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Hello and welcome,
Easter is just a few days off and I hope it will be a time for joining with others, finding a quiet moment, some reading, listening to music or camping. Whatever you do make sure you do it safely!
Some of you may take part in religious ceremonies and similar festivities... may you find time to enjoy the love of family and friends.
For new members to this publication, the Principles in Business Message Board is about connecting with clients, friends and followers. One of the ways we seek to achieve that is through our monthly Feature Article... one of many existing and future ways in which we intend to share, educate - and provide a source of personal reflection about the human condition.
Having said that, it is just as important to us that readers are able to share their experience of life with the intent to deepen the collective source of reflection and learning. So to that end, we will soon introduce other features (blogs, twitter, etc.) where people can contribute, and have their reflections be a learning path and a source of reflection for themselves and others...
In the meantime, enjoy the following features:
Podcasts: a wonderful medium that allows us to communicate ideas to millions of people at one time. With podcasts, we learn again to really listen and absorb the spoken word (and in my experience at least, really listening is a dying art). Each month there will be a new podcast, each representing an eclectic array of views on this year's theme: our human experience. Some will be science-based while others will be philosophic in tone. Some will provide perspectives that challenge the Three Principles stance - some will amplify the listener's understanding of the Principles.
Guest Writers: a section where readers are prompted to reflect on any aspect of the Three Principles, or how they have grown "from the inside out". If you would like to share your insights and experience for publication you are most welcome. Before you do, please read the contributor guidelines.
ViP Membership: a special invitation to become a VIP Member and enjoy extra benefits and offers throughout the year (for further details, see the sidebar below).
As always, to those who have sent messages of encouragement, comments and reflections since I began this Message Board; and who have also encouraged others to join - many thanks. I deeply appreciate your support.
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The Message Board Feature Article
THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE Part3:
Wholeness in a World of Division
Frank is sitting in a local café. Rose comes through the door, waves and silently gestures 'may I join you'? Frank nods as she approaches. "You were sitting there so peacefully. I thought you might not want to be disturbed." she says, sitting down. Frank smiles as she continues "You really look good. Relaxed, calm and at peace."
"I am, Rose" replies Frank. "I've just returned from five days in the bush and it was really powerful. As you know, I've been really stretched over the last couple of months. I just needed to get out of the hurly-burly of work. No! Out of everything really...
the first two days was a lot of hiking - hot sweaty days, sometimes going until late into the night."
Rose listens, gazing attentively. "On the third morning I woke before first light and the night sky was abundant. I lay on the cool damp ground looking up at the cosmos, watching it disappear as the sun brought in a new day."
"Magic!" says Rose. "I had a similar experience two weeks ago. I walked into the lounge and there was Tom with the two kids; snuggled up asleep. I sat for... oh, I don't know how long. Just seeing and knowing... love. It was intense, you know? Hard to put into words that would express the truth."
"Yes. I know what you mean Rose."
The waitress approaches, sets a steaming cup of hot chocolate before Rose and departs, smiling.
There is a moment of silence before Frank says "What was different for me this time is that I just knew." Pausing, he again gazes upward, once more searching for the right words. Finally, he says "You're right Rose. Words only confuse the truth of what I know too. I think I'll shut up now!"
Grinning, they sit in companionable silence...
Wholeness Is
In the 1980s I frequented Crawley's university chapel (St. Thomas More Chapel, for those of you who are not Perth 'locals'). It was one of those magical places. As you entered, you were greeted by the soft light from the stained glass windows. The parquetry floors and the beautiful tapestries on either side of the altar would comfort your eye and your spirit. I would often sit there for hours - not talking, just listening to my 'inner space'. And then silence would come, I would feel complete and whole - not perfect by any means - but experiencing 'wholeness'. Somehow, all the inner divisions were brought together to breathe as one.
Fortunately, I had many 'chapels' I could visit from time to time to find respite - safe, quiet and healing places where self-integration unfolded. And slowly, I have come to understand that integration does not depend on place, but my own inner intention to look within and come to stillness. There is no doubt that this intention (to gaze within oneself, without fear) brings you face-to-face with your divided self and wholeness. And as I see it, that capacity is shared by all human beings. Wholeness is - and our ability to create division and feel detached from LIFE is of our own making.
A story by Morris 'Morrie' Schwartz summarises this dynamic - this division and wholeness. You may recall, Morrie was a sociology professor at Brandeis University in the US, who was brought to prominence through his quite public death and who became the subject of Mitch Albom's best-selling book Tuesdays With Morrie (1997), and later, a movie. (They are both lovely works which I recommend highly). In the book, Morrie begins. He wants to tell Mitch a story...
"The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore.
'Oh My God, this is terrible,' the wave says 'Look what's going to happen to me!' Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, 'Why do you look so sad?'
The first wave says 'You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?'
The second wave says 'No, you don't understand. You're not a wave; you're part of the ocean.'"
For me, that story perfectly illustrates that we human beings are part of the ocean of LIFE; and that sometimes we forget that. In our forgetfulness we experience ourselves as divided from our true essence. There is a wholeness that makes up our lives and even though we may forget this fact; it is still the truth. The beauty of being human is that each of us has the capacity to KNOW our wholeness and our self-created division; without fear.
The Human Experience Pt.4 continues next month...
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© David Bodman 2011. Permission to copy for personal use is granted.
 Comments on this article? Email me here |
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
Calendar Events for 2011
The modern world is littered with expectations, from cradle to grave. From our earliest years we are confronted by our own or others' expectations. What do you think you will get for Christmas? What are you going to do when you leave school? I'm surprised by your behaviour; it's just not like you! You must be disappointed you didn't get the bonus? Now, what goals would you like to set yourself and we can look at them in a month's time? I am so angry with myself - I can do better than that!
Does some of the above sound familiar? This SNAPSHOT will provide time to reflect on and gain better understanding about expectations and their role in our lives. Expectations can free us to live - or burden our natural enthusiasm to give our best....
Join us, Saturday 30 April
The World of Expectations:
their Highs & Lows
Audio Podcasts
UNDIVIDED MIND
(Windows Media - 36.3mb)
Tami Simon interviews many of today's best thinkers in Insights at the Edge. In this podcast, she interviews Parker Palmer and explores his reflections on living an undivided life. Insights at the edge is presented by www.soundstrue.com. I hope you have time to listen and enjoy...
What's your experience?
Did you like this podcast?
Guest Writer: Allan Flood
Our daily lives are need-driven and divided. I wake up with a need for sustenance and clarity so I make breakfast and have a cup of strong coffee. 10 minutes later I remember that today is garbage day and I meet my need for order and keeping promises to my wife by taking out the trash. One minute after that I remember to call three clients and I meet my need for accomplishment and competence by making those calls. And so on, and so on. Everything you and I do, say and feel comes from needs met and unmet and the thoughts that precede them. We are divided.
That being said, there's a subtle reality underlying and preceding our need-driven lives of meetings, weather, lunch, family, fears and desires. This reality precedes experience because it precedes "me". It is unformed awareness, thought and intelligence. Needs are born here because experience is born here. We are drawn to this subtle reality and see it reflected in the eyes of those that love us, feel it when we do something we enjoy, reach for it when we search spiritually, intuit it when we are quiet. Those that remember even to the tiniest degree this reality are less lost in the experiences that divide us. They remember their wholeness.
Links to Allan Flood:
Perfect Misfortune
(Kindle/Revised)
www.allanflood.com
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"You are all things. Denying, rejecting, judging or hiding from any aspect of your total being creates pain and results in a lack of wholeness...."
WE ARE WHAT WE DO
Joy Page, an American actress once said "You are all things. Denying, rejecting, judging or hiding from any aspect of your total being creates pain and results in a lack of wholeness." Wholeness like LIFE is. We human beings cannot take our wholeness for granted and it requires us to go beyond the many distractions that we create for ourselves each day. Distress in all its forms is a signal to each of us that we are deceiving ourselves. They are moments like the wave saying 'No, you don't understand. You're not ...' the terrible imaginings that we create about life and ourselves.
Arrogance, a sense of entitlement, anger, submission, hatred, jealously - all are a fraction of the forms of fear and pain that keep us from experiencing wholeness. Such feelings are a reflection of our inner thoughts, attitudes, judgements and stances about ourselves and others that we hold to be true. Yet, they are a lie.
The question is, "Am I willing to acknowledge such a truth and be open to a new self-integrity in this moment. Or do I entertain another distraction?"
...David |
