links

Links on the science of happiness and wellbeing (more on the way, add if you know any):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/happiness_formula/4880272.stm

free to be and not be there

A guy at work did not show up yesterday. the store turned out to be closed,
a befriended visitor called me around noon. It had happened before, a few times.
The operation to cancel is easy: call someone. My collegue somehow does not.
He turns of his phone for the entire day, and cannot be reached by anyone.

Today he is back. Upon my request he let me know that he will be working. I
do not have to end my holidays and feel relief. These days with my daugther
at my parents' house are worth a million dollars to me.

I wonder. How to deal with these ocurrences well. I have tried to agree with John
that he calls in case he is not able to work. Just call. Three minutes. It turns out
he cannot. The day is too dark, the clouds in his head too thick to do anything.

Another solution? When he is not well, i cannot reach him in the morning. So if such
happens, i need to find someone else to work? But then, if he turns out to be there,
we have two people working on the same day. Which is better than no one. It could
work.

Sack him? It does make me very angry that he leaves the store closed, does not call,
nor is available to anyone for our phone calls. It entered my mind. Now, a day later,
it is okay again. A gentle and tender feeling has won over the anger i felt yesterday.
He works hard, the store was only closed for 2,5 hours, and he replied to my calls
today. Those would be arguments for keeping the relationship flowing. They are after
the fact of simply feeling to forgive myself and him. Get rid of the anger, understand
that he is probably much more troubled than i am.

Better it would be to keep up with his emotional state, feed ourselves with ease and joy,
and make sure that there is sufficient other support for him to not get overworked.

And, allow myself to be free and not be there. Not responsible, not there to control
others. Just get to the simplest, most true way of being and the cooperation that
follows from there.

" Beingness means "Consciousness", or "Knowledge". The mind attending to other things is what is meant by bondage. The mind when not attending to anything else, is Brahman. When there is no thinking about the objects in th mind, the mind is clean, it is still. That is the state of Brahman. When you are happily asleep, it is natural joy, or Brahman without any emotion. "That" which does not have any state, or attitude, is beyond emotion. It is is "You" who is the knower of the entire world, the body, the mind, and the sense organs. That "You" is the "Supreme Self" (Paramatman). To realize Paramatman is the final achievement. This knowing is itself a mystery. Drop the desire to pursue sense objects. One who ceases to desire wealth automatically becomes very powerful. " 4. The Self is the Knower in All Beings, morning, 19-11-1934, p.93, Master of Self-Realization, Shri Sadguru Siddharameshwar Maharaj.

Pure Consciousness at the Sea Surf

It has been my quest over the last several years to 'reach' the stage
of spiritual evolution characterized by what Nisargadatta Maharaj
calls 'I am' consciousness, and his master (Siddharameshwar) pure
consciousness.

I have been doing so, because preceding that understanding, i did not
feel myself ready to say anything about economics, and certainly not
about the reform of our economy towards one based on holistic principles.

I slowly am ready to research the topic. After finally having gotten to know
my real self a bit in Vedic terms, i dare to rely on that inner knowing
when writing and studying economics, my main interest in life.

Pure consciousness is characterized by a complete partaking in all that happens
inside and outside the body-mind, while being fully conscious (that is, fully unattached,
purely present). It is as if the body-mind apparatus just do their thing (thinking, feeling,
sensing, emoting, intuiting, working, doing, talking, acting, writing, drawing), without
their being anyone doing it.

People who progress further on the path understand this even better: they have
lost every and all sense of a personal self doing anything.

The change in behavior is enormous once this and the formerly described stage is 'reached'.
Since yesterday i hardly feel like smoking, drinking wine or eating heavy and sugary. I feel
more like eating healthy, being healthy, doing things which help people and make the world
more beautiful. I have phone calls with friends and family, spontaneously doing the same
thing i always wanted to do but did not care for. Now i do, effortlessly. I also write like
crazy on this computer. whereas i used to correct every fifth letter i type, now it is with amazing
speed that these words arrive on the screen. Doubt is disappearing quickly, on what i have to do,
how things work and whether i am doing the right thing. I do not need the knowledge, it will arrive, or i will find it.

i will try to describe, even when knowing it is near to impossible
It so happened when i looked at the sea in Noordwijk, on December 26 at 13oo hours Dutch Time. In the middle of my awareness watching the sea something was standing completely
still. not any movement, not any urge to have the eyes go left or right. fixated, as if encarcerated
like Hopkins in silence of the lambs. The stillness did not extend to the sea, which was moving like it always does. It was in my brain and in the center of my vision that complete silence and
stillness existed, and remains since then. Everything else moves: thoughts about work, emotions when my daughter does not go to sleep, my shoulders which hurt from maltreatment. The center
is quiet. And, the center is me. Since the event (of which there have been a few, differing in intensity and meaning), i cannot doubt anymore where I is. It is right there, between my eyes,
in the center of my brain, all quiet and pure and still.

What else. Real coffee. More words another day.