When you are a lover, you’re personal, but you have no boundaries that separate you from your lover. – A.H. Almaas
The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere,
they’re in each other all along. – Rumi
Translator: Coleman Barks
The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery. – Francis Bacon
Early precursors to ballets were lavish court entertainments of Renaissance Italy. The first ballet for which a complete score has survived was performed in Paris in 1581. Professional dancers first appeared in the mid-1600s. Court ballet reached its peak during the reign (1643-1715) of Louis XIV, whose title the Sun King was derived from a role he danced in a ballet. Many ballets presented at his court were created by Italian-French composer Jean Baptiste Lully and French choreographer Pierre Beauchamp, who is said to have defined the five positions of the feet.
Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
Image from ArtForge
Night into night
A wave of stillness
An infinite amplitude
Caressing space
Dark velvet void
Absence
No direction
No orientation
No here nor there
Nor not-here
Night arising
As night descends
Only night
Knows the night
An absolute
Intimate loving
J Harper
Yesterday A.H. Almaas mentioned that essential presence is what transforms the consciousness.
One’s practice becomes how to stay in touch with essential presence and not about achieving any particular state of consciousnes.
Almaas said that there are very few people who can actually live from, move from, and act in essential presence though many think they do. It is more difficult than we imagine.
After one is able to maintain contact with essential presence, expressing it becomes the practice. The practice eventually leads to: essential presence is what acts, it’s what does, it is what is.
A result of this is that one’s life becomes a life of service – lived not from the perspective of the ego – getting what I want, enjoying what I want, but serving that deeper nature.
Image by Laura DuBois
True understanding has to do with transformation. If there is no transformation at the moment of understanding, then there is no real understanding . – A.H. Almaas
Last night, I heard A.H. Almaas give a talk on transformation. He began the talk by saying he had been wondering what was the most transformative experience in his life. His conclusion was – none – experiences do not transform the soul.
What transforms the soul is staying in touch with what underlies all experience – True Nature. Almaas pointed out that it is easy to get lost in the content of our lives – our experiences. Being in touch with one’s essence needs to be the first priority, the first love.
It is interesting to note that the Egyptians made a very elaborate science of collecting, storing, and discharging large amounts of static electricity. Supposedly, a concentrated, ionized “field” would enhance the “psychic ability” of their priests. An example of this technology is the ark of the covenant and tabernacle described in the book of exodus. Or the rituals described in the book of the dead.
The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people–and this is true whether or not they are educated — is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations–in fact, they expect them and are apt to be suspicious when things seem overly straightforward. – Neal Stephenson, “The Diamond Age”