Anthem

I am. I think. I will.

My hands . . . My spirit . . . My sky . . . My forest . . . This earth of mine. . . . What must I say besides? These are the words. This is the answer.

I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect.

- Ayn Rand

Daily events and emotional attitude

“What a miserable day.” 

“He didn't have the decency to return my call.” 

“She let me down.” 

Little stories we tell ourselves and others, often in the form of complaints. They are unconsciously designed to enhance our always deficient sense of self through being right and making something or someone wrong. Being right places us in a position of imagined superiority and so strengthens our false sense of self, the ego. This also creates some kind of enemy. Yes, the ego needs enemies to define its boundary. And even the weather can serve that function. Through habitual mental judgment and emotional contraction you have a personalized reactive relationship to people and events in your life. These are all forms of selfcreated suffering but are not recognized as such because to the ego they are satisfying. The ego enhances itself through reactivity and conflict. How simple life would be without those stories.  

“It is raining.” 

“He did not call.” 

“I was there, she was not.” 

- Eckhart Tolle

Adam and Eve

- how the water is salty,
he said
swimming in the sea of her eyes
- are you crying?
he crawled out to the shore of her body
dried himself with the silk of her thick hair
- don't worry
everything will be alright
he breathed in her ether
- I am terribly hungry
what do we have for dinner?
he sat next to the fire of her heart
- you are a marvelous cook
he dined on her lips
- I will take a nap now
he lied down in her soul
and fell sweetly asleep...

Sensuality of Food and the Lessons of the Bible

Nine and a Half Weeks: Famous Food Scene

Is food sensual? 
Is taste teasing? 
Can you seduce with food?
Yes, yes, yes! 
      These guys are just too sweet, a little spicy and delightfully hungry! Tasting the forbidden fruit... Even the Bible says about it. For what can better describe the earthly love than this language of taste? Delicious, fleshy, gourmet, piquant, savory, succulent, zesty language.
   
     Curious enough, we use the same organ when we taste food, when we speak - about love - and when we kiss - start making love. Should we use our tongue otherwise than for love? Should we use it otherwise than for praizing love? Why use it otherwise than to taste - love?



      -Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for his love is better than wine. Because of the savour of his good ointments his name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love him. Draw me, we will run after you: the king has brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in you, we will remember your love more than wine: the upright love you. 
    -As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. 
    -Your lips are like a thread of scarlet, and your speech is comely: your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within your locks. 
   - How fair is your love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is your love than wine! and the smell of your ointments is fairer than all spices! 
   - Your lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under your tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. 

Undiscovered Music for Meditation: How to Listen to Indian Ragas

Have you ever heard an Indian raga? If you did, especially sung professionally, you should have been impressed. Because, indeed, you have never heard anything of the kind.
A group of Russian sahaja yogis who studied in India and made a tour of the cities of the so-called Golden Ring gave a concert in the Folk Theater in the main street of Kostroma, Russia. As three young men began to sing, my neighbour giggled and sat cross-handed. Apparently, he had no habit to hear this kind of music. With their deep, trembling, vibrating, fluid voices the singers touched the very roots of my being. The song seemed to combine both improvisation and a rigid structure. Subtle and delicate at the beginning, it gradually grew intense and emotional. I closed my eyes to this special meditative music and drifted away on the waves of joy in some kind of trance. If you let it go, if you are receptive, you can learn to listen to ragas and enjoy them. But you must be ready to meet them.

Indian raga performers and their musical instruments

India's musical tradition is very ancient. It developed in a completely different way than that of Europe. The raga is one of the basic genres. A classical raga consists of two parts: the slow improvised introduction and the main part supported by the clear and intricate pattern of the percussion instruments. At least three participants are engaged. The basics of the sound is the tamboura - a bow instrument playing one single note but rich in timbre. The soloist is a wind instrument, or a violin, or stringed musical instruments played by plucking, or a vocal solo. The third performer, with a range of percussion instruments, joins during the second part. From here, the music becomes most complicated and emotionally tense. The constant rhythm creates a special feeling of time, both strained and able to last eternally.
Different ragas coincide with different periods of the day. It is believed harmful to listen to wrong ragas during a certain daytime. In India, the day is divided in 8 parts, each 3 hours long.
Ra is energy, ga in sanskrit means "the moving one, the one that penetrates everywhere". The raga has all the qualities of ether. Whatever you put in ether, it accepts everything. So the raga is the energy entering ether and touching on your spirit. But, to enjoy a raga, you need to calm down. If you are not well-balanced, you are not able to perceive it.
Consider this: raga is music for meditation. Meditation is a practice of thought control, awareness and relaxation. One great obstacle is our mind. It is so untrained, so untamed. Also, it is conditioned. It is taught to be, it has the habit to be selective, and what it chooses is not always the best things. As we learn to filter information that comes to us, we stop perceiving the simplest things. Let your thoughts flow their way. Remember the days when you were a child. Careless, you did not think about tomorrow. It felt as if things came to you naturally. Things happened to you, and every event was a new miracle. The key to hearing a raga is simple: stop analyzing, stop thinking, don't worry, don't be afraid, and start listening with an innocent ear. Forgive yourself for not being able to hear it if you still feel blocked. And let it go. Don't strain yourself. You are not at work. You are not on a duty. You are celebrating now. This is the union of your body, your soul and your mind. Listen to it as if you have never heard a sound before, as if you have never before used your ears. Let the music conquer you. Then the raga will take its effect on you. This is how it becomes a really magical experience.

Philosophy of Coffee: Remembering France

In France, they drink coffee on every corner, in every cafe and every bar. It is a tradition, an obligation. It is a ritual. A day is not a day without a cup of coffee. Not the watery Americano but the true espresso, "le petit cafe", thick and tasty. Relaxed, they sit back at tables leaning on their chair's back and enjoy. They take their time. They drink it slowly. 
And they are right, of course. You need to dissolve in coffee to let coffee dissolve in you. 

Color therapy: our hidden resources

The way to integrity

Our civilization develops in a technocratic way. Since childhood, we are taught to use our left brain, responsible for logical thinking. The common words of this brain are duty, must, rules, order. This makes us lose the connexion with the world of our feelings and emotions. This is how the level of feelings and emotions of an average human has become under the threshold of consciousness.
Our mysterious subconsciousness hosts images, colors, smells, memories. Through it, goes the way of connexion and information exchange with the whole universe. It goes through images, subtle vibrations. But, nowadays, this way of perception is inaccessible to most of the people and forgotten by modern humanity. It is more developed within people who practise creative activities. Painters can distinguish a multitude of colors. Creativity by itself is a way to understand oneself, by exploring inner layers of subconsciousness, and through this, the way to connect with the energy and informational field of the universe. Logical thinking is important as long as it gives the possibility to realize our desires, set goals, develop strategies. It helps us communicate and understand other people. However, unless we have the contact with the right brain, with the world of colors, subtle energies, feelings, we cannot feel our integrity, our complexity. It is the very feeling of existence that the right brain gives us. It is the experience of existence itself - you are bathing in the world of colors and images. This is how we can feel happy.

Aivazovsky, Storm

How color therapy works

Our nervous cell from childbirth has a healthy vibration with a certain wave length. When a pathology takes place, the vibration of the cell changes. In color therapy, according to the response principle, the cell is imposed with a healthy vibration. It is natural for a nervous cell to collect and accumulate the lacking colors and reject the colors in abundance. This is how color therapy works.

Every color has a multitude of shades, from the subtlest delicate ones to the deepest, full of wisdom and knowledge. You need to plunge in the color like in the depths of the sea, give yourself away to its vibrations, like to sea waves, bathe in the color, fill up with the color, and then you start feeling what color is.