Om

Hi all,
I hope all is well with you, I am doing well. Not much is new, I've been reading [I]Life and Death in Shanghai[/I] and [I]The Illearth War[/I] primarily... Listening to some new (old) stuff a friend told me about, That 1 Guy is worth checking out and Gong is an old neat band.

[I]Life and Death in Shanghai[/I] is an excellent book about the Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976), which reads like a much expanded and more detailed version of Animal Farm. It's a personal account of Nien Cheng, who along with many others was targeted as a "class enemy" by the Revolutionaries. It's an extremely compelling tale, illuminating as well. I highly recommend it for anyone who doesn't know about this period of Chinese history or who would like to learn more.

I had to post something about my life. . but I really got on here because I had to put this up somewhere. Quoting from Ram Dass

"I don't know about you, but it's interesting that as we approach - as we enter into, as we're full blown into - the 80's, there's a lot of fear afoot. What is peculiar to me is that I don't feel any fear about the 80's. And yet it's obvious that everything that could hit the fan, could hit the fan. Why don't I feel afraid? And is it uh, is it insensitivity? "He took too many drugs." I mean, which model is it? How in the face of a diminishing gross national product, change in the power structures of the world - from Nations to religions, to multinationals, with all the change in power structures, with third world countries all getting little red buttons to press, and if people starve to death in Ireland believe me they'll push buttons somewhere else in the world. And here we are, right on the top of the mountain, King of the mountain, aren't you afraid? It's scary, isn't it?

You and I might meet next time, one of you and I might meet next time, or a few of us, under a bridge somewhere, eating rotting food out of a rusting can, after the Holocaust. "Pretty heavy, wasn't it?" "Yeah." "You here?" "Yeah." "Well, I'm here. Here we are. Far out."

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I don't know, I like quoting people I guess. The thing is- I have a friend who's very intelligent, he's a professor, and I respect his opinion on many things. But I recently saw him recently and got together to play chess. And when we were playing we got to talking about current events. As we were talking I slowly began to realize he was genuinely quite upset, beyond the bounds of what would seem appropriate. Normally I don't discuss politics but my friend seemed worried to a degree that I decided to discuss it with him to understand his concern better. I won't go into the details of our talk; but by the end I was definitely worried about his state of mind.

Now I don't really care... I tried to give him peace as best I could, and from then on, it's out of my hands. In fact I try to sow seeds of peace as much as possible, but the growing of them, the results or fruits, as they say in Hinduism, are not in my hands. But my general feeling was along these lines; that my friend has been led into this upheaval . . . It has happened in the past in this country, and in countries in the Middle East it can be seen on a much larger scale. Now I've found peace many times in my life, and it's never been far, and I know and believe with all my heart what Vivekananda said, that the secret of Existence is that no matter how tempest rage and storm, below the waves, illusions and other forms, at the source, is an illimitable peace and bliss, because I've seen it. But peace cannot be forced on anyone, and so I of course come to the conclusion, I must not worry about my friend, but nonetheless, I'm writing about it here. And simply, I would like to encourage everyone to keep a level head, keep cool and calm, in the face of danger- in the face of anything. Never let manipulative forces master you by raising your emotions beyond the level which you can still think clearly and rationally.

I just wanted to share the quote because it fit well with what was going on recently.