Viktor Schauberger: NATURE WAS MY TEACHER (reprise)

 

Viktor Schauberger (1885-1958) was a natural scientist whose ideas were way ahead of the time. As a young man he worked as a 'forest-master' in the Austrian Alps when they were still a true wilderness. His remarkable observations of Nature-in-the-raw were to influence his entire life's work.

Schauberger's insights into Nature's ways pivoted around the essential characteristics of water as a living substance that energizes all life, both organic and inorganic. He frequently asserted "water is a living organism" - an idea to which poets and philosophers have subscribed, but which has escaped conventional science.

He was passionate about trees, and natural forests as the cradle of water. He warned how deforestation would deplete the world of water and destroy fertility, causing deserts and climatic chaos. He argued that when the natural eco-systems are in balance and diversity rules, there is great creativity and the evolution of higher and more complex life forms, but there is also order and stability.

When humanity walked lightly on the Earth, we cooperated with Nature. Although we are still part of Nature, we behave as though we are not, but above it, dominating and exploiting it. Viktor warned that the more we continued to go against Nature, the whole eco-system would become sick, the climate destructive, and human society would break down, with extreme violence, greed and pandemic illnesses.

"How else should it be done", he was asked. His answer was straightforward and uncompromising - "Exactly in the opposite way that it is done today!"


[Thanks to Gabriel Herbst for introducing me to Viktor Schauberger. First postede 1 July 2008]

EARTH PRAYER

EARTH PRAYER FOR HARMONIC CONCORDANCE

8-9 NOVEMBER 2003

Great Mother Earth...
Gracious Embodiment of Gaia:
I embrace your beauty and bounty with all my heart!
With profound gratitude and sublime joy,
I sing your praises with every breath -
You are the Divine Matrix of Life,
The Sacred Being that knows no death!
You are beyond struggle and strife,
The promise of Paradise regained;
Vision of glory, power, and love reclaimed!

Great Mother Earth...
Gracious Embodiment of Gaia:
Your blessings are infinite and rainbow-hued!
For our sake you have known pain and sorrow -
You have been pillaged, plundered and raped -
But the sins of yesterday will not stain tomorrow!
Your children are all awakening now to truth:
We solemnly vow to honor you
And your many-splendored biosphere,
As we plant on your lips true love's first kiss.

Gaia by Sabrina Moles

Great Mother Earth...
Gracious Embodiment of Gaia:
O Sleeping Beauty... Awake and Ascend
In peace, harmony, and perfection!
Peace, Harmony, and Perfection!
Peace, Harmony, and Perfection!

Great Mother Earth... you are my Home!
Great Mother Earth... we have Come Home!
Great Mother Earth... Our Beloved Home...
Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Hommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmme
Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Hommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmme
Is where the Heart is!
Hommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmme
Is where the Heart is!
And so it is.
So it is.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...


ANTARES
MAGICK RIVER
28 October 2003

[First posted 2 DECEMBER 2006]

Two short and sweet films by Constantin Pilavios (repost)

This is a short film made in 2007 by Constantin Pilavios. It says everything there is to say about father-and-son relationships. Thanks to Yasinaly, on whose YouTube channel I found it.

Cast
Father: Nikos Zoiopoulos
Son: Panagiotis Bougiouris

Directed by: Constantin Pilavios
Written by: Nikos & Constantin Pilavios
Director of photgraphy: Zoe Manta
Music by: Christos Triantafillou
Sound by: Teo Babouris
Mixed by: Kostas Varibobiotis
Produced by: MovieTeller films



Cast:
Lefteris Eleftheriou
Evgenia Deliali

Narrated by: Makis Revmatas

Directed by: Constantin Pilavios
Written by: Despina Ladi
Director of photography: Zoe Manta
Music by: Christos Triantafillou
Sound Design by: Teo Babouris
Mixed by: Kostas Varibobiotis
Produced by: MovieTeller films

Less is, more often than not, better!

[First posted 29 July 2011, reposted 31 May 2014 & 13 August 2016]

The Great Capitalism vs Communism Debate (revisited)

It appears that the Umno home ministry has come up with a new political strategy. It wants to associate the Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party (DAP) with the creeping return of communism.

Indeed, this vile strategy is laced with the usual Umno brand of racist arsenic. It seeks to create - or, rather, resurrect - the illusion that all Chinese are actual or potential communists. Which is patently an infantile, stupid and shallow notion easily rebutted.

Russia and Cuba are known to be communist nations - yet there aren't too many Chinese to be found in either country. Of course, this has never occurred to the rabidly racist editors of Utusan Malaysia, Umno's propaganda rag.

Communism as a political ideology transcends race - just like its Siamese twin, capitalism.

Being infantile, stupid and shallow is par for the course when it comes to Umno politics. To anyone outside Umno it must be clear as crystal that Umno isn't really interested in anything apart from ferociously clinging onto the political dominance the party has enjoyed - or, rather, abused - since 1957. Nothing else matters to Umno: certainly not issues of justice, human rights, fair play, accountable government, and democratic space (without which no healthy mental, moral or social development can occur).

The most intelligent contribution to the capitalism versus communism debate I ever came across was from a most unlikely source: I read it in a 1976 book by Osho (then known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) titled I Am The Gate.

I can't find the book in my library. Someone must have pinched it "by accident," as often happens with so-called friends who solemnly swear they will return my books and then disappear from my event horizon for years, until I've forgotten those books once existed within easy reach. So I shall have to paraphrase instead of quote Osho verbatim. What he said on the subject immediately struck a chord and has remained permanently embedded in my memory.

Communism and capitalism are actually two ends of the same stick, Osho said.

They are two extremes of a pendulum's swing, the apparent beginning and end of what is essentially a connected circle, the in- and out-breath of the respiration cycle. How so?

Let's say that capitalism involves the accumulation of energy, experience and expertise. We shall call it the inhalation phase.

It must be followed by an exhalation phase wherein the accumulated capital (in this case the intake of air) is redistributed to all parts of the body via the lungs, while carbon dioxide is released as exhaust, so that the plant kingdom can breathe. Isn't it extraordinary that the plants then exhale oxygen which animals (including humans) vitally need?

Well, says Osho, breathing out - redistributing and sharing - may be regarded as the communist phase of the breathing cycle. It usually follows a capitalist phase, simply because we must have some something before we can attempt share anything with anyone.


What happens when you attempt to hold your breath indefinitely without exhaling? You die. Same effect applies if you breathe out and don't bother breathing in again. In effect, there really is no conflict or contradiction between these ideologies.

Capitalism recognizes that genius - the curiosity to explore and the capacity to innovate - resides in individuals, never the collective. Therefore, the unquantifiable value of the human individual must always be honored - because each of us has the unlimited potential to creatively contribute to the whole. Classic examples of capitalists would be Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, Jack Ma and Elon Musk.

Communism recognizes that experience, expertise, knowledge and wisdom - which constitute our real capital - have to be shared as widely as possible. Otherwise the accumulated capital will turn toxic and kill the hoarder. Anything of genuine value - say a loaf of bread - has to be shared and consumed before it becomes moldy and therefore potentially hazardous to health.

Same goes for fuel, whether you're talking about huge tanks of petrol or a massive woodpile. Those who hoard fuel are only endangering themselves. Would you be able to sleep peacefully knowing there's a stack of 50-gallon tanks of flammable substance right under your bed? And if you accumulate a 10-year supply of firewood and keep it carefully hidden from your neighbors shivering in the cold, what happens a few years down the line is you'll discover termites have eaten their way through most of your fuel stockpile and have now digested your roofbeams. Don't be too surprised if the entire roof crashes down on your head while you're fast asleep.

How about those who hoard cash? Well, if you stash a few billion US dollars under your floorboards, chances are you'll find the currency notes are worth less than 10% of their original value after an unforeseen depreciation triggered by a financial meltdown like the one that happened less than a year ago.

The moment you understand the simple truth of what Osho stated, you'll realize that capitalism and communism are natural expressions of dynamic cyclical processes - like wet and dry seasons, hot and cold spells, day and night, inhalation and exhalation, expansion and contraction.

In other words, we are all at different times capitalists as well as communists.

So what's the problem? The confusion often arises when capitalism is equated with democracy, and communism with totalitarianism.

I can't imagine what would make a sane and rational human being opt for tyranny over freedom - but the amazing fact is, some do. I hear people opine that they prefer a strong leader who will govern with an iron hand. Leaders who tend towards egalitarianism and democratic ideals are regarded as weak and wishy-washy.

Perhaps those who choose despotic and authoritarian over democratic and accountable government are the ones who feel lost without a parental figure to guide them. Often, their loyalty to even the cruelest, harshest leader makes them identify the state as a father figure. The fear of losing their patriarchal deity turns them aggressive. Like a bird in captivity that has gotten accustomed to its confinement, they might even peck your eyes out if you attempt to open their cage door so they can experience freedom.

So what do we do? Well, we can either leave them to die in their (mental) cages... or wear protective glasses when undoing the latch on the cage door & 4 July 2017... just in case the bird panics and turns vicious... or starts calling you silly names like Sylvester.

[First posted 7 June 2009, reposted 5 February 2014 & 4 July 2017]

FARTS ~ by Sophie Paterson (a classic essay)

Hi, today I am going to talk to you about farts.

Some people think farts are rude, and some people think farts are funny, like me.

I think farts are hilarious.

Farting is a fact of life.

The Queen farts, superstars fart, and I fart. We will fart until the day we die.

And apparently a person can still fart after death!

Do you know why we fart?

Flatulence, wind or farts, whatever you like to call them, is the production of the mixture of gases in the digestive tract, that are by-products of the digestive process.

The average person farts about 14 times a day, which produces about half a liter of fart gas. (Personally, I think I fart more than 14 times a day.)

Farts are made up of the following:

Nitrogen, the main ingredient, making up 59%; next behind is hydrogen at 21%; 9% carbon dioxide; 7% methane; 3% oxygen and 1% other stuff.

But listen to this – hydrogen sulphide is the compound that makes them stink!

Here are the top 10 farters:

1st - Termites
2nd - Camels
3rd - Zebras and my pony Free
4th - Sheep
5th - Cows
6th - Elephants
7th - Labradors and retrievers
8th - Humans (vegetarians)
9th - Humans (non-vegetarians)
10th - Gerbils (also known as the desert rat)

If you are going to fart, do not sit by flames, because farts are very flammable.

Also, they can come motoring out of your bottom at 10kmh.

No wonder some of you have holes in your undies!

Please do not panic if you find yourself trapped in a small space like a closet, as it is impossible to suffocate in your own farts.

Unless Ben (my little brother) happens to be in there with you

Anyway next time you fart, don’t think it’s rude. Just know that everybottie, oops, I mean everybody farts.

Thank you for listening to my fartastic speech.

Here’s a little poem that I’d like to share with you:

"A fart can be useful,
It gives the body ease.
It warms the bed in winter
And suffocates the fleas.”



[From Napier Mail, 5 Oct 2011]

Sophie Paterson won first prize at the Central Hawke’s Bay Primary Schools Rotary Competition in September 2011. She was in year 6 at Flemington Primary.

[First posted 18 July 2013, reposted 2 July 2017]

PLAYING THE FOOL (reprise)

Antares as the Fool @ 1982 (photo montage by Hari Ho)

In 1982 my friend Maureen Ten (who has since relocated to Sydney) decided she wanted to stage a freewheeling version of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. She insisted that I take on the role of Feste, Olivia’s Fool, and I immediately agreed, since I have always had a soft spot for Maureen.

Rehearsals dragged on for months and more than a few began to regret committing themselves to this project – but finally the play opened and ran for less than a week at the British Council Hall. It was a resounding success!

People loved it, some returning for a second or even third performance. I suppose it was the unexpected blend of styles that made the whole thing flow better than it felt to the cast, while rehearsing it in fragments. Maureen kept pretty much true to the spirit of Shakespeare but playfully allowed individual performers’ quirks free rein. Needless to say, the utterly muhibbah and motley cast managed to insert a great deal of local flavor and humor into the production.

As Feste, I had to come up with tunes for three songs. I was still in my Bob Dylan phase, down to my frizzy hairdo, so I played the songs on my guitar with a bit of harmonica – accompanied by a bit of flute played by an expat named John Moore on two of the songs.

Recently, I felt prompted to resurrect my songs from Twelfth Night and, thanks to Google, easily found the words online. While re-learning to sing them, I was struck by the apparent simplicity, yet nonchalant profundity, of Feste’s first song:

What is love? ‘Tis not hereafter;

Present mirth hath present laughter;

What’s to come is still unsure:

In delay there lies not plenty;

Then come kiss me sweet and twenty,

Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?

O stay and hear; your true love’s coming,

That can sing both high and low:

Trip no further, pretty sweeting;

Journeys end in lovers meeting,

Every wise man’s son doth know.

Feste poses the age-old question, “What is love?” – and then proceeds at once to answer: Love’s reality dwells in the moment, in the now, not in some imaginary future. Just as one laughs at a joke immediately - not minutes or hours or days later – the moment is all we truly know, the future is unknowable and predictions are unreliable. To hesitate and postpone brings no reward – be spontaneous, obey your impulse, do it now, while you still can, before the years weigh down on you.

Feste then addresses his Muse directly: whatever your heart desires is right before you, not some other place – and true love encompasses the entire spectrum, from the sublime to the ridiculous. All yearning, all desire ultimately leads to union (sacred and/or profane) and meaning and purpose converge when One finds the Other. This arcane knowledge has survived countless generations: it's always NOW and it's only about LOVE!

That’s powerful wisdom compressed into what could easily pass for just a frivolous ditty sung by a Fool. No wonder the Bard of Avon still speaks to the human spirit after so many centuries. In that one simple song is all the sage advice one need ever heed. Eckhart Tolle says more or less the same thing in his ground-breaking book, The Power of Now, but not quite as elegantly or concisely.

[First posted 4 February 2012, reposted 5 July 2018]

A neuron-mutating classic performance! Michael Brecker Band ~ Hamburg 1987

The legendary Brecker brothers, Randy & Michael, first came to my attention when both joined Frank Zappa's recording & touring outfit in the late 1970s. This classic recording was from the Hamburg Jazz Festival 1987 when both brothers were featured with their own bands. This is from the Wikipedia entry on the Brecker Brothers:

The Brecker Brothers was the musical duo of Michael (saxophone, flute, and EWI) and Randy Brecker (trumpet, flugelhorn), who recorded commercially successful jazz fusion albums together in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. They had a notable hit single with "East River" in 1979. It reached #34 in the UK Singles Chart.

Older brother Randy first became famous as an original member of the group Blood, Sweat & Tears. He appeared on their debut album Child Is Father to the Man in 1968. In addition to recording their own compositions, the brothers frequently played together as session musicians on albums by many other artists.

They were heard on Todd Rundgren's hit "Hello It's Me" which reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1972. Other notable appearances include Parliament's Mothership Connection and the debut album of the Japanese fusion group Casiopea.

The brothers were touring as members of Frank Zappa's band in the late 1970s and appeared on the 1977 album Zappa in New York. Both brothers also had prolific recording careers as leaders of their own ensembles.

Their collaborations came to an end in 2007, when Michael Brecker died from leukemia.

[First posted 1 October 2013, reposted 2 July 2018]

Uniting the Male & Female Within (Part Two)

DAVID ICKE (pronounced 'Ike') is someone who seems to have successfully united the male and the female within. As a teenager he was a rising soccer star. Then he had a painful knee injury and spent many years going from doctor to doctor, finally seeking the advice of spiritual healers. Meanwhile he became a well-known TV personality as a BBC sports reporter. Soon he got involved with the Green Party and was appointed its national spokesman, giving talks around Britain on environmental issues.

Somewhere along the way David Icke had an awakening. He became aware of his mission on this planet and began speaking about it openly. The media reaction was loud and hostile. Icke was forced to retire for a while from public view, amidst vitriolic ridicule and a great deal of negative press. He decided to apply himself to writing instead, and has since emerged as a best-selling author of numerous books on spiritual awakening and growth. When he writes from his masculine aspect, David Icke comes across as an intellectual warrior, a clear-minded, strong-voiced critic of society:

"The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 18th century with the invention of the steam engine, and within a hundred years this revolution would fill the skies with black smoke and pollution, rape the planet for fuels, and turn millions, eventually billions, into robots; mere extensions of a factory machine." (The Robots' Rebellion, Gateway Books, 1994)

Another voice, distinctly feminine, comes through when Icke quotes Attarro, Avatar of the Alchemians, in his 1993 book, The Truth Vibrations:

"Mother Earth is choking, and as she coughs and wheezes, the earth will open up through land shifts. As she cries, so the land will be flooded. Volcanoes will erupt, all to cleanse our Mother. Many new scars have appeared on our earth. Energy lines are being broken through new roads which interfere with sacred ground, which was dwelt upon by our animals who love, nurture, and trust nature, and who live totally within their natural cycle and habitat, able to understand nature's simple messages."

Not at all what you might expect to hear from a former jock, a regular beer-swilling soccer fiend. But David Icke perfectly embodies our rapid evolution towards a unified and balanced male-female polarity which all life will eventually embrace. Otherwise, as a species, we may face extinction as the Earth's magnetic field recalibrates itself to resonate with a much vaster, galactic field of consciousness. This is what entering fully into the Aquarian Age involves. And the Big Shift is not scheduled to happen hundreds or thousands of years from now… it will activate on 21 December 2012 (according to modern interpretations of cosmic calendar systems like the Mayan Tzolk'in).

By the first two decades of the 21st century, I hope, civilization will have dramatically transformed itself, so that the emphasis will be on beauty and bounty on the physical plane – with far greater attention focused on the quality of life, rather than quantity.

This means that aesthetic and artistic pursuits - in other words, more right-brained, feminine-intuitive activities - will become paramount. The masculine attributes of business, politics and warfaring will necessarily be reduced to a supportive role.

The "marketplace" will be restored to human scale, with people bartering products and services for mutual sustenance and pleasure. No one will be obsessed with the movement of substances in and out of humanity's alimentary canal. Our best brains will no longer will kept busy monitoring the price of potatoes.

With the threat of armed aggression reduced to practically nil, the only justification for armies would be as temporary groupings of young people teaming together to learn skills like bridge building, road-upgrading, and rescue operations. They will serve as a human resource pool for projects requiring muscle power and large numbers of volunteers. Cleaning up the garbage on this planet, for instance, is one such task. Rebuilding homes for the homeless would be another. Turning former deserts into gardens of plenty would be yet another project worthy of world-around support.

When the Fathers are no longer competitive and warlike, neither will the Sons be prone to pillage, plunder and rape.


Antares © 1998 [First posted 9 September 2008, reposted 30 June 2017, 19 April 2020 & 3 December 2021]

Unity is Plural (Part One)

Unity Is Plural (Part One)

THERE IS A MALE ASPECT in each of us programmed to compete, to strive, to win and survive. But there is also a female aspect which aspires towards "a caring and sharing community" – which intrinsically knows the value of cooperating, helping, nurturing, and reconciling divergent demands.

The masculine mind says: "Let's apply our knowledge to building a great machine that will take us to the stars."

The feminine mind responds: "Let's pool our resources so that we can feed our children well and raise them in a beautiful and safe environment."

"Vive la difference!" you cry. But "la difference" is best appreciated when one recognizes the essential unity of male and female, day and night, yang and yin, cube and sphere, science and spirituality, intellect and intuition.

The Father Principle (in its negative aspect) despises those that are 'oversensitive' and vulnerable, dismissing them as weaklings unfit to survive. Homophobia expresses its patriarchal machismo with words like "sissy" (and sodomy is viewed as "an offence against nature" punishable with a 20-year sentence in some spiritually retarded countries).

The Mother Principle (at least in its positive aspect) perceives "weakness" not as something to be condemned, but as a quality evoking sympathy and compassion.

A defenceless chick is not "contemptible" – it is cuddly and cute. Just as any mother would try to heal her sick child with extra doses of love and tenderness, a society with a healthy balance of paternal and maternal values will be extremely patient with the disabled and the disadvantaged. The "pay-off" comes in terms of our spiritual maturity, the integrity of our inner and outer beings. Being free to "walk your talk" and being worthy of the name “humankind” is ample reward for the wise.

Of course, there's a positive aspect to the Father Principle, which manifests as profound pride and joy in planting seeds and watching life grow and flourish.

It's called the Creative Urge. And there is a negative manifestation of the Mother Principle as the bloodthirsty and vengeful goddess Kali, or as a scorpion that kills her own progeny when enraged. This destructive female force often takes the form of natural disasters like flashfloods, earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, and severe drought.

THE MALE ASPECT thrives on challenges: whether it's climbing the highest mountain or erecting the tallest building or constructing the most dangerous dam or becoming the most prosperous nation. It operates in a rigid, hierarchical mindset, wherein the Boss or Chief or Lord or Father is revered as a sacred emblem of Divine Authority. The Armed Forces is a prime example of a complex organisation where the masculine spirit rules in all its glory and folly.

When the masculine mind turns religious, it does so through a Book of Laws. Its perception of God often takes the form of a stern, unsmiling Judge. Obedience and discipline are regarded as the highest virtues. "Righteous" behavior is rewarded with exalted status and special privilege. "Wrong" actions are forcefully punished. The stubbornly "wicked" are condemned and consigned to Eternal Damnation.

THE FEMININE MIND finds it easier to speak of spirituality in terms of a reverence for all living things, a profound appreciation of beauty, and an abiding sense of justice and equitability. The female approach to God/dess is often through the quality of mercy. Forgiveness and compassion are regarded as the essential attributes of divinity.

Socially useful behavior is inspired by love for others, not merely by fear of punishment. Rules are written in books as a guide to harmonious behavior – but the highest virtue lies in listening to the wisdom of one's heart.

How do we reconcile and unify the male and female polarities within ourselves?

First, we need to acknowledge that there has been far too much predominance of male attitudes in the structure of our laws and customs. No wonder true and lasting peace and harmony have been so elusive, despite tremendous breakthroughs in scientific knowhow that could so easily banish poverty, lack and ignorance to the Dark Ages of humanity's infancy.

Indeed, these problems are in danger of being maintained even as we enter a new millennium. They are artificially perpetuated by an economic and political system designed to favor the upper levels of society whilst keeping the lower in their place.

We also need to acknowledge that purely female approaches cannot be used to resolve the problems generated by male predominance. Otherwise there would arise a long-term tendency towards overcaution and conservatism, eventually resulting in cultural stagnation. The optimal balance has to be sought within each of us. No doubt the precise proportion of male to female will vary from person to person. But as a whole, the ideal balance will be found in a ratio akin to the Golden Mean, wherein there is always a slight bias in favor of the female. This is to ensure that love and compassion ultimately become the supreme qualities governing all social units, from the nuclear to the planetary family - and perhaps beyond.

Harry & Sheila Amoeba grooving on their gender differences

[Text & Cartoon by Antares © 1998. First posted 9 September 2008, reposted 29 July 2014, 30 June 2017, 19 April 2020 & 3 December 2021]

Uniting the Male & Female Within (Part Two)

The eminently quotable R. Buckminster Fuller

BUCKYQUOTES from Critical Path

R. Buckminster Fuller
(12 July 1895 - 1 July 1983) 

ON  SPECIALISTS

Nobody is born a specialist. Every child is born with comprehensive interests, asking the most comprehensively logical and relevant questions. Pointing to the logs burning in the fireplace, one child asked me, "What is fire?" 

I answered, "Fire is the Sun unwinding from the tree's log. The Earth revolves and the trees revolve as the radiation from the Sun's flame reaches the revolving planet Earth. By photosynthesis the green buds and leaves of the tree convert that Sun radiation into hydrocarbon molecules, which form into the bio-cells of the green, outer, cambium layer of the tree. The tree is a tetrahedron that makes a cone as it revolves. The tree's three tetrahedral roots spread out into the ground to anchor the tree and get water. Each year the new, outer-layer green-tree cone revolves 365 turns, and every year the tree grows its new, tender-green, bio-cell cone layer just under the bark and over the accumulating cones of previous years. Each ring of the many rings of the saw-cut log is one year's Sun-energy impoundment. So the fire is the many-years-of-Sun-flame-winding now unwinding from the tree. When the log fire pop-sparks, it is letting go a very sunny day long ago, and doing so in a hurry." 

Conventionally educated grown-ups rarely know how to answer such questions. They're all too specialized.

ON BANKS

Society likes the idea of a bank as a safekeeping device.  People have always believed that when they put their money in the bank, it stayed there. They had no idea it went out on loan within minutes after it came in. They were completely hoodwinked by the appearance of the banks as safe, fireproof, and robberproof depositories of their earnings. Even today, in the last few years of the twentieth century, people know little more about banks than they did during the 1929 Crash or at the depth of the Depression in 1932, when all they knew was that they had lost their deposits in most of them.

ON  COSMIC  ACCOUNTING

ONLY COSMIC ACCOUNTING accounts for the entirely interdependent electrochemical and ecological relationships of Earth's biological evolution and cosmic intertransformative regeneration in general. Cosmic costing accounts as well for the parts played gravitationally and radiationally in the totality within which our miniscule planet Earth and its miniscule star the Sun are interfunctionally secreted. Cosmic costing makes utterly ludicrous the selfish and fearfully contrived "wealth" games being reverentially played by humanity aboard Earth.

Fortunately, the Sun does not demand payment for all the energy that it delivers by radiation to Earth in the overall cosmic scheme, which is trying to make humanity a success despite our overwhelming ignorance and fear. The stars are trying to tell humanity to awake and prosper and to consciously assume the important cosmic responsibilities for which it was designed. Since realization and fulfillment of that responsibility involve evolutionary discovery by humanity of the cosmic stature of its mind and the inconsequentiality of its muscle, the planting of humans on Earth may not bear fruit... The first manifestation that humanity may make good on this planet will be the serious introduction of cosmic costing into the mainstream deliberations of Earthians.

IDENTIFYING  GOD

There are no solids. There are no things. There are only interfering and noninterfering patterns operative in pure principle, and principles are eternal. Principles never contradict principles. 


Principles can interaccommodate one another only in noninterfering frequency ways. Principles can interaugment one another if frequency is synchronizable.

Acknowledging the mathematically elegant intellectual integrity of eternally regenerative Universe is one way of identifying God.

The synergetic integral of the totality of all principles is God, whose sumtotal behavior in pure principle is beyond our comprehension and is utterly mysterious to us, because as humans - in pure principle - we do not and never will know all the principles.

ON  COSMIC  ENERGY
Our most prominent present local Universe problem is how to wean humanity from metabolic sustenance only by exploiting nature's local Universe energy savings account - energy being locally imported by cosmic evolution design to produce a new star ten billion years hence. How can we convince those in power the world around that we can live handsomely as supplied only by our daily income of cosmic energy? The answer is we can't convince them. Only the cosmic wisdom manifest in inexorable evolution can cope with such matters.

ON  GALAXIES

When I was twenty-seven years of age [in 1922] Earthian humanity knew of only one galaxy - our own Milky (Latin:Galactic) Way. A year later astronomer Hubble discovered another galaxy. During the subsequent fifty-seven years, human astronomers and astrophysicists have discovered two billion more galaxies, all doing their galactic acts within the eleven-and-one-half-billion-light-year-radiused sphere of humanity's present limit [1981] of omnidirectional observing.

ON  ATOMIC  ENERGY

The would-be exploiters of atomic energy on board our planet Earth will in due course discover there is no way for them to solve atomic-energy- radiation waste-disposal problems save by rocketing it all back into the Sun, where it belongs. Humans will then have to learn how to keep all humans and their ecological support system operating successfully on our vastly adequate daily income of solar atomic energy.

Cosmically acceptable and effective decisions of humanity regarding such matters will not be made by leaders single or plural, political or religious, military or mystic, by coercion or mob psychology.

The effective decisions can only be made by the independently thinking and adequately informed human individuals and their telepathetically intercommunicated wisdom - the wisdom of the majority of all such human individuals - qualifying for continuance in Universe as local cosmic problem-solvers - in love with the truth and in individually spontaneous self-commitment to absolute faith in the wisdom, integrity, and love of God, who seems to wish Earthian humans to survive.

RECOMMENDED BUCKYBOOKS:

Nine Chains to the Moon (J.B. Lippincott, 1938; Doubleday, 1982)

Untitled Epic Poem on the History of Industrialization

Ideas and lntegrities

No More Secondhand God (Southern Illinois University Press, 1963)

Education Automation

Utopia or Oblivion (Pelican, 1968)

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (Southern Illinois University Press, 1969)

And It Came To Pass - Not To Stay (Macmillan, 1976)

Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking

Critical Path (St, Martin's Press, 1981)

[First posted 12 July 2013, reposted 7 July 2016]

Never too late to meet Pete Brown, a totally hip poet and lyricist I greatly admired in the 1970s...

Lost in the stations that sleep in the cold
Nights were so bold – old times
Ring up the chimes I used to hear
No point in saving what's left of the love
For clouds up above
I see the faces that dance in the glass
Lights chase them past each other
Walking with people that fell from the sky
Better to try
Under the candles that cry in their cage
Tears were all the rage – strange times
Broke up the rhymes I used to know
No point in keeping the last of the wine
For years in decline
I see the faces that dance in the flames
Playing their games with each other
Talking to people who came from the stars
Driving their cars

Pete Brown in the 1970s

Peter Ronald Brown (born 25 December 1940 in Ashtead, Surrey) is an English performance poet and lyricist. Best known for his collaborations with Jack Bruce and Cream, Brown also worked with The Battered Ornaments, formed his own group, Pete Brown & Piblokto!, and worked with Graham Bond and Phil Ryan. Brown also writes film scores and formed a film production company. Comedian and actor Marty Feldman was Brown's cousin.

Before his involvement with music, Brown was a poet, having his first poem published in the US magazine Evergreen Review when he was 14. He then became part of the poetry scene in Liverpool during the 1960s and in 1964 was the first poet to perform at Morden Tower in Newcastle. He formed The First Real Poetry Band with John McLaughlin (guitar), Binky McKenzie (bass), Laurie Allan (drums) and Pete Bailey (percussion).

The First Real Poetry Band brought Brown to the attention of Cream. Originally, he was seen as a writing partner for drummer Ginger Baker, but the group quickly discovered that he worked better with bassist Jack Bruce. Of the situation, Bruce later remarked "Ginger and Pete were at my flat trying to work on a song but it wasn't happening. My wife Janet then got with Ginger and they wrote 'Sweet Wine' while I started working with Pete."

Together, Brown and Bruce wrote a significant number of Cream's songs, including the hits "I Feel Free," "White Room" and (with Clapton) "Sunshine of Your Love." After the breakup of Cream, Bruce and Brown continued to write songs together for Bruce's solo career. Brown wrote the lyrics for Bruce's albums, Songs for a Tailor, Harmony Row and Out of the Storm.

Pete Brown in 2005

Brown formed Pete Brown and His Battered Ornaments in 1968, and in 1969 the band recorded two albums - A Meal You Can Shake Hands With In The Dark and Mantlepiece - with a line-up including Pete Bailey (percussion), Charlie Hart (keyboards), Dick Heckstall Smith (sax), George Kahn (sax), Roger Potter (bass), Chris Spedding (guitar) and Rob Tait (drums). Brown then suffered the ignominy of being thrown out of his own band, the day before they were due to support The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park. His vocals were then removed from Mantlepiece and re-recorded by Chris Spedding, and the band was renamed The Battered Ornaments.

After the Battered Ornaments, Brown formed Pete Brown & Piblokto!, which had several line ups and issued two albums and three singles before disbanding in 1971.

[Source: Wikipedia]



What I liked about Pete Brown's lyrics was their trademark ambiguity that hinted at all kinds of mysterious, initiatory knowledge. I figure Pete just had this knack of churning out singable words - and he was lucky to team up with Cream, riding on the group's phenomenal commercial success to become one of the very few exceptions to the rule, a well-to-do poet!



In the white room with black curtains near the station.
Black-roof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings.
Silver horses run down moonbeams in your dark eyes.
Dawn-light smiles on you leaving, my contentment.
I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines;
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves.
You said no strings could secure you at the station.
Platform ticket, restless diesels, goodbye windows.
I walked into such a sad time at the station.
As I walked out, felt my own need just beginning.
I'll wait in the queue when the trains come back;
Lie with you where the shadows run from themselves.
At the party she was kindness in the hard crowd.
Consolation for the old wound now forgotten.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
I'll sleep in this place with the lonely crowd;
Lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves.

[First posted 20 November 2011. Reposted 22 June 2016 & 22 June 2020]

The War on Poverty is Over! (reprise)

"The War on Poverty is over. All the poor people have surrendered." - Swami Beyondananda

[First posted 3 November 2008, reposted 27 June 2017 & 27 June 2020]

"NAJIB INTRODUCED ALTANTUYA TO BAGINDA" - Balasubramaniam Perumal, P.I. (reprise)

(Courtesy of Malaysiakini.tv, 3 July 2008)

Malaysiakini | Jul 3, 08 | 2:01pm

The following is the full 16-page statutory declaration signed by Abdul Razak Baginda's private investigor P. Balasubramaniam on July 1 2008.

I, Balasubramaniam a/l Perumal ... do solemly and sincerely declare as follows:

1. I have been a police officer with the Royal Malaysian Police Force, having joined as a constable in 1981 attached to the police field force. I was then promoted to the rank of lance corporal and finally resigned from the police force in 1998 when I was with the Special Branch.

2. I have been working as a freelance private investigator since I left the police force.

3. Sometime in June or July 2006, I was employed by Abdul Razak Baginda for a period of 10 days to look after him at his office at the Bangunan Getah Asli, Jalan Ampang between the hours of 8am to 5pm each working day as apparently he was experiencing disturbances from a third party.

4. I resigned from this job after 2½ days as I was not receiving any proper instructions.

5. I was however re-employed by Abdul Razak Baginda on the Oct 5, 2006 as he had apparently received a harassing phone call from a Chinese man calling himself ASP Tan who had threatened him to pay his debts. I later found out this gentleman was in fact a private investigator called Ang who was employed by a Mongolian woman called Altantuya Shaaribuu.

6. Abdul Razak Baginda was concerned that a person by the name of Altantuya Shaaribuu, a Mongolian woman, was behind this threat and that she would be arriving in Malaysia very soon to try and contact him.

7. Abdul Razak Baginda informed me that he was concerned by this as he had been advised that Altantuya Shaaribuu had been given some powers by a Mongolian ‘bomoh’ and that he could never look her in the face because of this.

8. When I enquired as to who this Mongolian woman was, Abdul Razak Baginda informed me that she was a friend of his who had been introduced to him by a VIP and who asked him to look after her financially.

9. I advised him to lodge a police report concerning the threatening phone call he had received from the Chinese man known as ASP Tan but he refused to do so as he informed me there were some high-profile people involved.

10. Abdul Razak Baginda further told me that Altantuya Shaaribuu was a great liar and good in convincing people. She was supposed to have been very demanding financially and that he had even financed a property for her in Mongolia.

11. Abdul Razak Baginda then let me listen to some voice messages on his handphone asking him to pay what was due otherwise he would be harmed and his daughter harassed.

12. I was therefore supposed to protect his daughter Rowena as well.

13. On Oct 9, 2006 I received a phone call from Abdul Razak Baginda at about 9.30am informing me that Altantuya was in his office and he wanted me there immediately. As I was in the midst of a surveillance, I sent my assistant Suras to Abdul Razak Baginda’s office and I followed a little later. Suras managed to control the situation and had persuaded Altantuya and her two friends to leave the premises. However Altantuya left a note written on some Hotel Malaya notepaper, in English, asking Abdul Razak Baginda to call her on her handphone (number given) and wrote down her room number as well.

14. Altantuya had introduced herself to Suras as ‘Aminah’ and had informed Suras she was there to see her boyfriend Abdul Razak Baginda.

15. These three Mongolian girls however returned to Abdul Razak Baginda’s office at the Bangunan Getah Asli, Jalan Ampang again, the next day at about 12 noon. They did not enter the building but again informed Suras that they wanted to meet Aminah’s boyfriend, Abdul Razak Baginda.

16. On Oct 11, 2006, Aminah returned to Abdul Razak Baginda’s office on her own and gave me a note to pass to him, which I did. Abdul Razak Baginda showed me the note which basically asked him to call her urgently.

17. I suggested to Abdul Razak Baginda that perhaps it may be wise to arrange for Aminah to be arrested if she harassed him further, but he declined as he felt she would have to return to Mongolia as soon as her cash ran out.

18. In the meantime, I had arranged for Suras to perform surveillance on Hotel Malaya to monitor the movements of these three Mongolian girls, but they recognised him. Apparently they become friends with Suras after that and he ended up spending a few nights in their hotel room.

19. When Abdul Razak Baginda discovered Suras was becoming close to Aminah he asked me to pull him out from Hotel Malaya.

20. On Oct 14, 2006, Aminah turned up at Abdul Razak Baginda’s house in Damansara Heights when I was not there. Abdul Razak Baginda called me on my handphone to inform me of this so I rushed back to his house. As I arrived, I noticed Aminah outside the front gates shouting “Razak, bastard, come out from the house”. I tried to calm her down but couldn’t, so I called the police who arrived in two patrol cars. I explained the situation to the police, who took her away to the Brickfields police station.

21. I followed the patrol cars to Brickfields police station in a taxi. I called Abdul Razak Baginda and his lawyer Dirren to lodge a police report but they refused.

22. When I was at the Brickfields police station, Aminah’s own private investigator, one Mr Ang arrived and we had a discussion. I was told to deliver a demand to Abdul Razak Baginda for US$500,000 and three tickets to Mongolia, apparently as commission owed to Aminah from a deal in Paris.

23. As Aminah had calmed down at this stage, a policewoman at the Brickfields police station advised me to leave and settle the matter amicably.

24. I duly informed Abdul Razak Baginda of the demands Aminah had made and told him I was disappointed that no one wanted to back me up in lodging a police report. We had a long discussion about the situation when I expressed a desire to pull out of this assignment.

(Photo courtesy of The Courtroom Stomp} 

25. During this discussion and in an attempt to persuade me to continue my employment with him, Abdul Razak Baginda informed me that:

i) He had been introduced to Aminah by Najib Razak at a diamond exhibition in Singapore.

ii) Najib Razak informed Abdul Razak Baginda that he had a sexual relationship with Aminah and that she was susceptible to anal intercourse.

iii) Najib Razak wanted Abdul Razak Baginda to look after Aminah as he did not want her to harass him since he was now the deputy prime minister.

iv) Najib Razak, Abdul Razak Baginda and Aminah had all been together at a dinner in Paris.

v) Aminah wanted money from him as she felt she was entitled to a US$500,000 commission on a submarine deal she assisted with in Paris.

26. On Oct 19, 2006, I arrived at Abdul Razak Baginda’s house in Damansara Heights to begin my night duty. I had parked my car outside as usual. I saw a yellow Proton Perdana taxi pass by with three ladies inside, one of whom was Aminah. The taxi did a U-turn and stopped in front of the house where these ladies rolled down the window and wished me ‘Happy Deepavali’. The taxi then left.

27. About 20 minutes later the taxi returned with only Aminah in it. She got out of the taxi and walked towards me and started talking to me. I sent an SMS to Abdul Razak Baginda informing him “Aminah was here”. I received an SMS from Razak instructing me “to delay her until my man comes”.

28. Whist I was talking to Aminah, she informed me of the following:

i) That she met Abdul Razak Baginda in Singapore with Najib Razak.

ii) That she had also met Abdul Razak Baginda and Najib Razak at a dinner in Paris.

iii) That she was promised a sum of US$500,000.00 as commission for assisting in a submarine deal in Paris.

iv) That Abdul Razak Baginda had bought her a house in Mongolia but her brother had refinanced it and she needed money to redeem it.

v) That her mother was ill and she needed money to pay for her treatment.

vi) That Abdul Razak Baginda had married her in Korea as her mother is Korean whilst her father was a Mongolian/Chinese mix.

vii) That if I wouldn’t allow her to see Abdul Razak Baginda, would I be able to arrange for her to see Najib Razak.

29. After talking to Aminah for about 15 minutes, a red Proton Aeroback arrived with a woman and two men. I now know the woman to be lance corporal Rohaniza and the men, Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azahar. They were all in plainclothes. Azilah walked towards me while the other two stayed in the car.

30. Azilah asked me whether the woman was Aminah and I said “Yes”. He then walked off and made a few calls on his handphone. After 10 minutes another vehicle, a blue Proton Saga, driven by a Malay man, passed by slowly. The drivers window had been wound down and the driver was looking at us.

31. Azilah then informed me they would be taking Aminah away. I informed Aminah they were arresting her. The other two persons then got out of the red Proton and exchanged seats so that lance corporal Rohaniza and Aminah were in the back while the two men were in the front. They drove off and that is the last I ever saw of Aminah.

32. Abdul Razak Baginda was not at home when all this occurred.

33. After Oct 19, 2006, I continued to work for Abdul Razak Baginda at his house in Damansara Heights from 7pm to 8am the next morning, as he had been receiving threatening text messages from a woman called ‘Amy’ who was apparently ‘Aminah’s’ cousin in Mongolia.

34. On the night of Oct 20, 2006, both of Aminah’s girlfriends turned up at Abdul Razak Baginda’s house enquiring where Aminah was. I informed them she had been arrested the night before.

35. A couple of nights later, these two Mongolian girls, Mr Ang and another Mongolian girl called ‘Amy’ turned up at Abdul Razak Baginda’s house looking for Aminah as they appeared to be convinced she was being held in the house.

36. A commotion began so I called the police who arrived shortly thereafter in a patrol car. Another patrol car arrived a short while later in which was the investigating officer from the Dang Wangi police station who was in charge of the missing persons report lodged by one of the Mongolians girls, I believe was Amy.

37. I called Abdul Razak Baginda who was at home to inform him of the events taking place at his front gate. He then called DSP Musa Safri and called me back informing me that Musa Safri would be calling my handphone and that I was to pass the phone to the inspector from Dang Wangi police station.

38. I then received a call on my handphone from Musa Safri and duly handed the phone to the Dang Wangi inspector. The conversation lasted 3-4 minutes after which he told the girls to disperse and to go to see him the next day.

39. On or about Oct 24, 2006, Abdul Razak Baginda instructed me to accompany him to the Brickfields police station as he had been advised to lodge a police report about the harassment he was receiving from these Mongolian girls.

40. Before this, Amy had sent me an SMS informing me she was going to Thailand to lodge a report with the Mongolian consulate there regarding Aminah’s disappearance. Apparently she had sent the same SMS to Abdul Razak Baginda. This is why he told me he had been advised to lodge a police report.

41. Abdul Razak Baginda informed me that DPS Musa Safri had introduced him to one DSP Idris, the head of the criminal division, Brickfields police station, and that Idris had referred him to ASP Tonny.

42. When Abdul Razak Baginda had lodged his police report at Brickfields police station, in front of ASP Tonny, he was asked to make a statement but he refused as he said he was leaving for overseas. He did however promise to prepare a statement and hand ASP Tonny a thumbdrive. I know that this was not done as ASP Tonny told me.

43. However ASP Tonny asked me the next day to provide my statement instead and so I did.

44. I stopped working for Abdul Razak Baginda on Oct 26, 2006 as this was the day he left for Hong Kong on his own.

45. In mid-November 2006, I received a phone call from ASP Tonny from the IPK Jalan Hang Tuah asking me to see him regarding Aminah’s case. When I arrived there I was immediately arrested under Section 506 of the Penal Code for criminal intimidation.

46. I was then placed in the lock up and remanded for five days. On the third day, I was released on police bail.

47. At the end of November 2006, the D9 department of the IPK sent a detective to my house to escort me to the IPK Jalan Hang Tuah. When I arrived, I was told I was being arrested under Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder. I was put in the lock up and remanded for seven days.

48. I was transported to Bukit Aman where I was interrogated and questioned about an SMS I had received from Abdul Razak Baginda on Oct 19, 2006 which read “delay her until my man arrives”. They had apparently retrieved this message from Abdul Razak Baginda’s handphone.

49. They then proceeded to record my statement from 8.30 am to 6pm everyday for seven consecutive days. I told them all I knew including everything Abdul Razak Baginda and Aminah had told me about their relationships with Najib Razak but when I came to sign my statement, these details had been left out.

50. I have given evidence in the trial of Azilah, Sirul and Abdul Razak Baginda at the Shah Alam High Court. The prosecutor did not ask me any questions in respect of Aminah’s relationship with Najib Razak or of the phone call I received from DSP Musa Safri, whom I believe was the ADC for Najib Razak and/or his wife.

51. On the day Abdul Razak Baginda was arrested, I was with him at his lawyers office at 6.30am. Abdul Razak Baginda informed us that he had sent Najib Razak an SMS the evening before as he refused to believe he was to be arrested, but had not received a response.

52. Shortly thereafter, at about 7.30am, Abdul Razak Baginda received an SMS from Najib Razak and showed, this message to both myself and his lawyer. This message read as follows: “I am seeing IGP at 11am today … matter will be solved … be cool”.

53. I have been made to understand that Abdul Razak Baginda was arrested the same morning at his office in the Bangunan Getah Asli, Jalan Ampang.

54. The purpose of this Statutory declaration is to:

i) State my disappointment at the standard of investigations conducted by the authorities into the circumstances surrounding the murder of Altantuya Shaaribuu.

ii) Bring to the notice of the relevant authorities the strong possibility that there are individuals other than the three accused who must have played a role in the murder of Altantuya Shaaribuu.

iii) Persuade the relevant authorities to reopen their investigations into this case immediately so that any fresh evidence may be presented to the court prior to submissions at the end of the prosecutions case.

iv) Emphasise the fact that having been a member of the Royal Malaysian Police Force for 17 years, I am absolutely certain no police officer would shoot someone in the head and blow up their body without receiving specific instructions from their superiors first.

v) Express my concern that should the defence not be called in the said murder trial, the accused, Azilah and Sirul will not have to swear on oath and testify as to the instructions they received and from whom they were given.

55. And I make this solemn declaration conscientiously believing the same be true and by virtue of the provisions of the Statutory Declaration Act 1960.

Balasubramaniam a/l Perumal
July 1, 2008

[First posted 3 July 2008]