Urpflanze

"Well, if one has not yet controlled their fears then the story would still be valid." Well, fear is an emotion evoked by facing Death. If the emotion be joy evoked by facing Happiness. Will any rapturous action on his part in the light of Happiness be considered stupid?

How can an amnesiac know of his condition on his own?

So, basically, one finds a way to run into his fate? Well, if we replace Death with Happiness here. In that context, will the action of the servant seem unreasonable or unworthy? Will the moral of the story crumble?

What a soulful voice Sinatra was gifted with...

Hello Julian, fear of public speaking is quite a common fear - as mentioned by Brian. If you're not in a profession that demands public speaking, I see no reason of panic. Of course, I don't mean that you avoid it altogether, but that you approach it at your own comfortable pace. Look at it this way - as a speaker, you have to progress through growing spheres of interactions: family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, local club acquaintances, strangers... to finally a gathering of strangers. There is no pressure on you to master the last sphere first. Each sphere has an embodied context that brings out natural conversations - intimate talk, fun talk, locality issues, work and deadlines and the boss, club and watercooler talk etc. Try to present yourself well within each context, but don't force yourself on the listener just because the talk is some kind of a public speaking exercise. Be natural, spontaneous, eager and accomodating - and great conversations shall follow automatically. And soon enough, without you even realizing, your vocal chords will learn to adapt their pitch and volume to the number of ears around you. And that shall be a great start. Best of luck!

etc??? You mean you have more questions but prefer posters to fill them and answer anyway? Really, is this how you go about learning - by uttering "etc"?

Can we "see" without a context and without the ability to abstract? Is not "seeing" the achieving of an operational level of transparency within a context? Does that not make "seeing" subjective? Can we ever "see through" any thing - achieve an absolute objective transparency in all its contexts? And suppose we do achieve this ability to "see through", what will then there be left to "see"?

You can't plan all the things at the start. This is not how it works. Life is that which happens in between the plans. You start from A with a set of agenda, but when you reach B you are not the same person anymore. The things that may have appealed to you earlier may not appeal to you 'now'. You change. Your perspective changes. Your consciousess expands. I will go as far as to claim that you don't have a clue as to what your real calling is. And that is perfectly normal. These checklists are a trick by which you encounter the real 'you'. Without them, you will never start. But if you cling to them stubbornly, you will never encounter. So, pick up one goal and see where it takes you.

There is no real benefit in shortchanging your body's natural mechanism to heal itself daily, to sort the messy details of the day into meaningful memories, and to tag them to the corrrect branch of your learning tree. And the most crucial of all - staging a theater of smoke and mirrors for you and you alone, where occasionally the purple-gown lady descends to blow a sprinkle of magic-dust in your pupils.

Brian Eno goes hand-in-hand with spirituality, imo.

An interesting article I came across: http://www.kundalini-tantra.com/rtbrain1.html If any field expert here can vet the article for what it is really worth, I'd be grateful. Edit: Dear admins, if you can please edit the Tantra spelling in the title.

You are most probably correct. I have given up on chasing after these vain, unnatural ideals to artificially jack up my potential. I'm gonna limp my way through with whatever flawed but personal clutches I have at my disposal rather than to dash clueless wearing the legs of someone else.

The serence youtube pic doesn't do justice to the music, me thinks. The picture that I have in mind for this song is:

In that case, this should suit you: Or, this:

I would like this song to play at my funeral. http://vimeo.com/2082920

But how can someone who spends his entire day amidst dead bodies be expected to scout for buxom partners?

Whenever the word 'selfless' comes in my view - in any article or print or teaching or learning - I immediately grasp that the source is to be discarded.

If Middle-East is about petrodollar, what was Vietnam about?

And not to mention that your universities are top-notch and attract the best brains from all over the world.

I beg to differ. The first sore is that your criteria for being good or bad is governed by your own personal interests - MY and ME. The second sore is that life is not that simple to live by the two naive handles. You are closing your eyes to the multidimensional, multilevel reality by doing that. The third sore is that you are a human and there is a reason why it is important... to figure out your own voice.

I've seen people who lose sleep over saving money. It's never enough for them. They are equally guilty and paranoid as those who lose sleep over making money. Keep balance. Try to cut down your meaty expenditures, try not to run after every fancy gizmo marketed by the blue suits, and try not to waste time fretting over razor blades when you can spend the same time wrestling with problems that can create value or learning things that can open up your horizons. That's all. Time is money. If you are wasting time on saving a few bucks, you are still wasting money.

I jumped down from my balcony to a broken arm, full convinced that some unknown persecutioners have sent a phantom to bump me off. Hours before that I was hearing aliens jamming noise in my phone-conversation with a friend so as to stop me from spilling the secret to him.

Love few and hate even fewer. Love a person and hate a representation. Try to build but keep it below the simmering point. Your name should not be the first to appear on anyone's tongue - be it to give or to receive. The time spent chasing circles is the time spent chasing the divine. For circle is the perfect form.