Open-Secrets

Author: John

  • Extropy

    extropy

    Extropy, according to the official Extropian Principles, is “a measure of intelligence, information, energy, vitality, experience, diversity, opportunity, and capacity for growth.” Extropianism, then, is “the philosophy that seeks to increase extropy.”

    The principles themselves are five in number: Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, and Spontaneous Order. They make up the handy Extropian acronym: BEST DO IT SO!

    Innumerable suns exist; innumerable earths revolve around these suns in a manner similar to the way the seven planets revolve around our sun. Living beings inhabit these worlds. from On the Infinite Universe and Worlds, Giordano Bruno, 1584

  • Love

    Love almaas

    Love is an existence, not a reaction, not an activity.
    It is not a thought, or an emotion. – A.H. Almaas

  • Independence Day

    Ducks

    In properly organized groups no faith is required; what is required is simply a little trust and even that only for a little while, for the sooner a man begins to verify all he hears the better it is for him. – George Gurdjieff

    There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught; no absolute position in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the center of things. – Giordano Bruno, 1584

    It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one, better to listen to one than to misuse it as a means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisitiuon of “culture.” – John Cage

    Image by ArtDream

  • Change & Identity

    Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self, in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one’s nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one’s nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one’s robes. – James Baldwin

    Did you ever wonder why it seems so hard to change? Have you ever met a friend who seems radically different from the way you used to know them and you find yourself relating to them like they hadn’t changed at all? Or found it uncomfortable, if not impossible, to greet them from beginner’s mind? Or maybe you felt like you changed, but no one is taking the time to meet the new you – interactions are based on rehashing old history until the new you is once again covered in the dust of history.

    Changes by Max Gail

    One day I found a brand new me whom some of my friends couldn’t see
    was every bit as real a guy as the more familiar I.

    But with an unfamiliar script which told them surely I had flipped
    or else was going through some stage which soon Id drop and act my age
    as if my age weren’t just a fact, but really something I should act.

    They thought that who we really are was only who we’d been so far.
    Well, I must say it was a shock to find these friends a stumbling block
    along the way to all the me’s I hope will put my mind at ease.

    I wasn’t trying to scare or dare or show myself as more aware
    but merely trying to share my thoughts and clear the air of
    shoulds and oughts.

    It seems that staying just the same is really just a hopeless game
    played to show that you’re for real instead of feeling what you feel.

    Instead of following our hearts, we check ourselves and play the part
    that parents wrote with loving pains and planted in our infant brains.

    If change is something I must do, I guess my friends must change some too.

    So – I must learn to leave them free to misconstrue a truth in me
    ‘cuz words are words and never deeds and sometimes time is all one needs
    to understand a changing friend and let the newest colors blend.

    So I must learn to stay alone and dig these new me’s on my own
    until they’re such a part of me, they’re something any fool can see.

    And learn to see that such a chasm was caused by my ENTHUSIASM!

  • Fear & Vulnerability

    Fearvulnerability almaas

    The moment your vulnerability is complete and you are aware of oneness, there is no fear. – A.H. Almaas

  • OM – AUM

    Om

    Om also Aum

    The supreme and most sacred syllable, consisting in Sanskrit of the three sounds (a), (u), and (m), representing various fundamental triads and believed to be the spoken essence of the universe. It is uttered as a mantra and in affirmations and blessings.

    OM
    The imperishable sound, is the seed of all that exists.
    The past, present, the future, all are but the unfolding of OM.
    And whatever transcends the three realms of time, that indeed is the flowering of OM.
    This pure self and OM are as one, and the different quarters of the self correspond to OM and its sounds. – Mandukya Upanishad

Open-Secrets