Wisdom O'Ehrmann

Desiderata

Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its shams, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

By Max Ehrmann

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. —Voltaire

This is a story that really struck me and I wanted to share it with you. I have gone through life trying to change everything, looking around and seeing suffering and hating it. I felt obligated to help others and be good so others could survive. I am slowly trying to master myself and awaken from this game of control that I have been losing at. I want to hold on tight to the people I love and never have to say goodbye. I don't want negative change, I always want everyone to have something to eat, be loved.. then I run into the problem of if there is "evil" in the world or "bad" people? Who do people do "bad" things or is it me? Is it my opinion of "bad" or "good" creating the whole idea and truly everything is neutral, that live ebbs and flows, comes and goes, is born and dies. Maybe coming to peace with the letting go, with the non-attachment -- even to the people and things I want to love and want to attach to... to love but let go while continuing to love. I am exploring making life into a practice of non-separation from others, not seeing things as good or bad, feeling connectedness with all and therefore nothing is lost in life because all is within me. May we all attain inner peace even if we walk and live in a world of bitterness, hate and anger. May it slide off our backs like water on a duck's feather. 

When you awaken, when you understand, when you see, the world becomes right. We’re always bothered by the problem of evil.

There’s a powerful story about a little boy walking along the bank of a river. He sees a crocodile who is trapped in a net. The crocodile says, “Would you have pity on me and release me? I may look ugly, but it isn’t my fault, you know. I was made this way. But whatever my external appearance, I have a mother’s heart. I came this morning in search of food for my young ones and got caught in this trap!”

So the boy says, “Ah, if I were to help you out of that trap, you’d grab me and kill me.”

The crocodile asks, “Do you think I would do that to my benefactor and liberator?”

So the boy is persuaded to take the net off and the crocodile grabs him.

As he is being forced between the jaws of the crocodile, he says, “So this is what I get for my good actions.” And the crocodile says, “Well, don’t take it personally, son, this is the way the world is, this is the law of life.”

The boy disputes this, so the crocodile says, “Do you want to ask someone if it isn’t so?”

The boy sees a bird sitting on a branch and says, “Bird, is what the crocodile says right?” The bird says, “The crocodile is right. Look at me. I was coming home one day with food for my fledglings. Imagine my horror to see a snake crawling up the tree, making straight for my nest. I was totally helpless. It kept devouring my young ones, one after the other. I kept screaming and shouting, but it was useless. The crocodile is right, this is the law of life, this is the way the world is.”

“See,” says the crocodile. But the boy says, “Let me ask someone else.” So the crocodile says, “Well, all right, go ahead.”

There was an old donkey passing by on the bank of the river. “Donkey,” says the boy, “this is what the crocodile says. Is the crocodile right?”

The donkey says, “The crocodile is quite right. Look at me. I’ve worked and slaved for my master all my life and he barely gave me enough to eat. Now that I’m old and useless, he has turned me loose, and here I am wandering in the jungle, waiting for some wild beast to pounce on me and put an end to my life. The crocodile is right, this is the law of life, this is the way the world is.”

“See,” says the crocodile. “Let’s go!”

The boy says, “Give me one more chance, one last chance. Let me ask one other being. Remember how good I was to you?” So the crocodile says, “All right, your last chance.”

The boy sees a rabbit passing by, and he says, “Rabbit, is the crocodile right?”

The rabbit sits on his haunches and says to the crocodile, “Did you say that to that boy? The crocodile says, “Yes, I did.” “Wait a minute,” says the rabbit. “We’ve got to discuss this.” “Yes,” says the crocodile. But the rabbit says, “How can we discuss it when you’ve got that boy in your mouth? Release him; he’s got to take part in the discussion, too.” The crocodile says, “You’re a clever one, you are. The moment I release him, he’ll run away.” The rabbit says, “I thought you had more sense than that. If he attempted to run away, one slash of your tail would kill him.”

“Fair enough,” says the crocodile, and he released the boy. The moment the boy is released, the rabbit says, “Run!” And the boy runs and escapes. Then the rabbit says to the boy, “Don’t you enjoy crocodile flesh? Wouldn’t the people in your village like a good meal? You didn’t really release that crocodile; most of his body is still caught in that net. Why don’t you go to the village and bring everybody and have a banquet.”

That’s exactly what the boy does. He goes to the village and calls all the men folk. They come with their axes and staves and spears and kill the crocodile. The boy’s dog comes, too, and when the dog sees the rabbit, he gives chase, catches hold of the rabbit, and throttles him. The boy comes on the scene too late, and as he watches the rabbit die, he says, “The crocodile was right, this is the way the world is, this is the law of life.”

 There is no explanation you can give that would explain away all the sufferings and evil and torture and destruction and hunger in the world! You’ll never explain it. You can try gamely with your formulas, religious and otherwise, but you’ll never explain it. Because life is a mystery, which means your thinking mind cannot make sense out of it. For that you’ve got to wake up and then you’ll suddenly realize that reality is not problematic, you are the problem.

Story Source: “All’s Right With The World”, from Awareness, by Anthony De Mello

If you want to perceive and understand objectively, just don’t allow yourself to be confused by people. Detach from whatever you find inside or outside yourself – detach from religion, tradition, and society, and only then will you attain liberation. When you are not entangled in things, you pass through freely to autonomy.

--Lin Chi

Wisdom O'Watts

"We cannot stop our thinking just as much as we cannot stop the noise of freeway traffic, but until we can see this unconscious stream that flows within us, we will misidentify our-self with this continuous influence of noises. If our ears and mouth are outside of our head, when we have thoughts, who is doing the speaking and where is the listening taking place? We may say IT is all created within the brain by us, but are you really sure of this? Very little is known as to the true source of thoughts, as most of us take the inner chatter for granted, but for the One who looks within and takes a closer look, reveals something entirely different. Science has shown us that all outer noise flows in waves and enters us, but what we hear is not the true outer noise, but is only a interpretation and reconfiguration of these waves within our mind. So how do we know what are our thoughts and what flows from the outer waves of self? How many times has a thought entered you that did not FEEL like you? How often have we reacted to these flow of thoughts which come from the unconscious part of self? Does not our unconscious thoughts appear as our rational conscious thoughts, thus why we tend to get caught up blindly reacting to the influence of emotions? Where is the division between the two to be found? There is conscious and unconscious thinking, and the difference between the two is just like being awake or sleeping, as we are either in one state or the other. For there is no in between, we are either Awake or we are unconsciously dreaming, and this does apply to our everyday thinking. So when we no longer 'cling' to these passing thoughts which are always influencing our emotions, something else completely different arises, that which is called the great silence, which is just like living in a walking meditation. Then suddenly all the illusions lift, as the realm of 'What IS' appears before our very EYEs, and then just like a child, life becomes but a conscious living dream once again!" ~Alan Watts

Searching for the Greater Sea

The Greater Sea

By Kahlil Gibran

My soul and I went to the great sea to bathe. And when we reached the shore, we went about looking for a hidden and lonely place.

But as we walked, we saw a man sitting on a grey rock taking pinches of salt from a bag and throwing them into the sea.

“This is the pessimist,” said my soul, “Let us leave this place. We cannot bathe here.”

We walked on until we reached an inlet. There we saw, standing on a white rock, a man holding a bejeweled box, from which he took sugar and threw it into the sea.
“And this is the optimist,” said my soul, “And he too must not see our naked bodies.”

Further on we walked. And on a beach we saw a man picking up dead fish and tenderly putting them back into the water.
“And we cannot bathe before him,” said my soul. “He is the humane philanthropist.”

And we passed on.
Then we came where we saw a man tracing his shadow on the sand. Great waves came and erased it. But he went on tracing it again and again.

“He is the mystic,” said my soul, “Let us leave him.”
And we walked on, till in a quiet cover we saw a man scooping up the foam and putting it into an alabaster bowl.

“He is the idealist,” said my soul, “Surely he must not see our nudity.”
And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, “This is the sea. This is the deep sea. 

This is the vast and mighty sea.” And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur
.
And my soul said, “Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment.”

So we passed on. And in a weedy place among the rocks was a man with his head buried in the sand. And I said to my soul, “We can bath here, for he cannot see us.”

“Nay,” said my soul, “For he is the most deadly of them all. He is the puritan.”
Then a great sadness came over the face of my soul, and into her voice.

“Let us go hence,” she said, “For there is no lonely, hidden place where we can bathe. I would not have this wind lift my golden hair, or bare my white bosom in this air, or let the light disclose my sacred nakedness.”

Then we left that sea to seek the Greater Sea.

My note: I keep searching, searching, searching but I am enjoying this beautiful search. There are so many false roads that lead to dead ends. I know that I do not know all. A great practice is to start to truly see us all as equal. Even the most philanthropic journalist who has uncovered the world will not truly know how to see us all as equal. There are no Nationalities, this is an idea made up by human beings. We are all one, we are all sisters and brothers. 

I follow Nicholas Kristof on Facebook, the amazing Author of Half the Sky and a speaker for those without voices... Today I read him state that "It is America's time to mourn" as a status update because of the bombings in Boston. Who are Americans and why should we mourn for people in Boston more than Syria or Somalia? All human life is beautiful, fragile and precious, there are no separations, no "America" and "Somalia"... Come awake and see, we are all related, there is no us and them. To create the illusion of us and them, is to create the conflict. Break away from the cause of conflict, the separation we create between ourselves and we will find ourself which includes all. 

Don't forget, please don't forget that we belong to each other, stop separating yourself from me and others, we are connected.

 

Don't Forget About the Mountains

Sometimes an unimportant incident
is capable of turning everything beautiful
into a moment of anxiety.
We insist on seeing the mote in the eye
and forget about the mountains,
the fields and the olive groves.

--Paulo Coelho

Listening to the inner critic inside could possibly be the most detrimental thing one could do to their happiness. As Buddha enlightens us, "there is no way to happiness, happiness is the way". Go in peace, relax, treat yourself right. Perhaps if we truly and deeply loved ourselves, the world would look completely different. We are taught that we are not worthy of such great self love and that we must criticize and serve others. Nothing could be further from the truth. We keep hearing over and over again that life is short, life is a gift BUT donate now, save this person, you are wrong because you don't agree with me, etc etc etc. So we are faced with a dilemma, what to do with this, as Mary Oliver tells us, wild and precious life? I say the best gift you can give yourself is ignoring both the inner and outer critics. Make your practice about letting go of other people's opinions and focus deep within. Cultivate happiness, serve others in a way that serves you too. Move in tune with life, in the flow. How will you know if you are in tune with life? You will feel it in the water of your being, the tides of your soul. The path of life is wrought with trials and the people love are temporary beings just like ourselves and will pass from this dimension. But if we realize our connectness, our oneness with all of life, we will realize that we are mistaking ourselves for an individual when we are a wave who is part of a vast ocean. The people we love are also waves, waves we are mistaking as separate from the ocean. Just like the wave crashes into the ocean, give into the gravity of life's push and pull and never let another's opinion steal your happiness. Move in the current of life, be easy on yourself. Give, give, give and love, love, love. And don't forget to open your eyes to the beauty all around you, in fact, you are one in the same.

Radical liberation

Acting with Love

 We could argue, debate, converse, talk about "right" action and "wrong" action but our responses are products of our parents thinking, their grandparents thinking, society's thinking... Where is the true self below all those layers of influence? When Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, all the great masters of the human experience tell us to let it go and love each other, maybe we are over complicating everything. Through intuition, feeling, loving, hugging, dancing, breathing deeply, are we not living too? Is life really only changed through government? 

I love the theories of Biocentrism and the idea that we are the creators of our universe... literally. We see the world in a made up pattern that meets our expectations. We expect war, surprises, death, decay, nature, animals, buildings, work, the economy. Life is a ride. If we start from zero, if we delete everything down to the simple fact that you are a breathing ape like creature and you own/know nothing, you have no family/friends/lovers you are attached to. You are just purely an animal sitting on a chair. Regardless of the consequences you can make up in your head for denouncing everything "I will lose my job, my house, my wife, my kids, etc" think for a moment of the yogis up in the himalayas. Meditating in a cave, living off hardly any food. If we imagine that to be our baseline, do you see how you are free? Think of when you were born, naked with nothing, that is what you are. You did not arrive with anything else, you attached to these things because you thought/think they will help you survive. But have you deeply asked yourself the question of why you are living? How is easy -- we work, eat, sleep, fight for the how. What about the why? You chose the job, the house, the family, the attachment to these things for fear of losing the how yet where is the why. It is not wrong to have these things but attachment and the feeling of needing to cling onto them makes how into why. Unless you are unattached because you have realized through personal experience that attachment leads to suffering just like Buddha told us. If we search for the why to live, maybe what we find is to ride the ride and in order to have a good ride ~ we should love ourselves and each other. Not become attached to what our love does just simply love to love.

From being born naked and put into the arms of your mother or a family member we complicate life unnecessarily. What is necessary? It depends on what you are living for but if you are living for love, some things are unnecessary, if you are capable of truly loving others you will find that we do not need to fear them nor construct oppressive regimes to keep "them" in order. Do you really believe deeply in your heart that you only do good because of fear of punishment from the government? You are capable of loving, protecting, giving and if you are not different from all the other members of your species, why should they require oppressive regimes as well? Where is our control group to base the need for oppressive government or violence/war on? If a society has peace, they do not randomly break out into war. I do not feel this is our nature and I feel this causes suffering.

Buddha and others were right to simplify their teachings and tell us the truth which is inside each and every one of us. We are peace, we are love. Don't get confused by complicated politics and arguments, life is not very complicated. Sow wheat, reap wheat. Feed people with wheat. Grow more wheat. Keep a generous heart so all are fed, even those who are unable to help on the farm. What will it hurt? It hurts to set up a system that makes people fear for their "How" in life and thus feel the need to steal/manipulate/have more than others. The why is simple and the how is simple too. It is a false idea to assume that because humanity is a large population that we cannot change overnight, the population is made up of individuals exactly like you and me, do you doubt it? Why? I have had many nights when I changed over night. 

May you always love yourself and others. I will always love you.

“The radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a 'circle of certainty' within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

girl rising?

This was a beautiful documentary. The way it was shot was enchanting, the way the girls spoke, with such passion for learning and school was heart breaking. But something nagged at me. I felt a little sickness creep into my stomach that didn't let off.. It is so difficult to raise a voice that you know will be met with argument and shock, but I can't help it.

I think of the documentary "Schooling the World" introduced to me by my advisor Dr. Yellow Bird and I become so sad.

What is the answer to the issue of poverty and suffering? If western colonist agendas like spreading western education throughout the world and thus creating a new generation that doesn't speak or read in their native language are not the answer, how do we raise our voices to add to the ideas behind these documentaries? It feels strange to have learned about this issue of education through education which makes my head spin. Without my western education, I wouldn't know about the awful and horrible consequences of blindly forcing children into boarding schools and educating them out of their cultural heritage. It feels sickening to raise a voice AGAINST a documentary and idea that seem so beautiful, so innocent and good hearted. But then I think if they are so good hearted, they should welcome debate and new/conflicting ideas into the dialogue. 

It seems we are creating a world where the only way we see of getting ahead is through this western machine called education. This is not a new concept because western culture did this to Native Americans and indigenous people throughout the colonized world. They would look at the indigenous culture and say "oh if we don't educate this little girl, she will get married young and remain a SAVAGE". Saying western education is the answer is making a huge value choice. I am not saying it is the wrong one, certain cultural norms are disturbing like Female Genital Mutiliation, FGM, etc but still we are always making a value choice based on our beliefs and imposing them upon others. Some things I feel strongly about like genocide and I believe the international community needs to step in and prevent genocide, FGM, violence against any person. But when it comes to education, it is harder to decipher what is colonization and basically devaluing another culture in hopes they will "develop" into a more westernized, "modern" state or if education is the tool for women's global empowerment. It is so confusing. So many times the good things done around the world have ulterior motives. Take the movie Rabbit Proof Fence for example. Sure they were trying to prevent a child marriage but there was so much more going on as an ulterior motive.



When I look at my own choices and privilege in life, I notice that I too felt and feel like without my education I wouldn't have had a viable future. But then am I propagating a system that forces people like myself to feel this way? Am I part of the never ending problem? It is impossible for me to know because I am myself and I can't separate out my own feelings from the larger picture. While it may be true that education is the key to monetary success and some disease prevention, are we not creating this reality ourselves through making it so education is a requirement of it? Didn't colonialism CREATE poverty and injustice around the world by conquering people and forcing them to culturally assimilate? What were these places like before they were colonized? When I look at myself, I can't help but feel like my view is so skewed by my own colonization and mental limitations.

I would love to think there is just one answer for world peace like veganism, if everyone followed some religion or if all people were "educated", etc. I don't want anyone to starve, I want everyone to be free and happy and honestly I would sacrifice a lot personally for this to happen but how? When I think about what I could do, I find that I don't think that modeling the world after the US, who does educate each child, is the answer to everything. The US creates wars and kills millions, people live in poverty here.. especially if you are Native American or a person of color.

I am starting to realize that the ways in which I try to "educate" myself like watching documentaries are not necessary windows into the reality of any given situation. I will always be ignorant of the real situation of any one's life until I go and walk a mile in their moccasins or just listen to what they truly have to say. Are we all not burdened by our own fears and biases? I remain wary of education and what education even means. Just because statistics show that with more education, a person waits longer to have children, has less of a chance to contract HIV does not necessarily mean education is the CAUSE nor does it mean westernized education is the only way to get that result.

Everything is an opinion, even what I am writing. I am sure 100 million people would gladly argue with me and tell me I am ignorant. Of course I am! We are limited to only know what one person could know, we only ever experience our own perceptions... we are horribly limited and biased. It is all just a ride, a game, an illusion. On this ride, for whatever reason, I chose to be a social activist and MSW student. I am starting to realize more and more that we cannot dismantle the master's house with the master's tools. Education is beautiful, so is fetching water. The real thing that matters is if the person is happy, if they are free to make choices in their life. Any way we can facilitate that is great, but suffering  over the suffering will not solve any one's problems.

I mean obviously through domination of the media and being the colonizing world power, western culture looks appealing and looks like you would need to join in or you'll get left behind.. Maybe at this point in history it is true, if you don't learn English in Bangalore, you won't be able to find a decent job and you will go hungry. So do we then focus on getting everyone on board? What about fighting against the idea of needing to get "on board" in the first place? Why not fight against the idea of money, the idea of capitalism and how it creates poverty, the idea of war over distribution of resources? If those ideas changed, maybe the definition of education could be more free.

I am not against education per se or little girls around the world being educated. I am just hoping for dialogue about creating a broader definition of what education truly means. I hope to fight against the system itself that makes people starve if they aren't educated but that doesn't mean I don't believe in people being empowered through learning how to read and learning about history -- as long as they hear about more than just the west's version of history. I have the same worry as Howard Zinn when he spoke about his fears of the American youth:

“I'm worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel - let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they're doing. I'm concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that's handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers.”
― Howard Zinn

After having seen many documentaries and read many books about the boarding school experience for Native Americans and the indigenous people of Australia, I am wary about "educating the world" and "no child left behind". We have suppressed so many indigenous voices that the education people receive is horribly limited. Learning how to read, write and calculate is necessary to "compete in the global market" but honestly many cultures survived without a written language and I don't feel like they were of less value then our "modern" society. 

Over all I am not supporting any one side, just trying find the best way to support and love my fellow sisters and brothers through out the world.