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Once upon a time
From Concentration & Meditation By: Christmas Humphreys
The greatest mind can not function through a faulty instrument any more
than a great violinist can fully manifest his genius through a poor
violin. It follows that the physical body, being a necessary instrument
of the mind, should be made and kept fit. But in order to to control the
the body one must learn its laws, and a brief study of physiology and
anatomy is most useful in the proper care of the body. Not only in the
average man person grossly ignorant of the functioning of his own mind,
but he is equally ignorant of the mechanism of his own physical machine.
Yet such elementary knowledge is as intensely interesting as it is
easily acquired. Moreover, very little knowledge of anatomy and
physiology will provide the a wealth of material for meditation, the
laws pertaining to the body being reflections of the laws of the
universe, which function on every plane.
By: Joseph Campbell
The animal envoys of the unseen power no longer serve as in primeval
times to teach and to guide mankind.
Bears, lions, elephants and gazelles are in cages in our zoos.
Man is no longer the new comer in a world of unexplored plains and
forests. And our immediate neighbors are not wild beasts, but other
human beings contending for goods and space on a planet that is whirling
without end around the fireball of a star.
Neither in body nor in mind do we inhabit the world of those hunting
races of the Paleolithic millennia, to whose lives and life ways we,
nevertheless, owe the very forms of our bodies and structures of our
minds.
Memories of their animal envoys still must sleep somehow within us, for
they wake a little and stir when we venture into wilderness.
They wake in terror to thunder!
And again they wake with a sense of recognition when we enter anyone of
those great painted caves.
Whatever the inward darkness may have been to which the shamans of those
caves descended in their trances,
the same must lie within ourselves nightly visited in sleep.
American University Commencement Address John F. Kennedy, June 10th, 1963
.. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make
the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic
common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the
same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all
mortal..
Letter of Indian chief Seattle
to his people
The president in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land.
But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land?
The idea is strange to us.
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people, every shining
pine needle, every shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow.
All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
We are a part of this earth and it is a part of us.
The perfume flowers are our sisters.
The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers.
Each ghostly reflection in the clear waters of the lake tells of
memories of events in the life of my people.
The water's murmurs are the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers. They carry our canoes and feed our
children.
If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us.
That the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
The wind, which gave our father his first breath, also receives his last
sigh.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the
earth.
All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.
Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.
Your destiny is a mystery to us.
What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered?
What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with
the scent of many men?
And the view of the ripe hills are blotted by talking wires?
The end of living and the beginning of survival!
When the last red man has vanished with his wilderness, and his memories
are only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these
shores and forests still be here?
Will there be any spirit of my people left?
We love this earth as a newborn loves his mother's heartbeat.
So, if we sell you our land love it as we have loved it.
Care for it as we have cared for it.
Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it.
Preserve the land for all children and love it as god loves us all.
One thing we know: there is only one god.
No man, be he red man or white man, can be apart. We are brothers after
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