates more stress and another war.
In contrast to this stormy approach, a meditator in transcendental consciousness broadcasts the qualities inherent to this plane: peace, orderliness, harmony. And when many meditators reach transcendental consciousness together, their energies reinforce one another into a surge of positivity that overrides the stressful emissions of the surrounding population. The minds of everyone in the area receive this broadcast of coherence. It's a very subtle effect that is under the limen of most people's perceptual awareness, but they are influenced through this field where all human minds are joined. This life-nurturing energy purifies the collective consciousness of fear and hostility before those negative forces can build up and erupt into crime and war.
New experiments demonstrated the effects on war. As civil war was raging in Lebanon, a group gathered nearby in Israel to practice long meditations. During their assembly, the intensity of fighting in Lebanon lessened and war deaths plummeted. In Israel, crime, traffic accidents, fires and other indicators of social disorder decreased. All the changes were statistically highly significant.
* * *
Groups of 7,000 meditators also reduce terrorism. During three of these large assemblies, worldwide terrorism dropped by an average of 72 percent as compared to all other weeks in a two-year period, based on data compiled by the Rand Corporation. Statistical analysis ruled out the possibility that the reduction was due to cycles, trends, seasonal changes, or drifts in the measures used.
Peer-reviewed studies of these experiments have been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Mind and Behavior, Journal of Crime and Justice, Social Indicators Research and other academic publications. Twenty-three studies based on 50 experiments document the long-distance effects of large groups of meditators in reducing violence and improving quality of life.
With this overwhelming evidence Maharishi approached the governments of the world and requested that they establish these groups on a permanent basis to secure peace and social harmony.
The governments of the world weren't interested.
So Maharishi decided to build a long-term group. With the help of a wealthy donor he constructed a residential center in India and filled it with 7,000 meditators practicing several hours a day. The other experiments had been short-term, lasting a few weeks or months, but this one lasted two years -- a time that fundamentally changed the world. The Cold War ended, communism collapsed, the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union freed themselves of totalitarian rule, the Berlin Wall came down, 80 nations signed an agreement that saved the ozone layer, black and white South Africans dismantled apartheid, hostile borders became open and friendly, former enemies signed arms reduction and nonaggression treaties. It was a period of unprecedented good will, a breakthrough for world peace.
* * *
Again, no government was interested. Why did they turn down such a scientifically verified program that would cost little, harm nothing and possibly bring world peace?
In three of the countries that participated in the initial experiments, the governments were thrown out of office after the assemblies. Three dictators -- the Shah in Iran, Somoza in Nicaragua and Marcos in the Philippines -- had invited the TM teachers because their populations were rising in rebellion. They hoped the meditating groups would act as a social tranquilizer that would pacify the rebels. The opposite turned out to be the case. The increased coherence generated by the groups enabled the whole society to join together and throw out the dictators with a minimum of violence. Other governments didn't want to risk losing power through a similar upsurge in the collective consciousness of their people.
Another reason was that although many governments pay lip service to peace, they don't really want it. What they want is to use the military to control their people and enforce their aggressive foreign policies. They also profit from the arms trade; peace would be bad for business.
A third reason is that the concept of meditators being able to decrease violence half the world away is just too unconventional for most politicians to comprehend. It doesn't fit the worldview they've been educated into. Our society is still living in the shadow of 19th-century empiricism, where matter was seen as the basis of reality. Science has moved far beyond this position, but the old view still has a lingering effect on our thinking, causing us to reject what we don't understand. The insights of unified field physics are only slowly being absorbed by the general population. Most people can't yet comprehend that energy rather than matter is the basic component of the universe, and that this energy is identical with our own consciousness.
"Masquerade" (c) Ione Citrin* * *
Seeing consciousness as primary and matter as being manifested from it is a whole different way of looking at the universe and will require some getting used to. But every paradigm shift in human thinking has had to confront the prejudices of its time. As Arthur Schopenhauer said, a new worldview is first ridiculed, then attacked and finally accepted as self-evident.
* * *
EFFECTIVE DEEDS
(c) Eric Chaet
Most effective deeds are just the logistics, I know
of people selling things for more than they cost them
or people killing more so-called enemies
than the so-called enemies kill them
or people organizing coalitions to gain advantage
more efficiently than their rivals do---
& I know that most
who read poetry
these days
especially most
who publish & edit
venues for poetry are
suspicious of anyone
speaking of deeds
or effectiveness
or results---
retreat & consolations
are the fashion---
& I can’t brag of my own effective deeds
my situation is ramshackle & tenuous
I’ve stumbled from crisis to crisis---
but the spectrum of glories of this world---
I don’t mean the vanities---
is obscured by such pervasive suffering & injustice
& bad habits including my bad habits
& delusions, probably including my own delusions---
I hereby---& will again & again---
dedicate myself to the effective deeds---
I don’t mean mere efficiency---
that can be the only remedy---
& I hope to demonstrate such capability
by achievements other than those the deluded cheer
that others similarly capable will ally their efforts with mine.
"Groove 1" (c) Michael Pukac
Double Sonnet--Now, and Then
Robert David Michael (Cerello)c, 2007
Now, and Then
What do I love most? Skyscrapers, rockets, stars,
Marguerites, reeds, oaks, Miklos Rosza's themes,
The full moon's rising, Shao Lin's green needle peaks,
Skyfilling dawns; lime pie; oboes; guitars;
Moonlight glimpsed through a black tree's winter boughs;
Mountains gone azure blue that a sunset paints;
Camping in deserts' stillness; cloud fleets that sail
Heralds of stormwinds; islands feeling the pow'r
Of ocean's hands; the Milky Way's blaze by night;
Tiger lilies; koi; Africa's wild beasts;
Jungles; deep pinewoods; snow that tops swelling peaks;
Orchids and violets; the light that steals
Past rugged Grecians hills; Iguazu Falls;
Dancers who leap; actors' lofty; the human voice;
Beauty in any guise--But, THIS above all:
Yes, past these figurings, this calculus
Of what stands lovely, mighty, estimable,
(Perhaps as Tschaikovsky's symphony now swells)
I love to dream on Man's Galactic Quest--
On the strong states and cities men shall know,
The worlds of distant suns; the routes of trade,
Keen feats of daring by scouts in starships made
Out in Immensity. Indeed, I know
The heat of their far day on my shoulders here
As keenly as I see Earth's dear, aging Sun
Making molten a flow of coin-gold leaves
In this autumnal season. The sound I hear--
Of starcruisers bound through oceans of light-years--
Is vivid to me as the lark's song heard in fields.
Man of two ages, I hold both songs as dear!
"Hubble" (c) Diana Manister
(c) Michael Pukac
In Storied Nights
(c) Terreson
How wood, how water,
how heart-still stays the tender of home,
the fire and thirst for love's perfection
in body touch in calm eye of storm.
Dances of November, dancers off the ocean,
the wild weather of womantide warming with
honey of fireweed heavy on forehead,
heavy in abandon when dancing trees
come nearest in on haunted grounds of home.
Far out from the poppy glow, the glare glow
of city beneath embossed light shield,
out from and into the innocent night
where death and life mix inside the milky bowl;
in no shame for where they are, where they've
come from, where their children bear
upon them upending passion for more.
In the palm, in the hand, in the spiraling,
the mother round mystic of the universe
where there is no stop to river and flow,
no check, no erratic rock to halt
the cosmic habit of deep time's fractal fold.
Just so the forest calls in like stalls
the names of those who hear or who
cannot hear except in waking dreams.
In white femur bone of deer on fertile floor,
in windless breeze rising up sparse leaves,
or in tawny wildcat gone winter gray
who occupies midnight corners of the day,
looking in on things he sees out of
green eyes looking out from things inside.
Clarity when comes of perfect space can
have return, when spatial texture of fleshy
sculptures hold in high hand dreamer, thinker, or
perfect lover; there when Wild beauty in Calm
leads on, leads on.
She who lives out through the human fracture.
"A message from a distance is coming" (c) Elena Mary Siff
Fusion
(c) Turance
Aurora
(c) Susan Adams
"Realm Gazers (c) Julia Still
Lifelines
It's a tale many times in the telling
Of wisdom and wonder and enchantment foretold.
Captivating, yes compelling.
But catch it now, before you're old (We're so soon old.).
Cross country wide and free; a gypsy's life by caravan
And what is yet to be is stretching wide, without a plan.
Try, if you can, to imagine just how you're gonna end.
. . . You're gonna end.
Past ships and planes and miles of dusty road,
It's all been told . . .and then retold.
We've lived a thousand lives before, we the vagabonds of Earth
But let me try to tell to you my story, it's all I own
Whatever be its worth.
It started in a coffeehouse so many years ago
Where poets of our century were wont to waste their days
And in those days did bright mindwaves cast their nets and flow
To catch up young unruly souls and charge them with the craze
For adventuring -- for "something new"
To catch a star and follow wherever it should lead
To search out the sacred answer to the ache of human need
To be the first new holy breed to wholey shake the Earth
To usher in a promised age, so many years in birth.
It was a time of carousels and colored lights;
A time of feeling grandly strong and right;
A time when Life was just beyond our sight.
What made it go? Which corner was the wrong one turned?
Or is it merely time to take things slow,
To gather up the threads of what we've learned?
The darkness cast upon us, how was it earned?
Oh yes, I meant to tell you of brilliant desert skies
And city street romances that sparkled ere they died.
Of Denver's summer snowstorm and LA's winter flood
And secret, solemn friendship pacts seal'd in sorrow's blood.
Of a much awaited sunrise within a foreign town
Of food and flowers and incense freely passed around
Of turquoise rings & violent springs & jails of many brands
And music wafting through the streets
Of gentle smell of smoke so sweet
And wondrous madmen once to meet who read witchcraft in your hand.
And so much more; yes, lifetimes more.
I would give it all to you, asking nothing in return
But that you seek, in your own style, for yourself to learn
Of corners waiting yet to turn before our time is through.
And perhaps one day you'll say to me:
"Yes, the answer's here! Yes, the answer's clear!"
And you will say to all of us: "Here's what we must do."
Before our time is through . . .
Conscious Peace
(c) William T. Hathaway
"Entrance" (c) Greg Bart/turance
I was sitting in full lotus, body wrapped in a blanket, mind rapt in deep stillness, breathing lightly, wisps of air curling into the infinite space behind my closed eyes. My mantra had gone beyond sound to become a pulse of light in an emptiness that contained everything.
An electric shock flashed down my spine and through my body. My head snapped back, limbs jerked, a cry burst from my throat. Every muscle in my body contracted -- neck rigid, jaws clenched, forehead tight. Bolts of pain shot through me in all directions, then drew together in my chest. Heart attack! I thought. I managed to lie down, then noticed I wasn't breathing -- maybe I was already dead. I groaned and gulped a huge breath, which stirred a whirl of thoughts and images.
Vietnam again: Rotor wind from a hovering helicopter flails the water of a rice paddy while farmers run frantically for cover. Points of fire spark out from a bamboo grove to become dopplered whines past my ears. A plane dives on the grove to release a bomb which tumbles end over end and bursts into an orange globe of napalm. A man in my arms shakes in spasms as his chest gushes blood.
I held my head and tried to force the images out, but the montage of scenes flowed on, needing release. I could only lie there under a torrent of grief, regret, terror and guilt. My chest felt like it was caving in under the pressure. I clung to my mantra like a lifeline to sanity. I was breathing in short, shallow gasps, but gradually my breath slowed and deepened, the feelings became less gripping, and I reoriented back into the here and now: my small room in Spain on a Transcendental Meditation teacher training course.
"Julia's Exploration of the Air Element" (c) Julia Still
I lay on my narrow bed stunned by this flashback from four years ago when I'd been a Green Beret in Vietnam. I had thought I'd left all that behind, but here it was again.
I sat up and was able to do some yoga exercises but couldn't meditate. Instead I took a walk on the beach. For the rest of that day and the next I was confused and irritable and could hardly meditate or sleep. But the following day I felt lightened and relieved, purged of a load of trauma, and my meditations were clear. My anxiety about the war was much less; the violence was in the past, not raging right now in my head.
Gradually I became aware of a delicate joy permeating not just me but also my surroundings. I knew somehow it had always been there, inhering deep in everything, but my stress had been blocking my perception of it. I felt closer to the other people on the course, connected by a shared consciousness. Then I started feeling closer to everything around me; birds and grass, even rocks and water were basically the same as me. Our surface separations were an illusion; essentially we were all one consciousness expressing itself in different forms. Rather than being just an isolated individual, I knew I was united with the universe, joined in a field of felicity. This perception faded after a few days, but it gave me a glimpse of what enlightenment must be like.
* * *
"Reflections" (c) Olhos da Pastora
I had begun meditating in 1968, several months after returning from the war. I'd come back laden with fear and anger, but I had denied those emotions, burying them under an «I'm all right, Jack,» attitude. I was tough, I could take it, I was a survivor. Within certain parameters I could function well, but when my superficial control broke down, I would fall into self-destructive depressions. I finally had to admit I was carrying a huge burden of stress, and I knew I had to get rid of that before I could live at peace with myself or anyone else.
My best friend from Special Forces, Keith Parker, had started doing Transcendental Meditation and said it made his mind clear and calm. I tried it and found he was right. When I meditated, I sat with eyes closed and thought a mantra, a sound without meaning that took my mind to quieter, finer levels and eventually beyond all mental activity to deep silence. Subjectively, TM was like diving down through an inner ocean into a realm of serenity. The effects were more real than anything I'd experienced through prayer or psychedelics. My stress and pressure began to be relieved.
I started going on World Peace Assemblies, large courses led by Maharishi or one of his assistants where we meditated as a group. This strengthened the effects, making me feel both tranquil and energized. Then I attended this four-month course to learn to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation. Every day we did hours of «rounding,» repeating cycles of meditation, yoga and breathing exercises, each taking us deeper towards transcendental consciousness. Afternoons and evenings Maharishi would answer questions and teach us how to be teachers of meditation.
One of his favorite topics was the connection between modern science and Vedic science. After getting a master's degree in physics, he had studied metaphysics with one of the great swamis of India, so he could integrate both worlds. He taught us how the unified field that physics has discovered is the same as our own consciousness, that the fundamental level of the universe is the fundamental level of ourselves. And most importantly, he taught us how to experience this unity, where the duality of subject and object disappears and separation merges into oneness. This is the source of creation, a realm of bliss where even the concept of enemy doesn't exist. It's the level from which energy manifests into matter and form. Enlightened people live there all the time, but all of us can experience it, and once we do, our reality is different.
Ordinarily, our awareness is directed via sense perception outwards to physical objects. When we meditate, we reverse this direction and move our awareness back towards its source, the unified field. The mind goes inward and perceives progressively more refined levels of thinking until all thoughts drop away and we reach the ground state of transcendental consciousness, in which the mind is alert but without thoughts, pure awareness without an object. In place of thoughts, we are filled with a joy that can only be described as divine. Here we are united with all of creation. We are no longer observing the universe; we are the universe.
* * *
"Space" (c) Arabella Proffer
The deep calm of meditation is more than just a subjective experience. Physiological research has shown that during TM oxygen consumption decreases twice as much as it does during deep sleep. Brain waves become more coherent, changing from the usual scattered, disordered patterns into synchronized waves coordinating across both hemispheres, an indication of more integrated mental functioning. Blood flow to the brain increases. On the skin, electrical conductance decreases, a sign of relaxation. In the blood stream, the stress hormone cortisol decreases; serotonin, a neurotransmitter that relieves depression and promotes well being, increases; arginine vasopressin, a hormone that regulates blood pressure and improves memory and learning ability, increases; blood lactate level decreases, indicating lessened anxiety. And rather than being in a trance, the person is fully alert and aware of the surroundings. This physiological condition defines a fourth state of consciousness distinct from the three usual states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. In this rejuvenating transcendental consciousness, the physiology repairs the damage done by traumatic events and illnesses.
More than anything else I've experienced, Transcendental Meditation creates a peaceful inner change. The personality and basic self remain the same, but fear and hostility diminish. We become friendlier to ourselves, and so we can be friendlier to others. As our personal stresses are healed, the mind functions better and we gain access to more of our mental potential. We're more able to perceive and correct the sources of social stress that surround us. Recent research has shown that the effects don't stop with the individual. Large groups of people meditating together produce coherence and stability not just in themselves but also in the society around them. This extended effect has been demonstrated in experiments in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Iowa, Washington DC, New Delhi, Manila, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Iran and Holland where large groups met for long meditations. During every assembly, crime, violence and accidents in the surrounding region dropped and the composite Quality of Life Index for public health, economics and social harmony rose. All the changes were statistically highly significant. The groups of meditators improved the whole society: negativity decreased, positivity increased. After the assemblies ended, the figures returned to their previous levels. The results were calculated by comparing data from different time periods to insure that the only variable was the meditation course, thus establishing it as the cause of the change.
I attended two of these assemblies, in Washington DC and Iowa, and the experiences were wonderful. Meditating with thousands of other people strengthens the results. The mental emanations reinforce one another into a palpable effect of group consciousness. I enjoyed deeper levels of inner silence and clearer infusions of transcendental energy. Outside of meditation, we treated one another with a harmony and tenderness that I'd never experienced in a group of people before. It was a taste of what an ideal society could be like.
* * *
"The Mystic's Dream" (c) Janice Duke
Wars are hurricanes of the collective consciousness. Hurricanes relieve the physical atmosphere of excess heat that has built up. They result afterwards in a more balanced climatic condition, but they do that destructively. Similarly, wars relieve excess stress in the psychic atmosphere and bring a temporary peace, but their destructiveness generates more stress and another war.
In contrast to this stormy approach, a meditator in transcendental consciousness broadcasts the qualities inherent to this plane: peace, orderliness, harmony. And when many meditators reach transcendental consciousness together, their energies reinforce one another into a surge of positivity that overrides the stressful emissions of the surrounding population. The minds of everyone in the area receive this broadcast of coherence. It's a very subtle effect that is under the limen of most people's perceptual awareness, but they are influenced through this field where all human minds are joined. This life-nurturing energy purifies the collective consciousness of fear and hostility before those negative forces can build up and erupt into crime and war.
New experiments demonstrated the effects on war. As civil war was raging in Lebanon, a group gathered nearby in Israel to practice long meditations. During their assembly, the intensity of fighting in Lebanon lessened and war deaths plummeted. In Israel, crime, traffic accidents, fires and other indicators of social disorder decreased. All the changes were statistically highly significant.
* * *
Groups of 7,000 meditators also reduce terrorism. During three of these large assemblies, worldwide terrorism dropped by an average of 72 percent as compared to all other weeks in a two-year period, based on data compiled by the Rand Corporation. Statistical analysis ruled out the possibility that the reduction was due to cycles, trends, seasonal changes, or drifts in the measures used.
Peer-reviewed studies of these experiments have been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Mind and Behavior, Journal of Crime and Justice, Social Indicators Research and other academic publications. Twenty-three studies based on 50 experiments document the long-distance effects of large groups of meditators in reducing violence and improving quality of life.
With this overwhelming evidence Maharishi approached the governments of the world and requested that they establish these groups on a permanent basis to secure peace and social harmony.
The governments of the world weren't interested.
So Maharishi decided to build a long-term group. With the help of a wealthy donor he constructed a residential center in India and filled it with 7,000 meditators practicing several hours a day. The other experiments had been short-term, lasting a few weeks or months, but this one lasted two years -- a time that fundamentally changed the world. The Cold War ended, communism collapsed, the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union freed themselves of totalitarian rule, the Berlin Wall came down, 80 nations signed an agreement that saved the ozone layer, black and white South Africans dismantled apartheid, hostile borders became open and friendly, former enemies signed arms reduction and nonaggression treaties. It was a period of unprecedented good will, a breakthrough for world peace.
"Candle Unicycle" (c) Michael Pukac
* * *
Again, no government was interested. Why did they turn down such a scientifically verified program that would cost little, harm nothing and possibly bring world peace?
In three of the countries that participated in the initial experiments, the governments were thrown out of office after the assemblies. Three dictators -- the Shah in Iran, Somoza in Nicaragua and Marcos in the Philippines -- had invited the TM teachers because their populations were rising in rebellion. They hoped the meditating groups would act as a social tranquilizer that would pacify the rebels. The opposite turned out to be the case. The increased coherence generated by the groups enabled the whole society to join together and throw out the dictators with a minimum of violence. Other governments didn't want to risk losing power through a similar upsurge in the collective consciousness of their people.
Another reason was that although many governments pay lip service to peace, they don't really want it. What they want is to use the military to control their people and enforce their aggressive foreign policies. They also profit from the arms trade; peace would be bad for business.
A third reason is that the concept of meditators being able to decrease violence half the world away is just too unconventional for most politicians to comprehend. It doesn't fit the worldview they've been educated into. Our society is still living in the shadow of 19th-century empiricism, where matter was seen as the basis of reality. Science has moved far beyond this position, but the old view still has a lingering effect on our thinking, causing us to reject what we don't understand. The insights of unified field physics are only slowly being absorbed by the general population. Most people can't yet comprehend that energy rather than matter is the basic component of the universe, and that this energy is identical with our own consciousness.
"Masquerade" (c) Ione Citrin* * *
Seeing consciousness as primary and matter as being manifested from it is a whole different way of looking at the universe and will require some getting used to. But every paradigm shift in human thinking has had to confront the prejudices of its time. As Arthur Schopenhauer said, a new worldview is first ridiculed, then attacked and finally accepted as self-evident.
* * *
EFFECTIVE DEEDS
(c) Eric Chaet
"Global Overview" (c) Elena Mary Siff
Most effective deeds are just the logistics, I know
of people selling things for more than they cost them
or people killing more so-called enemies
than the so-called enemies kill them
or people organizing coalitions to gain advantage
more efficiently than their rivals do---
& I know that most
who read poetry
these days
especially most
who publish & edit
venues for poetry are
suspicious of anyone
speaking of deeds
or effectiveness
or results---
retreat & consolations
are the fashion---
& I can’t brag of my own effective deeds
my situation is ramshackle & tenuous
I’ve stumbled from crisis to crisis---
but the spectrum of glories of this world---
I don’t mean the vanities---
is obscured by such pervasive suffering & injustice
& bad habits including my bad habits
& delusions, probably including my own delusions---
I hereby---& will again & again---
dedicate myself to the effective deeds---
I don’t mean mere efficiency---
that can be the only remedy---
& I hope to demonstrate such capability
by achievements other than those the deluded cheer
that others similarly capable will ally their efforts with mine.
"The Revelation of the Ignoramuses" (c) Hector Pineda
Raindrops Dimpling
(c) Alex Chornyj
As you reach into tomorrow
Don’t forget what you learned today
Take with you all the yesterdays
Don’t retrace your steps,
But remember where you have been
All the things you have done
All the faces you’ve seen
How this mosaic is interwoven.
Then accept the next sliver of light
As dawn is about to break
Like raindrops dimpling
Seeing a flower’s petals opening.
To absorb this nourishment
From the skies above
So do you in like manner
Inhale this beneficence.
As you stand with one palm up
One palm facing down
To indulge in earth’s reservoir
Simultaneously being infused,
With unconditional love
From the cosmic universe’s portal,
Thereby recycling your energies
Through both jet streams.
This is your daily ritual
As you face the east
From where the sun’s glimmer
Makes its first appearance.
By this are you cleansed
From an ethereal shower
That leaves no stone unturned
Just creates a perfect harmony.
As you receive, so do you send
Between all exists this relation
Like one scratching your back
You, then returning such reciprocity.
Yet life goes deeper and beyond
Enriching through your travels
As long as you’re an open channel
Wisdom will flow through you constantly.
"Groove 1" (c) Michael PukacTHINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE
(c) Eric Chaet
I have to break free
to think about & affect the future
today, tomorrow
the rest of the week, month, year
the rest of my life, & beyond—
for all those who strive with pure heart
disciplining themselves so as not to harm others
& yet, to develop & contribute
what they’re capable of.
I have to get free
of the petty expectations others lay on me
& that I’ve internalized & lay on myself
& also of the grand delusions—
& think about & affect the future.
"A Visitation" (c) Julia Still
Double Sonnet--Now, and Then
Robert David Michael (Cerello)c, 2007
Now, and Then
What do I love most? Skyscrapers, rockets, stars,
Marguerites, reeds, oaks, Miklos Rosza's themes,
The full moon's rising, Shao Lin's green needle peaks,
Skyfilling dawns; lime pie; oboes; guitars;
Moonlight glimpsed through a black tree's winter boughs;
Mountains gone azure blue that a sunset paints;
Camping in deserts' stillness; cloud fleets that sail
Heralds of stormwinds; islands feeling the pow'r
Of ocean's hands; the Milky Way's blaze by night;
Tiger lilies; koi; Africa's wild beasts;
Jungles; deep pinewoods; snow that tops swelling peaks;
Orchids and violets; the light that steals
Past rugged Grecians hills; Iguazu Falls;
Dancers who leap; actors' lofty; the human voice;
Beauty in any guise--But, THIS above all:
Yes, past these figurings, this calculus
Of what stands lovely, mighty, estimable,
(Perhaps as Tschaikovsky's symphony now swells)
I love to dream on Man's Galactic Quest--
On the strong states and cities men shall know,
The worlds of distant suns; the routes of trade,
Keen feats of daring by scouts in starships made
Out in Immensity. Indeed, I know
The heat of their far day on my shoulders here
As keenly as I see Earth's dear, aging Sun
Making molten a flow of coin-gold leaves
In this autumnal season. The sound I hear--
Of starcruisers bound through oceans of light-years--
Is vivid to me as the lark's song heard in fields.
Man of two ages, I hold both songs as dear!
"They Follow the Pattern of the Wind" (c) Olhos da Pastora
Opening Night
Empty branches yearn for
darkening breeze.
Eerie singing echoes
from the horizon.
Slower days, longer nights
made for reflection ...
And wind sings, trees dance,
stars laugh in the moonlight.
libramoon
"Hubble" (c) Diana ManisterTHE BLACK HOLE
(c) Santiago del Dardano Turann
Here knowledge ends, imploding into no-thingness
Dissolved in streaming elemental force
Of naked gravity unborn inside a womb,
A knot whose threads are doom and mystery.
Here all the flow of light is swamped in tangled
Dead tides of photons in their fading flicker
Exhaling drowning colors in the vortex;
Horizon endless where all matter fizzles.
Here radiation and magnetism spin
In scrambled patterns broken firing down
At speeds where light is seen to crawl
With random matter crushed to quantum bits.
Here space and time have blossomed into Being
Where all man knows inverts to strange
Dimensions alien lattice work of non-
Euclidean geometry cast in liquid veils.
(c) Michael PukacIn Storied Nights
(c) Terreson
How wood, how water,
how heart-still stays the tender of home,
the fire and thirst for love's perfection
in body touch in calm eye of storm.
Dances of November, dancers off the ocean,
the wild weather of womantide warming with
honey of fireweed heavy on forehead,
heavy in abandon when dancing trees
come nearest in on haunted grounds of home.
Far out from the poppy glow, the glare glow
of city beneath embossed light shield,
out from and into the innocent night
where death and life mix inside the milky bowl;
in no shame for where they are, where they've
come from, where their children bear
upon them upending passion for more.
In the palm, in the hand, in the spiraling,
the mother round mystic of the universe
where there is no stop to river and flow,
no check, no erratic rock to halt
the cosmic habit of deep time's fractal fold.
Just so the forest calls in like stalls
the names of those who hear or who
cannot hear except in waking dreams.
In white femur bone of deer on fertile floor,
in windless breeze rising up sparse leaves,
or in tawny wildcat gone winter gray
who occupies midnight corners of the day,
looking in on things he sees out of
green eyes looking out from things inside.
Clarity when comes of perfect space can
have return, when spatial texture of fleshy
sculptures hold in high hand dreamer, thinker, or
perfect lover; there when Wild beauty in Calm
leads on, leads on.
She who lives out through the human fracture.
"A message from a distance is coming" (c) Elena Mary Siff
Fusion
(c) Turance
Healthy and starborn, I drift with scrutiny
waiting for the burning bush and game
for the rigor of gazing. Though I may flail
I come home to my footing in the vastness
between galaxies. At last the view opens
up when I befriend a star and time
is crushed by the union across light-years.
"Party Boat to Atlantis" (c) Michael Pukac
Aurora(c) Susan Adams
We wore it like a borealis
a cape of glorialis
2 souls shimmering
interchanging communion on fluorescent skin,
we rode the sky's magnetic storm
in scintillating freefalls and
sparking updrafts.
We were the polar lights of magnetism
charged particles in electric air
Aurora's 'Dance of Spirits' -
corona of the solar flares
with curtains of striations
we danced on lust and laughter
the Salome of veils.
The colours breathed imbued us
we wore them clothed as signals to each other.
Our cloaks of polar aurorae exposed us
brightly shining morsels for the picking
prey for the predator, birdwing, tongue of worm,
our own ability to self destruct.
In a moment of neglect the parachute of time took over
didn't open, we descended to black and white
the march of a million feet marking time
the glare of our introspection and analyses
the questions of why.
The beauty of Aurora Borealis raged above
calling in silent flashes of code
while we waited for our destiny to be decided,
my cape the shade of street
I creep in its folds, this scab of detention
of wet marshmallow stickiness,
dismissal the verdict.
I'm sentenced to a shroud.
"Realm Gazers (c) Julia Still
Lifelines
It's a tale many times in the telling
Of wisdom and wonder and enchantment foretold.
Captivating, yes compelling.
But catch it now, before you're old (We're so soon old.).
Cross country wide and free; a gypsy's life by caravan
And what is yet to be is stretching wide, without a plan.
Try, if you can, to imagine just how you're gonna end.
. . . You're gonna end.
Past ships and planes and miles of dusty road,
It's all been told . . .and then retold.
We've lived a thousand lives before, we the vagabonds of Earth
But let me try to tell to you my story, it's all I own
Whatever be its worth.
It started in a coffeehouse so many years ago
Where poets of our century were wont to waste their days
And in those days did bright mindwaves cast their nets and flow
To catch up young unruly souls and charge them with the craze
For adventuring -- for "something new"
To catch a star and follow wherever it should lead
To search out the sacred answer to the ache of human need
To be the first new holy breed to wholey shake the Earth
To usher in a promised age, so many years in birth.
It was a time of carousels and colored lights;
A time of feeling grandly strong and right;
A time when Life was just beyond our sight.
What made it go? Which corner was the wrong one turned?
Or is it merely time to take things slow,
To gather up the threads of what we've learned?
The darkness cast upon us, how was it earned?
Oh yes, I meant to tell you of brilliant desert skies
And city street romances that sparkled ere they died.
Of Denver's summer snowstorm and LA's winter flood
And secret, solemn friendship pacts seal'd in sorrow's blood.
Of a much awaited sunrise within a foreign town
Of food and flowers and incense freely passed around
Of turquoise rings & violent springs & jails of many brands
And music wafting through the streets
Of gentle smell of smoke so sweet
And wondrous madmen once to meet who read witchcraft in your hand.
And so much more; yes, lifetimes more.
I would give it all to you, asking nothing in return
But that you seek, in your own style, for yourself to learn
Of corners waiting yet to turn before our time is through.
And perhaps one day you'll say to me:
"Yes, the answer's here! Yes, the answer's clear!"
And you will say to all of us: "Here's what we must do."
Before our time is through . . .
libramoon
Blueflower (c) Arabella Proffer
"Mind Navigated Flying" (c) Fanitsa Petrou
Hand rendered. Copyright © Fanitsa Petrou. All Rights Reserved.
Any unauthorized reproduction will automatically lead to legal implications.
Blueflower (c) Arabella Proffer// 00:51 
