Monday 6 December 2010

Link: Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus

Monday 29 November 2010

Link: Optimists Get Jobs More Easily - and Get Promoted More, Researchers Find

Recent research finds evidence that optimism pays off in job hunting and promotions.

Researchers Ron Kaniel (Fuqua School of Business, Duke), Cade Massey (Yale School of Management) and David T. Robinson (Fuqua School) studied the effect of an optimistic disposition on MBA students’ job searches and then promotions in the two years after they graduated.

The bottom line? Optimists fared better than their less-optimistic peers in some important ways, the researchers report in a recent National Bureau of Economic Research working paper. For one thing, the optimistically inclined MBA students found comparable jobs to their peers — but found them more easily, with less-intensive job searches. Even better, two years after graduation, the optimists were more likely than their less-optimistic peers to have been promoted.

Read the full article here...
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/improvisations/2010/10/20/optimists-get-jobs-more-easily-and-get-promoted-more-researchers-find

Thursday 25 November 2010

Link: Be Selfish Be Generous

Tuesday 23 November 2010

NOW Published!




Who am I?
What am I doing here?
What is the meaning of life?
Is this all there is?
Why am I never satisfied?
Why is life so difficult?
What is the secret of happiness?
How do I take control?
Am I missing something?

Do you ever wonder?
Answers contained within.

I am very happy to tell you that "Towards Personal Empowerment" is now published and available for sale in paperback, eBook, and on the iBookStore.

I am overjoyed to finally reach this stage after six years of writing and editing in my spare time. "Towards Personal Empowerment" is about understanding and applying the answers to life's big questions in order to improve our experience. If this intrigues you, I hope you will find the time to give it a read. Otherwise, it would be fantastic if you could share this with someone who may be interested. Each of the above links also allows you to rate and review the book, helping to generate future interest.

Thank you so much for your interest and support.

Take good care,
Michael

Saturday 13 November 2010

Link: A New Moral Context

"In a culture that values individual freedoms above and beyond anything else, it is all too easy to become self-centered and narcissistic. But consider, for a moment, the mind-expanding fact that our highly developed capacity for individuality is the product of a hundred thousand years of cultural evolution, and that cultural evolution is the product of three billion years of biological evolution, and biological evolution is the product of almost fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution. All of it is part of one unfolding process. This recognition engenders a profound sense of connectedness with the entire evolutionary continuum. As our awareness expands dramatically in the direct realization of the nonduality of absolute interrelatedness, our small, personal bubble of separate individuality bursts. Slowly but surely, we discover a powerfully implicating new moral context for our existence here at the leading edge of our evolving cosmos."

Andrew Cohen

http://www.enlightennext.org Quote of the week

Friday 12 November 2010

Link: Give Happiness

Great souls take advantage of every moment and every opportunity to give happiness to others through kindness in their thoughts; such souls are willing to overlook weaknesses and mistakes and have the desire to help everyone reach their potential.

http://www.thoughtfortoday.org.uk

Monday 18 October 2010

Link: Why I don’t care about success

A lot of people in my field write about how to be successful, but I try to avoid it. It’s just not something I believe is important.
Now, that might seem weird: what kind of loser doesn’t want to be successful?
Me. I’m that loser.

Read the full post at... http://zenhabits.net/anti-success

Friday 8 October 2010

Link: TURF DANCING in the RAIN

Thursday 7 October 2010

Link: University of Miami student changes lives - one hug at a time

A University of Miami graduate student has spent the better part of his college career inspiring others in an unusual way.

For two years, University of Miami student Kemy Joseph has been wearing signs around his neck with uplifting messages like ``U R Awesome,'' and ``Persevere.'' On Thursday, he celebrated his second anniversary of spreading goodwill by spending 15 hours on campus giving high-fives and hugs. His goal: to make 800 people feel a little bit better in one day.

Read the full article at... http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/09/1816860/university-of-miami-student-gives.html?asset_id=Students%20%27free%20hugs%27%20and%20%27high%20fives%27%20brighten%20UM%20campus&asset_type=html_module

Monday 30 August 2010

Link: The Gandhi Rap - Be the change u want to see

Thursday 26 August 2010

Link: Present Moment Reminders from Eckhart

When you drop your expectations that a person, a situation, a place, or an object should fulfill you, it's easier to be present in this moment because you're no longer looking to the next one. Most people want to get what they want, whereas the secret is to want what you get at this moment.

Eckhart Tolle

http://www.eckharttolletv.com/free/present-moment-reminders

Wednesday 18 August 2010

Link: Create Vision

Never believe anyone who says we cannot change. Vision is one of the secrets of personal transformation. We are all artists, our mind is the arena of creation and vision is what we are constantly creating. What is your vision of yourself today - patient, relaxed, positive or tense, tight and negative? What do you prefer? So be creative - what does patience look like, feel like, what are you doing that is different when you are patient and you are expressing your power to ...wait? Always start with vision not action. See it and you will be it. Be it and you will do it. This is how we create our own life.

http://www.thoughtfortoday.org.uk

Wednesday 4 August 2010

Link: The Ripple Effect of Kindness

Over the last few years, I've become a big proponent of Smile Cards. The premise behind these small cards is simple: do an anonymous act of kindness and leave a card behind, inviting the recipient to pay-it-forward. If he/she does, the chain keeps going, resulting in "ripples" of kindness radiating out.

Smile Cards are wonderful in ways I cannot count. Small, simple, humble -- yet powerful, because one act of kindness can be the start of a long chain. But for all these reasons, the main reason why I use them is the subtle change that has begun to occur in the way I think.

Read the full post here...
http://www.charityfocus.org/blog/view.php?id=2217

Thursday 29 July 2010

Link: The Miracle is You

Monday 19 July 2010

Link: Thought for Today: The Secret Of Immeasureable Wealth

The secret of immeasureable wealth is to need less. The wealthiest human beings ultimately give away vast amounts of the money that they have spent half their lifetime acquiring. This suggests that the motivation behind all their efforts was not the pursuit of wealth but something else. The need to prove something to oneself, for instance? Replace need - whether it be at an emotional or physical level - with an unshakeable faith in one's self and in God. Neither will ever let you down, if you hold fast to this faith.

http://www.thoughtfortoday.org.uk

Saturday 10 July 2010

New Direction

The top 25 authors have now been announced for round 3 of the Next Top Spiritual Author competition. Scoring was assessed by popularity vote, judging panel, and the publisher. Unfortunately, I was not selected to proceed. So instead I will return to my original plan of self publishing with an online service such as Lulu.com.

The competition has supported me to announce “Being Human – Towards Personal Empowerment” to everyone and in so doing given me a great drive forward in my plans to publish. Next I will complete the final editing that is still needed and then proceed to publish online. Lulu uses print on demand technology which means for each order that is placed, a new book will be printed and dispatched. This helps to drastically reduce the costs involved.

I will keep you updated with any progress as I make it going forward at www.BeingHumanToday.com. Being Human Today is a selection of information from other sources on the Internet that is the same philosophy as I describe in “Being Human – Towards Personal Empowerment”. In this way instead of directly sharing this philosophy in my words, I can share it using the voices and expressions of many different people. I like to think that there is nothing new being said, just different ways of expressing the same basic underlying principles.

The energy that has surrounded the competition has been immense and I feel privileged to have been a part of it. I am very excited now to carry this energy forward on a more personal level and to publish later this year. Thank you so much for providing me your support this far.

Take good care,
Michael

Wednesday 7 July 2010

Link: Compliment Guys at Purdue University

Monday 14 June 2010

Link: Be lucky - it's an easy skill to learn

A decade ago, I set out to investigate luck. I wanted to examine the impact on people's lives of chance opportunities, lucky breaks and being in the right place at the right time. After many experiments, I believe that I now understand why some people are luckier than others and that it is possible to become luckier.

Read the full article here... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3304496/Be-lucky-its-an-easy-skill-to-learn.html

Saturday 12 June 2010

Link: MC Yogi - Give Love

MC Yogi - Give Love (Giving4Living Mix) from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

Thursday 10 June 2010

Link: Good News: Happiness grows as we age, poll finds

It is inevitable. The muscles weaken. Hearing and vision fade. We get wrinkled and stooped. We can't run or even walk as fast as we used to. We have aches and pains. We get old.

It sounds miserable, but apparently it is not. A Gallup Poll has found that by almost any measure, people get happier as they get older, and researchers are not sure why.

"It could be that there are environmental changes," said Arthur Stone, a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the lead author of a study based on the survey, "or it could be psychological changes about the way we view the world, or it could even be biological -- for example brain chemistry or endocrine changes."

Read the full article here... http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2010/jun/03/good-news-happiness-grows-as-we-age-poll-finds/news

Tuesday 8 June 2010

Link: 21 Reasons You Should Quit Your Day Job And Travel The World

The problem is that most of us, and I fell into this trap too, put it off. Either for 1-2 weeks at a time on a yearly vacation or “until some day when X happens.” Whatever eXcuse (get it?) you have for continuing on living a life you’re not thrilled with, it’s unfounded. There is always a way.

Read the full post here... http://www.ridiculouslyextraordinary.com/21-reasons-you-should-quit-your-day-job

Saturday 5 June 2010

Link: The Shift

Tuesday 1 June 2010

Please vote in round 2

Round 2 of the Next Top Spiritual Author competition is now open for voting!

I need your help again to vote for me in round 2 of the Next Top Spiritual Author competition. With 271 authors remaining in the competition, this should be the last time that I will be asking you to vote. From round 3 there will only be 25 authors and success will be determined by the judging panel.

Vote for me at http://www.nexttopauthor.com/profile.cfm?aid=254

For round 2 authors should submit a book proposal and a sample chapter. You can read my entry at the above link. To vote just login with your email address and password you set up last time.

Also, please pass this message onto your friends and family and ask them to support me as well. Round 2 is open to all for voting, including those who didn't vote in round 1. By you spreading the word and encouraging others to vote as well, I stand a much greater chance of progressing to round 3!

You can also spread the word with the Facebook page which already has 123 fans and is a great way for me to keep you updated.

Thank you very much for your support :-)
Michael

P.S. Please drop me an email or Facebook message if you vote so that I can keep track of my progress and best update you later.

Monday 31 May 2010

Link: Many Faiths, One Truth

When I was a boy in Tibet, I felt that my own Buddhist religion must be the best — and that other faiths were somehow inferior. Now I see how naïve I was, and how dangerous the extremes of religious intolerance can be today.

Read the full post by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, here... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/opinion/25gyatso.html

Sunday 23 May 2010

American boy, 13, breaks Everest record

A 13-year-old American became the youngest climber to ever summit Mount Everest on Saturday. Jordan Romero's journey was tracked through GPS coordinates on his blog, logging his team's ascent up Everest, which is 29,028 feet (8,847 meters) above sea level.

"Their dreams have now come true," a statement on Jordan's blog said. "Everyone sounded unbelievably happy."

Read the full story here...
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/05/22/teen.mount.everest/index.html

Sunday 16 May 2010

Your life purpose

"Your primary purpose is to be here fully, and to be total in whatever you do so that the preciousness of the present moment does not become reduced to a means to an end. And there you have your life purpose. That's the very foundation of your life." Eckhart Tolle

Monday 10 May 2010

Link: Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Thought Bubble: Kindness

Saturday 8 May 2010

Laugh

"If you laugh - you change; and when you change - the world changes." Shilpa Shah

Sunday 2 May 2010

Link: Once a rising star, chef now feeds hungry

Narayanan Krishnan was a bright, young, award-winning chef with a five-star hotel group, short-listed for an elite job in Switzerland. But a quick family visit home before heading to Europe changed everything.
"I saw a very old man eating his own human waste for food," Krishnan said. "It really hurt me so much. I was literally shocked for a second. After that, I started feeding that man and decided this is what I should do the rest of my lifetime."
Krishnan was visiting a temple in the south Indian city of Madurai in 2002 when he saw the man under a bridge. Haunted by the image, Krishnan quit his job within the week and returned home for good, convinced of his new destiny.

Read the full article here... http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/04/01/cnnheroes.krishnan.hunger/index.html

Friday 23 April 2010

Do you ever wonder? NTSA

Who am I? What am I doing here? What is the meaning of life? Is this all there is? Why am I never satisfied? Why is life so difficult? What is the secret of happiness? How do I take control? Am I missing something?

Have you ever wondered about the answers to these questions? I used to. Then I found them and wrote a book about it!

Now, I really need your help to get published. The 'Next Top Spiritual Author' competition is only made possible thanks to the evolving methods of communication happening through the Internet. Never before have we been so empowered to connect with one another than we are today. Approximately 3500 new authors are participating in the competition from all around the world. Thousands of votes are being cast every day. Please help to bring my message forward by casting your vote to support me.

Vote for me at http://www.NextTopAuthor.com/?aid=254

In order to fairly track who has voted for who, it is necessary to use an email confirmation - hence entering your email address is the only way to cast a vote. I am aware that some people may be concerned with this. You will receive email updates about the competition from time to time. At any time you have the option to unsubscribe - each email will contain information about how to unsubscribe at the end of the message. It is as simple as a couple of clicks and you will not receive anymore emails. The competition organisers state on their website that they "will never sell, trade or give away your personal information and abide by all email laws". Also, I am in regular contact with them, so just let me know if you have any issues and I will raise it with the organisers directly. However, I really doubt that you will have any problem at all.

For the first round of the competition, each author must submit a video or audio pitch about their book. You can watch my video pitch on the competition website.

Voting for the first round of the competition closes at midnight on Monday 3rd May. The top 250 authors with the most votes will progress to the second round. Please help me progress, firstly by voting, and then by sharing this with your friends, family, and colleagues. In this way the potential number of votes increases tremendously. If you think my book has potential, please spread the word and ask people to vote for me.

You can also spread this with Facebook. Every vote really does count.

Thank you for your support, I really appreciate it.
Michael John Roberts

P.S. The competition website does not reveal individual votes, so if you vote please drop me a message and let me know. I can then keep some idea of how well things are progressing.

Tuesday 13 April 2010

Do you ever wonder?

Friday 9 April 2010

Link: Divine Pride and the Integral Movement

You are the cutting edge of evolution.

Go ahead, take a few moments to feel into that. It's not hyperbole—billions of years of evolution are at your back, plunging you into greater consciousness, greater compassion, greater freedom, and greater fullness. You are already perfect, and always have been—and yet, there is something making you even more perfect, something shaping you in its own image, something inviting you to step more fully into your own life.

Read the full post here...
http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/602

Sunday 4 April 2010

'Next Top Spiritual Author' Competition

I need your help! Six years ago I started writing a book and this year it will be ready to publish. I have entered a competition which if I win, I will be offered a publishing contract. I need you to vote for me!

Vote for me at http://www.NextTopAuthor.com/?aid=254

If money doesn't buy happiness - what does? Twelve years ago, this question led me on a journey into the deeper meaning of life. In the summer of 2004, after six years of looking for answers, I had what I can only describe as an 'epiphany of clarity'. It was an amazingly beautiful and humbling experience, and soon afterward my desire to look for answers disappeared, to be replaced with a yearning to express what I had come to understand. I wanted to record this wisdom clearly and concisely, in terms that anyone living in today's world could easily relate to. In this way I have written "Being Human - Towards Personal Empowerment".

Please vote for me in 'The Next Top Spiritual Author' competition. The competition started on 29 March 2010 and I need your vote. The winner of the competition will be offered a publishing contract from Hampton Roads Publishing, one of the top Body/Mind/Spirit publishers in the world, along with a promotional package worth over $50,000 to help launch their book.

For round 1 of the competition, each author must submit a video or audio pitch about their book. You can watch my video pitch on the competition website.

The competition has four rounds and will run for most of the year. Round 1 is basically a popularity contest - the top 250 authors with the most votes will progress to round 2. All votes are cast on the competition website. Each author in the competition will be asking everyone they know to vote for them. However, the real power of the Internet can best be harnessed by you discussing and passing this on to your friends and family. In that way the potential number of votes increases tremendously. So, if you think my book has potential, please tell your friends and family, and anyone else you may talk to and ask them to vote for me too!

Thank you for your support, and please... spread the word :-)
Michael

Saturday 27 March 2010

Link: Srikumar Rao: Plug into your hard-wired happiness

Sunday 21 March 2010

Link: Happiness wards off heart disease

Being happy and staying positive may help ward off heart disease, a study suggests.

US researchers monitored the health of 1,700 people over 10 years, finding the most anxious and depressed were at the highest risk of the disease.

Read the full article here... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8520549.stm

Saturday 20 March 2010

My first experience of India

2 weeks in India from Michael Roberts on Vimeo.

Monday 15 March 2010

Link: Make Poverty History

Sunday 14 March 2010

Link: Walking Away with an Open Heart

I was on my lunch break in the city, enjoying a salad at an outdoor cafe, when a disheveled homeless lady came walking towards me. She was yelling and begging everyone who walked past her for spare change and she looked like a mess. My instant reaction was fear... to close off and hope she didn't come near me, but she did. I was on the phone and when she came over yelling, I said, "I'm on the phone," in the nicest way I could, assuring myself what she needed was a lesson in manners. After all, that is rude to interrupt someone and I have very little money as it is, if she only knew and on and on... She walked away, mumbling, "I'm annoying you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll leave." And she turned the corner.

Normally, I would feel relieved or satisfied, but something in me couldn't rest. Without another thought, I looked in my wallet for the spare change I had. It was just dimes and pennies, but I found a few and was going to give them to her. Suddenly, something amazing happened. I started searching through my entire purse, the bottom, the pockets, everything - for ALL of the change I could possibly find to give, and something in me cracked. It felt like my heart broke and poured open and the restlessness abruptly stopped.

Read the full post here... http://www.helpothers.org/story.php?sid=11242

Wednesday 10 March 2010

Hempi

Hempi is hot! So hot! Barely a breeze most of the time. Multiple power cuts each day/night so the fans often stop too. Surrounded by piles and piles of rocks, it was actually used as the set for The Flintstones movie. Steeped in history with many ancient buildings and temples all around dating back to the 13th century. A short scooter ride away is a beautiful reservoir where we can swim and get a break from the heat. Paddy fields all around and oxen pulling carts down the street. The children seem as happy as anywhere but ask for money at every meeting.
Back on the train to Goa now for the first leg of my journey home to Dubai. No luck uploading in Hempi so these posts will be a little delayed. After a week or so without issue I now have some stomach problems. It wouldn't be India without it!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thursday 4 March 2010

The Beach Life

Waking up each day when the temperature gets too hot to sleep anymore. Freshen up in the ensuite, meditation to waken the mind, then step out of my shack onto a beautiful golden beach.
Puppies are living right outside my door. They stay near their mother, sleeping in the hot hours, and playing when it's cooler. There are many dogs here - street dogs and beach dogs - as well as cats, pigs, cows, and chickens all roaming free. Cows even make good use of the roads to get about and only seem to cause accidents occassionally.
A few feet from my shack is Sanjay's, where you can get anything you want from porridge with banana to clean laundry or a taxi to the airport. You could easily chill out at Sanjay's all day, and some people do, but there is a beautiful blue sea gently lapping a long golden beach that stretches all the way into town and then beyond. The sea feels warmer than the air but is welcomely refreshing to break the midday sun. Every hundred meters or so down the beach another rest-o-bar mellows in the sunshine.
There are kitesurfers on this beach. The wind is perfect - consistent and gently increasing through the afternoon. I have to come back with my kite equipment. It is so perfect for kiting!
Arambol town is 15 minutes walk along the beach or 5 minutes on scooter through the back streets. The back steets are little more than dirt tracks. Everyones houses seem to mix together, intermingled with the occassional field or shop. Scooters are the most popular means to travel. Use of the horn is vital at all and any opportunity. Great care and attention also highly advised - these people don't hesitate to take your life into their hands. With the scooters we were able to travel up and down the coast a little and see the beautiful scenery that seems to be everywhere here.
After a week in Arambol, Goa, we are now off to Hempi to see some more wonders and apparently stunning scenery. 8 hours on the train, sleeper class - actually suprisingly comfy :-)

Sunday 28 February 2010

Goa!

Wow! Goa is so much bigger than I thought. My impression was of a town but this is a state. I am staying in Arombol, about 1.5 hours from the airport. It's more of a touristy area but not far from a more rural India either, as you will see from some of the photos. The scenery is beautiful. The weather is very hot and humid. Cools down a bit in the evening but the midday hours are very swetty! I have been staying with Nick in his little house but tonight should be moving to a beach hut, to get some of my own space. I have a scooter so have been exploring a bit of the local area. I bought a shirt today for 150 Rupees which is about 2 pounds. I think I probably over paid as well - chances are!
Nick has a lot of friends all about this area, so he has been steadily introducing me to them all. Quite overwhelming as he seems to know everybody! Everyone is very friendly, especially the locals :-)

Wednesday 24 February 2010

Time for change

Hi Blog Followers :-)

This is the first time that I have posted my own words onto this blog! I am planning some changes in content going forward, and I wanted to let you know what's happening. You may have read my three objectives listed on the right side panel of the main blog site. So far my posts have been content that I have found inspiring on the web, that is associated with my objectives. This may be interesting but I feel that I want to get much more involved in these objectives rather than just giving them lip service. So my intention long term, is to change my life from an office job to one much more aligned to these objectives everyday! I want to live them everyday, and I want to demonstrate that experience through this blog! What this will mean and what the experience will look like is basically an experiment, so watch this space!

I have been testing a photostream over the last week, and also bought an iPhone. Apologies if you have noticed a couple of blank or test posts, or other issues - I have been testing and setting up the iPhone so that I can post to the blog, post to twitter, and post photos, from anywhere, at anytime (provided I have some kind of network signal - 3G, GPRS, or WiFi). On the main blog page now you will also see my twitter feed and my photostream feed - please subscribe to both or just view the blog page as you wish. Again, how you join me in this experience is also an experiment. Technology and social networking are making this possible and are changing all the time - I intend to make the best use of these as I can!

To start this experiment, I am going to India for a fortnight vacation. I will use the iPhone to post blog, twitter, and photo content onto this site (and to the subscription and RSS links). Let's see how well it works!

I will also continue to post web content that I find inspiring alongside my own posts. I hope you find it interesting and I will always love to read your thoughts and comments.

Take good care.

“The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” Charles DuBois

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Link: Three Homeless Men - A Kindness Story

"And talking about beautiful...yesterday I was witness to such a heartwarming random act of kindness. It will forever be imprinted in my mind. I had to run downtown to help Bonnie out for a few hours (it was not part of my original plans for Monday). On my bus ride back to the train station, we were in gridlock traffic right by the opera house. As I stare out my window a handsome young man (25ish to 30ish) walks out of the side door of the Opera House. It's cold and windy outside. He has on a heavy army-issued jacket and a scarf wrapped around his neck.

Read the full post here...
http://www.helpothers.org/story.php?sid=334

Friday 12 February 2010

Link: Millionaire gives away fortune which made him miserable

Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder is giving away every penny of his £3 million fortune after realising his riches were making him unhappy.

Read the full story here... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/7190750/Millionaire-gives-away-fortune-which-made-him-miserable.html

Sunday 7 February 2010

Link: Will Smith's Wisdom

Tuesday 2 February 2010

Link: Love is for giving

What is love and where is it found? We search for love and try to get love, and yet it seems like we never get enough. Even when we have found love, it can slip away as time passes. What if there is a source of love that never fades and is always available? What if love is as near and easy as breathing? What if we have been “looking for love in all the wrong places” instead of actually lacking love?

Love is both simpler and more mysterious and subtle than we have imagined it to be. Love is very simply the spacious, open attention of our awareness. Awareness itself is the gentlest, kindest, and most intimate force in the world. It touches things without impinging on them. It holds all of our experience but doesn’t hold it down or hold it back. And yet, inherent in awareness is a pull to connect and even merge with the object of our awareness.

It is this seemingly contradictory nature of awareness—the completely open and allowing nature of awareness and its passionate pull to blend with and even become the object of its attention—that gives life its spirituality, depth and sweetness. There is nothing more satisfying than this delicious dilemma of being both apart from and at the same time connected to something we see, hear, or feel.

Awareness is the beginning of all separation. Prior to awareness, there is just “oneness” or “is-ness,” with nothing separate from the oneness that would be able to experience it. With the birth of awareness, there is the subtle distinction of two things: that which is aware and the object of awareness. And yet, those two are still connected by this mysterious force we are calling awareness, or love.

Read the full article here... http://endless-satsang.com/lovearticle.htm

Saturday 30 January 2010

Children Full of Life

Monday 18 January 2010

Keep Faith

To limit your faith to one set of beliefs or an institutional belief system is to commit intellectual suicide. We shut down the possibility of being enlightened and enriched by others' experiences, which may be derived from their beliefs. We build a barrier between ourselves and our fellow travellers and then feel threatened, even in small and subtle ways, by someone of a different faith. The deepest faith is the intuitive conviction that all is as it should be, despite appearances, and that every human being is intrinsically good, despite appearances. This reminds us to keep our minds open, not take the law into our own hands, and look out for the best in others, regardless of what they say or do. This is faith in life, not faith in a set of learned or inherited beliefs. Have you ever noticed how people don't go to war over their faith in life?

http://www.thoughtfortoday.org.uk

Sunday 10 January 2010

Living without money

Twenty-two years ago Heidemarie Schwermer, a middle-aged secondary school teacher just emerging from a difficult marriage, moved with her two children from the village of Lueneburg to the city of Dortmund, in the Ruhr area of Germany, whose homeless population, she immediately noticed, was above average and striking in its intransigent hopelessness.

Her immediate reaction was shock. “This isn’t right, this can’t go on,” she said to herself. After careful reflection she set up what in Germany is called a Tauschring — a sort of swap shop — a place where people can exchange their skills or possessions for other skills and possessions, a money-free zone where a haircut could be rendered in return for car maintenance; a still-functioning but never-used toaster be exchanged for a couple of second-hand cardigans. She called it Gib und Nimm, Give and Take.

It was always Schwermer’s belief that the homeless didn’t need money to re-enter society: instead they should be able to empower themselves by making themselves useful, despite debts, destitution or joblessness. “I’ve always believed that even if you have nothing, you are worth a lot. Everyone has a place in this world.”

Read the full post here...
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article6928744.ece

Wednesday 6 January 2010

24 Hours of Non-Stop Kindness

I had titled the event “24 hours of kindness.” The goal was simple: to stay out for a full twenty-four hours without sleep, performing as many acts of kindness as possible. Thanks to our local radio station, Coast 93.1, and the support of Tim Wright and Eva Matteson, (two of the most kindhearted DJs you’ll ever meet) all of southern Maine now knew about The Kindness Center’s crazy event. Now known as “The Kindness Guy,” this was my first attempt at something this big. The local and even national media buzz was incredible. Since 9:00 that morning, two of my kindness cronies and I had been all over town delivering free baked goods to nursing homes and schools, buying coffee for strangers, giving out hugs, moving furniture, giving free city bus rides and completely flooding the town with a rainbow of flowers and balloons. Since it was April 15th, “tax day,” we even spent time making grouchy taxpayers smile as they rushed in and out of the post office, a task we would repeat later that night with miraculous results.

Read the full post here...
http://www.helpothers.org/story.php?sid=17064

Friday 1 January 2010

The Known Universe by AMNH