Perspectives

I travel a lot, and I have to cross borders. Some days, I go through three or four immigrations checks. Someone asks me, “How long are you going to be here?” “Just a few hours.” “What are you going to do?” “I’m just coming to speak.” He has to look at me and look at the passport and say, “Okay. That’s you.” But I am me. This is somehow to verify. There is some practicality to it, but couldn’t it be another way? Where my integrity is intact not because I have a little piece of paper saying I’m really me? But that’s how it is.

When you go to school, you are tested on the subjects somebody else has decided you should know, not on what you do know. And if you know everything else except what this person thinks you should know, you fail. Maybe you just forgot one thing, but you have to prove to someone that you know it.

It seems we live in a world that is diametrically opposed to the integrity of just one individual who desires to be fulfilled. I remind people: what you are looking for is inside of you. If you need somebody to hold up a mirror, this is what I do, not define how you should look.

What qualifies me? Well, I don’t have a rubber stamp. I started when I was very young. My feeling was, “Maybe I can bring some happiness, some joy to people.” My perspective is very down to earth and simple: One, you are alive. This is the best news you will ever receive. Secondly, you didn’t come with a manual, but one was built into you. No need to have a printed manual when within you has been placed the want to be fulfilled. Can this want be fulfilled? Yes. So you are alive, the want has been placed within you, and the wish that you carry within can be fulfilled. What’s the problem?

Perspectives. Why has the most fundamental need of fulfillment been so drastically changed to, “It’s not possible”? People don’t address their needs; they address their ideas. And today, ideas have become more important than our needs.

It begins with every individual. No world leader is going to come, shake your hand, and “ta-da,” it’s done. No. The next time you look in the mirror, understand that lighting this world begins with one candle—you.

This world is said to be an illusion. The illusion is “me and mine, you and yours.” The problem with illusion is it looks so real that you can’t point out what is fake. For all those people who perform magic, what is the key to their illusion? Distraction. They have to distract you. You look over there while they do the switch here. So, in your life, are you distracted? Oh, yes.

If you have never understood the value of breath, you’ve been living in a state of distraction—the greatest illusion. You came, and all too soon, it will be time to go. When you were young, the clock ran slow. Every five minutes, you asked, “Are we there yet?” Then, as you get older and older, whoosh, another year is gone. I know that time doesn’t change; it is our perception of time that has changed.

Here’s a little story about that. Once there was a man who prayed and prayed to God. And one day, God appeared. “You’ve been praying to me. What do you want?”
The man was shocked, but he had some questions. “God, How long is your day?”
God replied, “Well, actually, millions of your years are but a second to me.”
“So God, how much wealth do you have?”
God said, “If you took all the wealth in the universe and multiplied it millions and millions of times, that would be just one cent to me. Anything else?”
So the man said, “God, could I have a cent?”
And God said, “Just a minute…”

The want, the wish, the perspective of time. Do you know that you live on the most special place in this galaxy—the most amazing planet around? And, amongst all the creatures that exist on this earth, you are included. All that looking here and there is the distraction. Look within you. Understand the pulse of your existence. Understand what you’re about. Understand your thirst. Enjoy that feeling you have inside of you. Live your life fulfilled, not in some idea but in reality. You will find the reality of this life to be extremely beautiful.

Prem Rawat

Link to the website where this was originally published

This is the proposed front cover for my new novel Zorn, which I hope to have published this January coming. I’ve had it sat on the shelf a year or more, but this January it’ll definitely be published, or…. or something else will happen.

It would be really useful if you gave me your opinion of the cover. The main point of course is, does it grab you? 

But there are other points, like “would be better darker/lighter,” “title fonts too plain,” “figures suck,” ” figures okay, but the colours aren’t,” whatever.

It’s now Sunday at 1.20 p.m., and here’s version two of the front. Black isn’t as rich as purple, but on the other hand it doesn’t interfere with the figures as much.

Finally I refined it down to the front cover below, which was used to publish on the sixth of January, 2010

And below you can see the back cover finally used for publication

 My first published, a historical adventure novel, the first of a series running from 1951 to the present time.               I did eventually use a modified version of one of the above covers for my second, which was published on the sixth of January, 2010

Link to my Amazon authors page

Canadian television is so bad that I once watched several episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in desperation. I think it was probably the ultimate pits of things I’ve ever tried in search of entertainment. 

I must therefore go by bad report alone, and avoid New Moon in case it has a cumulative effect, where you need to ingest so much of the shit before it proves fatal, like lead poisoning or arsenic.

My amazon author’s page

Driving through a park, I noticed a sign that amused me.

“Please do not feed the wild animals,” it requested, “it encourages them to begging and other forms of behaviour unnatural in wild animals.”

“What am I being told” I mused. “That I shouldn’t pay my taxes?”

Link to my first published

A Xangan on Featured Adults asked me a question about getting published, and as I felt like giving an answer long enough to be useful, I thought I’d blog it. There’s a lot more to the question of course, bit let’s start by setting some background….

How do you get published?

That isn’t as simple an answer as it used to be. At one time – years, maybe tens of years ago – you submitted your manuscript to a publisher, and if they liked it, they would offer to pay you royalties on sales, and carry all the financial burden of printing and marketing thousands of copies. That situation still exists, but publishers are now so flooded with manuscripts that it is practically impossible for them to asses the flood, and it is rare that a publisher will take the trouble and expense to read a Ms by an author – unless he is known and successful.

Selling books is a business, just like selling different brands of breakfast cereal in a store. Forget about success through the merit of your writing: you need the backing of proven marketing system, of which a publisher is the first step. Self publishing is a way to “force” the system. As it has no interest in you, the potential best selling author, why wait in frustration for recognition that it will probably never give? There are thousands of companies out there who will – for a fee – format a novel, design a cover, arrange for printing, and place it on the market. How you introduce it to massive numbers of the buying public you have to figure out for yourself, because unfortunately these companies have little or no access to the network of contacts that can make an author famous, probably because they are not respected much by such contacts.

A point to watch is that these companies know that a new author is highly unlikely to make any real money, so they want money up front. In addition, they are businesses, run for the purpose of making money, not friendly literary enthusiasts, as they will often try to pretend. Consequently they will try to sell you all kind of junk services in addition to the basic package, knowing full well that these will help you not at all.

The third method is to handle all the aspects of formatting, cover design, registration etc. yourself. I would not recommend that an author try this unless very determined, but it is possible.

But a final word: before trying to publish by any method, make sure your work is worth reading. There is an ocean of trash out there already; try to improve it rather than adding to it.

 My first publised  ..second     ..and latest

In a recent interesting post, Heidenkind says “….women are not, for the most part, subjugated by men but by themselves.” I like the qualifying “for the most part,” which implies that there is no solid, all-inclusive rule. In many ways I agree. While men may talk a lot of macho crap – mainly after a few beers, and whilst with The Boys –  they have no organised plan or intention to keep women “in their place,” and most are amiably willing to let them do what they want generally as a group in society.

Fat people should be respected. They serve a useful purpose in society by highlighting the beauty of those few of us who are glorious, even as a sparkling diamond is best displayed by laying it on a dull cloth. Also, in time of severe famine they would be a valuable food resource.

Link to my Amazon Author’s page

Original on Thursday, 21 May, 2009

I once saw a British documentary-type TV show in which a prostitute described the kind of things her clients wanted to do. With a smile, she remembered one man who liked being pelted and thrashed with wet lettuce leaves.

There is no message to this blog, no hidden meaning or teaching. It is simply a random recollection from a tired man, who will next go wearily to bed, but in the kindness of his heart, in the nobility of his soul, will tarry awhile and labour on to share this piece of trivia with you. I do this in order to cause you laughter, or, in the case of those of you whose prudish faces would sour fresh milk, to cause you pain, which pain I will enjoy, if you will but tell me about it.

Those who know me well may say “ah well, sad case….” and others perhaps more briefly, “wtf?”

Yet it may be that in in some secret college of ultra-deep thought, in some curious age yet to come, serious scholars will wrinkle their brows in concentration; great minds will assess my words; and in their wisdom read more into them than I knowingly write, and cry out in triumph “At last! Finally we find him! The sage who – by design or accident we know not! – has defined the essential spirit of that phenomena that once was Xanga!”

You may of course read into this whatever comment on Xanga that you will

Link to my Amazon details page

A Simple Story

I am here to tell you a story that is simple. This story is not about animals or kings and queens. It is not about the fulfillment of somebody’s fantasy. This story is about you and me — as we exist, as we are.

It’s not a story about aspirations, because people’s aspirations depend so much on where they find themselves in this world. If somebody lost their child, they wouldn’t pray for money. They would pray for one thing and one thing only: “God, can you please have my child returned to me?” That’s it.

If somebody has been told by a doctor, “You have cancer, you’re dying,” what do they pray for? Do they pray for higher education? Do they pray for another child? No. They say, “God, either make this as painless as possible or take away my cancer.” And if somebody finds themselves poor? They pray for money.

Where we find ourselves in our lives dramatically changes our viewpoint on what our needs are, what the world is all about, what religion is all about, what God is all about — what everything is all about.

But there is a reality: the reality that you are alive. This is the most beautiful reality there is. Whether you are poor or you are rich — what do you really want? In this story, this story about you and me, we have a chance to fulfill our real want. If we want this story to be nice, to have a happy ending, it can be so. So the question becomes, “What is our want?”

Do you know what you want, what you have always wanted, what you will always want? Other people’s opinions and your own needs are two different things. If you have not looked at your real need, your want, all the opinions in the world are not going to take care of it. They are just opinions. What do you want?

Let me tell you about a possibility as one human being to another. I propose that what you want in your life does not need a name. You can call it peace, you can call it happiness, you can call it liberation, you can call it joy — not a problem. Why? Because these are just different names for the same thing. When the heart is content, there will be joy. When the heart is content, there will be peace.

What is the difference between darkness and light? In darkness, you cannot see. When you cannot see, you cannot avoid the obstacles. All of the stumbling blocks, all of the obstacles on the road do not disappear when the sun rises in the morning. But you can see them, and, because you can see, you can avoid them. Light doesn’t take away obstacles; light illuminates them.

What do I give? I give an umbrella. I do not take away the rain. Rain cannot be taken away — it will rain. But that’s not a problem if you have an umbrella. Without one, you will become wet, and you don’t want to get wet.

I give an umbrella. Do I take away people’s obstacles? No. I give them a lamp so that they can see, so that they can avoid what they want to avoid. That’s how it is. That’s what you need.

What does this being really want? This being has the most amazing aspiration it could ever have — to feel the infinite. This is the highest ambition: when a mortal wants to reach and touch and feel the immortal. That’s an incredible but beautiful ambition.

Prem Rawat

Link to original posting on www.voiceofmaharaji.info 

A post by TheTheologiansCafe on a youthful romance, where sexual instinct has apparently lead a boy of thirteen to father a child on a girl of fifteen, it occurred to me that possibly most people would name the sexual drive as being the strongest and most natural of all.

However, they may not. There are many inborn instincts and drives, and perhaps some of them are stronger and more enduring than the flashy, glamorous and much debated one of sex. 

This inspires me to ask what you consider to be the main drives in this earthly life, and I’ll give my own list to start the ball rolling.

The sexual drive, the fear of death or injury, the instinct towards God or heaven, the drive towards acquisition of wealth, whether money or property; the attraction towards beauty or art, the ambition towards achievement, recognition or fame; the need for love, the need for meaning by a regular task, such as work, the need for security.

Having written a couple of novels based on the fact that people’s drives contradict and interfere with each other, I already knew before attempting this list that it’s hard to separate them one from the other, or prioritize them, but let’s give it a shot.

  My first Published                                     My second  

Third, with others Xangans