Conference hydra::dejavu

    The highest motive is to be like water.
    
    Water is essential to all living things,
    yet it demands no pay or recognition.
                         
    Rather it flows humbly to the lowest level.

    Nothing is weaker than water;
    yet for overcoming what is hard and strong
    nothing surpasses it.

    
    				TAO-TE-CHING
    				Lao-tzu
                                       

    From my favorites, the Stoics:
    
    "What disturbs mens' minds is not events but their judgements on
     events."
    
    Epictetus

    			AS ABOVE, SO BELOW
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Rich  8^>

	For the uncontrolled there is no wisdom, nor for the 
	uncontrolled is there the power of concentration; and 
	for him without concentration there is no peace.  And 
	for the unpeaceful, how can there be happiness?

					-- Bhagavad Gita

        If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you
        there.

                                               -Ancient Chinese saying
    

                                          
    -bs

    "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they are yours."
    
    "You are never given a wish without also being given the power
     to make it come true --- you may have to work for it however."
    
    						- Richard Bach
    						  "Illusions"
    

                         we are so both and oneful
                          night cannot be so sky
                          sky cannot be so sunful
                          i am through you so i
                                        
                                             ee cummings

    "If that which thou seekest, thou findest not within thee, thou
    will never find it without".  anon
    
    

    
    "This above all: to thine own self be true.  And it will follow
    as the night the day, thou can'st be false to no man." 
                                      -Polonius to Laertes in _Hamlet_
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

	"I know everything, I just have a very bad memory"

						-Dave Stanley-  :-)

================================================================================
Note 30.1                       .....is that so....                       1 of 5
ERLANG::SUDAMA "Living is easy with eyes closed..."  15 lines  24-SEP-1987 09:44
                                 -< .agreed. >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    		he watches the river
    
    			but can't let it be
    
    	having now fallen in
    
    		he is drowning, like me
    
    			so now that he's here
    
    		he should do like before
    
  	sit in the river
    
    				and stare at the shore.

    			Reality is nothing more
    			than a collective hunch.
    
    						unknown

               We do not inherit the earth from our parents
                      we borrow it from our children
                                                -unknown
.and.

                   The 11th commandment;   John 13:34-35

    	All I want from tomorrow is to get it better than today...
    
    					-Huey Lewis, 
    
    		and he said "That's just the way it is;
    		Some things'll never change;
    		That's just the way it is."
    			Ah, but don't you believe them . . .
    
    					-Bruce Hornsby,

    		Half the truth is of no use, 
    		give it all, give it all to me!
    		I can stand it, I am strong that way . . .
    
    					-Carly Simon

    
    
                    It's living a lifetime
                    making the best times
                    each and every day of the year,
    
                    By reaching new goals
                    in spite of the souls
                    who make it difficult living in fear.
    
    
    
    
                                             - Jim LaTouche -
    
    
    
    
    Jim LaTouche

    
     I don't remember where I read/heard this but.....
    
    Space does not conform to Euclidean geometry....
    
    Time does not form a continuous unidirectional flow....
    
    Causation does not conform to Aristotelian logic.....
    
    
    Free at last! ;^)

	"Once in a while you get shown the light
	in the strangest of places if you look at it right."

						- Robert Hunter

    "The longest journey begins with a single step."
    
                     -  Another old Chinese saying
    
    
    This always makes me picture everybody slowly moving through
    life, one step at a time. Some steps lead to happiness and fulfillment,
    but, lamentably, some steps do not. Do your steps lead in the right
    direction? I certainly hope so. Do mine? I hope so, too.
    
    -bs                    
    
    
    

    Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch  
    with it.
    
    					Lily Tomlin

    Hi.
    
         "There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to
    be."
                                    The Beatles
    
        "To everything there is a season ... and a time for every purpose
    under heaven."
                                    Ecclesiates/Pete Seeger
    
         "Choose what you got."
                                    Werner Erhardt
    
         "Be here now."
                                    Baba Ram Das
    
         "Life may mean life, and nothing more,
    so everyday is why we're here, and what it's for."
                                    Unknown
    
    Mike

    
    Being brave dosen't mean that not afraid, it means that you carry on
    and don't let the fear stop you. 

    
    
    But if the way will
    not answer common feet,
    we hack through thickets,
    winding vine-nodes, and
    befuddling treebranching
    offshooting
    divisions that divide us
    bringing no lessening to
    the investigted material
    but if like the emu we
    cannot we fly we can
    run fast or while we scramble up
    fright's sharp ledge we can
    contemplate the sky way...
                              
    
               (from A.R. Ammons)
    
    Roy

    RE: 507.12
    
    "Reality is nothing more than a collective hunch" comes from the
    Jane Wagner/Lily Tomlin Broadway production, "The Search for Signs
    of Intelligent Life in the Universe."
    
    If you like that quote, you should try the book ...
    
    

    
    	"Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger."
    
    	"Whoever does the worrying owns the problem"
    
    Both anonymous, so far as I know.
    
    

    From the song "Save Your Love" by the Jefferson Starship
    
    Go on out and gain the world, but don't you lose your soul while
    you're trying
    Your truth is changing every day, but your heart will let you know
    when you're lying
    Save your love and tenderness
    Don't get lost in bitterness
    Save the dreams you had when we started
    And do the things you have to do, but don't forget the love we knew
    Don't lose your love cause we've parted
    
    
    From the theme to "The Facts of Life TV Series"
    
    You take the good, you take the bad
    You take them both and there you have the facts of life
    There's a time you gotta show you know you're grown now, 
    You know about the facts of life
    When the world never seems to be living up to your dreams
    And suddenly you're findin' out the facts of life are all about
    You. 
    
    Doug

    From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
    
    1. It is not fitting that I should give myself pain, for I have
    never intentionally given pain even to another.
    
    2. Every moment think steadily as a Roman and as a man to do what
    you have in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and kindliness,
    and freedom, and justice; and to give yourself relief from all other
    thoughts.  And you will give yourself relief, if you do every act
    of your life as if it were the last, renouncing all carelessness
    and passionate resistance to the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy,
    and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given
    to you.  You see how few the things are which a man needs to lay
    hold of in order to live a life which flows in quiet, and is like
    the life of the gods; for the gods on their part will require nothing
    more from him who observes these things.

    An ancient king who was known for his cruelty ordered the wise man
    of his court to give him something which would make him feel better
    whenever he was disturbed or depressed.
    
    The wise man agonized for days over what to do, knowing that if
    he displeased the king he would forfet his life.  Finally,
    the appointed day arrived and he was called into the presence
    of the king.
    
    He approached him slowly and gave him a small package which he
    opened; finding a plain gold ring inside.  He reared up with his
    eyes blazing in anger and shouted, "What is this?  How is a simple
    ring going to make me feel better?"  To which the wise man answered,
    "Read the inscription inside the ring". The words the king found
    in the inscription were ...
    
         "This too shall pass"

    

    ON GRACE:

    'The Shaking of the Fountains', by Paul Tillich
                           
    Do you know what it means to be struck by grace? ...We cannot transform
    our lives, unless we allow them to be transformed by that stroke
    of grace.  It happens; or it does not happen.  And certainly it
    does 'not' happen if we try to force it upon ourselves, just as
    it shall not happen so long as we think, in our self-complacency,
    that we have no need of it.  Grace strikes us when we are in great
    pain and restlessness.  It strikes us when we walk through the dark
    valley of a meaningless and empty life.  It strikes us when we feel
    that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated
    another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged.
    It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference,
    our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure
    have become intolerable to us.  It strikes us when, year after year,
    the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old
    compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair
    destroys all joy and courage.
    
    Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness,
    and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted.  You
    are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the
    name of which you do not know.  Do not ask for the name now; perhaps
    you will find it later.  Do not try to do anything now; perhaps
    later you will do much.  Do not seek for anything; do not perform
    anything; do not intend anything.  Simply accept the fact that you
    are accepted!"  If that happens to us, we experience grace.  After
    such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may
    not believe more than before.  But everything is transformed.  In
    that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the
    gulf of estrangement.  And nothing is demanded of this experience,
    no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but
    acceptance.....
    
    It is such moments that make us love our life, that make us accept
    ourselves, not in the goodness and self-complacency, but in our
    certainty of the eternal meaning of our life.  We cannot force
    ourselves to accept ourselves.  We cannot compel anyone to accept
    himself/herself.  But sometimes it happens that we receive the 
    power to say 'yes' to ourselves, the peace enters into us and makes 
    us whole, that self-hate and self-contempt disappear, and that our 
    self is reunited with itself.  Then we can say that grace has come 
    to us.
                                                                      
    [From 'Exploring The Road Less Traveled', pp.120-21 by Alice and 
    Walden Howard]  

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

    From, "Why Am I Afraid To Tell You Who I Am?", by John Powell, S.J.

    In spite of our unwillingness and reluctance to tell others who
    we are, there is in each of us a deep and driving desire to be
    understood.  It is clear to all of us that we want very badly to
    be loved, but when we are not understood by those whose love we
    need and want, any sort of deep communication becomes a nervous
    and uncomfortable thing.  It does not enlarge and enliven us.  It
    becomes clear that no one can really love us effectively unless
    he really understands us.  Anyone who feels that he is
    understood, however, will certainly feel that he is loved. 

    If there is no one who understands me, and who accepts me for
    what I am, I will feel 'estranged'.  My talents and possessions
    will not comfort me at all.  Even in the midst of many people, I
    will always carry within me a feeling of isolation and aloneness.
    I will experience a kind of 'solitary confinement."  It is a
    law, as certain as the law of gravity, that he who is understood
    and loved will grow as a person; he who is estranged will die in
    his cell of solitary confinement, alone. 

    ...A thousand fears keeps us in solitary confinement of
    estrangement. In some of us there is this fear of breaking down,
    of sobbing like a child.  Others of us feel restrained by the
    fear that the other person will not sense the tremendous
    importance of my secret to me.  We usually anticipate how deep
    the pain would be if my secret were met with apathy,
    misunderstanding, shock, anger or ridicule.  My confidant might
    become angry or reveal my secret to others for whom it is not
    intended. 

    It may have happened that, at some point in my life, I took some
    part of me out of the darkness and placed it in the light for the
    eyes of another.  It may be that he did not understand, and I ran
    full of regrets into a painful emotional solitude.  Yet, there
    may have been other moments when someone heard my secret and
    accepted my confidence in gentle hands.  I may remember what he
    said to assure me, the compassion in his voice, the understanding
    look in his eyes.  I remember what those eyes looked like.  I
    remember how his hand took mine.  I remember the gentle pressure
    that told me that I was understood.  It was a great and
    liberating experience, and, in its wake, I felt so much more
    alive.  An immense need had been answered in me to really be
    listened to, to be taken seriously, and to be understood. 

    A couple of favorites ...
    
    
       We teach, and teach, and teach, until we learn the lesson.
    
    
    _______
    
    Simple Gifts - Shaker Folk Song
    
    
    'Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free,
    'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
    And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
    'Twill be in the valley of Love and Delight.
    When true simplicity is gain'd
    To bow and to bend we shan't be ashame'd,
    To turn, turn will be our delight
    'Till by turning, turning we come round right.
    
    
    

    Press On
    
    Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
    Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with
      talent.
    Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
    Education alone will not; the world is full of uneducated derelicts.
    
    Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
    
    					- Coolidge

    
    Scott Peck (from seminar on 'Rebirth Of The Sacred' held on Nov.
    21, 1987):
    
    There are two truths which are not paradoxical.  They are:
    
    	1. Love makes the world go around.
    
    	2. The only way to stop playing a game is to stop.
        
    

    
    
    
                      So interwoven are the threads
                      of human life that
                      no single contact is trivial.    
                      In our most casual moments
                      we entertain angels.
                      Around the humblest of us
                      are the influences
                      which touch eternity.
    
    
    C.
    

    Once upon a time, there was a man who strayed from his own country
    into the world known as the Land of Fools. He soon saw a number
    of people flying in terror from a field where they had been trying
    to reap wheat. "There is a monster in that field", they told him.
    He looked, and saw that it was a watermelon. 
    
    He offered to kill the "monster" for them. When he had cut the melon
    from its stalk, he took a slice and began to eat it. The people
    became even more terrified of him than they had been of the melon.
    They drove him away with pitchforks, crying, "He will kill us next,
    unless we get rid of him."
    
    It so happened that at another time another man also strayed into
    the Land of Fools, and the same thing started to happen to him.
    But, instead of offering to help them with the "monster", he agreed
    with them that it must be dangerous, and by tiptoeing away from
    it with them he gained their confidence. He spent a long time with
    them in their houses until he could teach them, little by little,
    the basic facts which would enable them not only to lose their fear
    of melons, but even to cultivate them themselves.  

    re: 36
    
    Thanks, Doug. (There's a pretty strong message in that
    story, eh?)
               
    -Amy.
    

    Go --- not knowing where;
    Bring -- not knowing what;
    The path is long, the way unknown;
    The hero knows how to arrive
         there by himself alone;
    He has the guidance and help of
         Higher Forces...
    
                   .....from a Russian fairy tale

         This past weekend while watching the Olympics on tv,
    I noticed an ad for McDonalds.  I thought they had a little
    saying that is extremely powerful and inspirational.  Unfortunately,
    I can't remember it verbatim, but here is what I remember:
      "We salute those who not only have the WILLINGNESS to (succeed)
        but the COURAGE to DREAM."
     
       (Please feel free to report a correction.)
     
    Frederick
    

    Extracted from the BUDDHISM conference:

		Please Call Me By My True Names
		      Thich Nhat Hanh
	
		Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow 
		because even today I still arrive.
		
		Look deeply; I arrive in every second
		to be a bud on the spring branch,
		to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile
		   learning to sing in my new nest,
		to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
		to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone,
		
		I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
		in order to fear and to hope,
		the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
		of all that is alive.
		
		I am the mayfly metamorphosing on
		   the surface of the river,
		and I am the bird which, when spring comes,
		   arrives in time to eat the mayfly.
		
		I am a frog swimming happily in the clear
		   water of a pond,
		and I am the grass-snake, who approaching 
		  in silence, feeds itself on the frog.
		I am a child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
		my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
		and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons
		   to Uganda.
		
		I am the twelve year old girl, refugee on a small boat,
		who throws herself into the ocean 
		   after being raped by a sea pirate,
		and I am the pirate, my heart not yet
		  capable of seeing and loving.
		
		I am a member of the politburo with plenty 
		   of power in my hands,
		And I am the man who has to pay his debt of
		   blood to my people dying slowly in a 
		   forced labor camp.
		
		My joy is like spring, so warm it makes
		   flowers bloom in all walks of life.
		My pain is like a river of tears, so full 
		   it fills all four oceans.
		Please call me by my true names,
		So I can hear all my cries and laughs all at once,
		So I can see that my joy and pain are one.
		
		Please call me by my true names
		So I can wake up and so the door of my heart
		  can be left open
		The door of compassion.

    re:19
    
    as long as you begin with a map

'Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.'
 
				Napoleon Hill 


IT IS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL COMPENSATIONS OF THIS LIFE THAT NO MAN CAN
SINCERELY TRY TO HELP ANOTHER WITHOUT HELPING HIMSELF. 

     					Emerson

"Very few people ever make exploring voyages. They carry to their graves
undiscovered continents of ability. The great majority die without developing
any of their special gifts locked up within themselves. Most of us die
with the great secret, with the sealed message which the creator put in
our hands at birth, still unread, because we have never learned how to
open, or how to read it."

     					William Perry

                     23rd Psalm (Japanese Translation)
    
    The Lord is my Pace setter - I shall not rush
              He makes me stop for quiet intervals
    He provides me with images of stillness which
              Restore my serenity.
    He leads me in ways of efficiency through
              Calmness of mind
                   And His guidance is peace.
    Even though I have a great many things to
              Accomplish each day, I will not fret,
                   For His presence is here.
    His timelessness, His all importance, will
              Keep me in balance
    He prepares refreshment and renewal in the 
              Midst of my activity.
    By anointing my mind with His oils of
              Tranquility.
    
    My cup of joyous
    Energy
    Overflows.
    Truly harmony and
         effectiveness
    Shall be the fruits
         Of my hours
    For I shall walk in
         The Pace
    Of my Lord
    And dwell in His 
    House
         Forever.

    
    from -- The Department of Religious Ministries 
    	    of the Yale-New Haven Hospital

      
    
    "Somebody feels the water every time you make a wave"
    
          From the song of the same title by Collective Vision
    
    
    
    Nanci

    
    The days come and go and say nothing
    
    If we do not use the gifts they bring
    
    They take them as silently, away
    
    
    
    
    
    Does anybody know who wrote this?  I'd really appreciate knowing.
    
    Thanks,
    
    C.
    
    
    

    from TV Guide:
    
         "I don't think about geography.  If something I like happens
    to come from a faraway place, so much the better, because it means
    I'll be on an adventure.  But if it came from West 84th street, that's
    where I'd be.  Perhaps people think I've permanently left the U.S.
    culture to wander more exotic climes.  In fact, I know it's inevitable
    that you come home.  Every artist is trying to find out where
    home is."
    
           -musician Paul Simon
    
    
     Frederick
    

    
          "There are no unnatural or supernatural phenomena,
       only very large gaps in our knowledge of what is natural...
           We should strive to fill those gaps of ignorance."      
    
                                    - Edgar Mitchell
                                      Apollo 14 Astronaut
                                      Founder, Institute of Noetic Sciences
    

    Herewith some passages from Henry Miller (Dec. 26, 1891-June 7, 1980):
    
    From "Tropic of Capricorn":
    
          "Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not
    understood."
                      * * *
          "I have no fear or illusions about disorder any more than I have
    of death.  The labyrinth is my happy hunting ground, and the deeper I
    burrow into the maze the more oriented I become."
                      * * *
          "The truth can also be a lie.  The truth is not enough.  Truth is
    only the core of a totality which is inexhaustible."
                      * * *
          "The world, in its visible, tangible substance, is a map of our 
    love."  
                      * * *
          "I can think of no street in America...capable of leading one on 
    toward the discovery of the self...I think of all the streets in
    America combined as forming a huge cesspool, a cesspool of the spirit
    in which everything is sucked down and drained away to everlasting
    shit."
                      * * *
          "The truth is my desire was so great it became a reality.  At
    such a moment what a man *does* is of no great importance, it what 
    he *is* that counts.  It's at such a moment that a man becomes an
    angel.  That is precisely what happened to me: I became an angel.  It
    is not the purity of an angel which is so valuable, as the fact that
    it can fly.  An angel can break the pattern anywhere at any moment
    and find its heaven; it has the power to descend into the lowest matter
    and to extricate itself at will."
                       * * *
    From "Black Spring":
    
         "Nobody thinks any more how marvelous it is that the whole world
    is diseased.  No point of reference, no frame of health.  God might
    just as well be typhoid fever.  No absolutes."
                       * * *
    From "Colossus":
    
         "There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is
    crazy."
                       * * *
         "The task of genius, and man is nothing if not genius, is to
    keep the miracle alive."
                       * * *
    From "Remember to Remember":
    
         "If civilization is, in practice, 'a perpetual state of war',"then
    "I believe that in a way what we call morality is merely a form of
    madness." Its elements are always "fear and wish, fear and wish.  Never
    the pure fountain of desire.  And so we have and have not, we are and
    we are not."
                       * * *
         "Nothing would be regarded as obscene, I feel, if men were living
    out their inmost desires.  What man dreads most is to be faced with the
    manifestation, in word or deed, of that which he has refused to live
    out, that which he has throttled or stifled, buried, as we say now, in
    his subconscious."
                       * * *
         "When obscenity crops out in art...its purpose is to awaken, to
    usher in a sense of reality.  In a sense, its use by the artist may
    be compared to the use of the miraculous by the Masters."
                       * * *
    From "On Turning Eighty":
    
         "As for the world in general, it not only does not look any better
    to me than when I was a boy of eight, it looks a thousand times
    worse...As for the past whether good or bad, I have made the most of
    it.  What future remains for me was made by my past.  The future of the
    world is something for philosophers and visionaries to ponder on.  All
    we really have is the present, but very few of us really live it.  I
    am neither a pessimist nor an optimist.  To me the world is neither
    this nor that, but all things at once, and to each according to his
    vision."
                       * * *
         "What I should like to recommend for the few remaining years,
    months or weeks that are left us is to piss the time away enjoyably."
                       * * *
    
    Frederick

        "There were wonderful spiritual values that both my parents
    gave me."..."They had a sense of humor-that gift was spiritual,
    what else can you call humor?  The ability to laugh at yourself,
    and know, it's not up to you to keep the world spinning."..."Working
    on yourself is a full-time job.  It's much more difficult than 
    anything else.  Whether I do a movie or something is in its proper
    place now.  That's not where happiness is."
    
          Desi Arnaz, Jr.--West Magazine, March 1, 1992
    
    
    Frederick
    

    "You have to know who you are.  And whoever you are, it's better
    to make the best of it than to try to be somebody you're not."
    
    
          --George Burns "Wisdom of the 90's"
    
    
    Frederick
    

       "I appreciate the dark side of life.  I acknowledge it.  I 
    understand it somehow.  You have to confront your demons or they'll
    destroy you."
    
        ("But I'm British...British people seldom show any emotion.  They
    go about their work and then die anonymously.  I've always tried to
    hide my emotions because I was surrounded by emotions as a child.
         "I hated it passionately.  My environment was one of moodiness
    and depression.
         "I've learned to distrust emotions.  But I was never able to
    escape all these feelings within myself.  That's why I'm an actor,
    I suppose.")
    
    
        Anthony Hopkins--1992 Academy Award Best Actor winner for
                         his role in "Silence of the Lambs."
         (from Arts & Books, San Jose Mercury News, April 12, 1992)
      

    "To me life is filled with laughter.  That's why I don't want to
    do a strictly dramatic role...To me there is always the yin and the
    yang in everybody's life.  There is the saint and the devil in
    everybody.  And I'm both extremes.  I definitely have a lot of wildness
    and then I have these attempts at purity, at becoming loving and
    peaceful.  To have a character who is going 90 miles an hour in
    both directions, between chaos and peace-if that's possible-would
    be fabulous."
    
    
                   Woody Harrelson (Cheers, White Men Can't Jump)
                         WEST magazine, San Jose Mercury, April 12, 1992
    
    
    Frederick