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 :-)
Sunday, 28 February 2010
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Read the full post here...
http://www.helpothers.org/story.php?sid=17064
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