Saturday, September 23, 2006

10 Things We Didn't Know Last Week

1) Women who attended single-sex schools earn more than those who were taught in mixed schools.

2) Barbie's full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.

3) A Smurf is three apples tall.

4) Mosquitoes have a sweet tooth, a weakness to be exploited by an anti-malaria project.

5) Four of the top 10 people on the Forbes rich list derive their wealth from the Wal-Mart chain.

6) Eating a packet of crisps a day is equivalent to drinking five litres of cooking oil a year.

7) More than one in four pupils have played truant from school in the past year.

8) Pearl and Dean's a-pa-pa pa-pa theme tune, played in cinemas before the ads, is called Asteroid.

9) Plant seeds that have been stored for more than 200 years can be coaxed into new life.

10) There were no numbers in the very first UK phone directory, only names and addresses. Operators would connect callers.

This list comes from 10 Things We Didn't Know Last Week - see for more details of the above... and keep learning!

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Idries Shah Speaks...


TRUTH: ‘From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying: ‘Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment’

COMMON KNOWLEDGE: ‘The more you look at ‘common knowledge’, the more you realise that it is more likely to be common than it is to be knowledge. No real knowledge is common’

SOCIETY: ‘You say that this society will come to an end, because societies always have done so. I wonder whether they have ended because they were not really societies at all’

BOOKS AND DONKEYS: ‘Anyone can see that an ass laden with books remains a donkey. A human being laden with the undigested results of a tussle with thoughts and books, however, still passes for wise’

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: ‘One of the big differences between questions and answers is that, a question may be asked at almost any time and place, but its answer may come at a special time and place’

Idries Shah - 'Reflections'

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

The Position

A time to reflect back on some of Gurdjieff's words...

George Gurdjieff explained our situation this way:

"There is an Eastern tale which speaks about a very rich magician who had a great many sheep. But at the same time this magician was very mean. He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the pasture where his sheep were grazing. The sheep consequently often wandered into the forest, fell into ravines, and so on, and above all they ran away, for they knew that the magician wanted their flesh and skins and this they did not like.

"At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them first of all that they were immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned, that, on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant; secondly he suggested that the magician was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them; and in the third place he suggested to them that if anything at all were going to happen to them it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it. Further the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all; to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to others that they were eagles, to others that they were men, and to others that they were magicians.

"And after this all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again but quietly awaited the time when the magician would require their flesh and skins.

"This tale is a very good illustration of man's position."

How good...? How timely...?

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Laughter in the womb



Like Attracts Like... the thoughts we give out, whether we verbalise them or not, shape how this universe responds and conspires with us... it is a cosmic imagination that we wander in... and so laughter keeps us on a sane journey:

"Locked double doors blow open.
Water pours. Fire catches. Wind breaks up!
The Spring ground lifts a little finger.
It's all laughing." Rumi


What have You come for?....

"I have come into this world to hear this:
every song the earth has sung
since it was conceived in the
Divine’s womb and began
spinning from
His wish" Hafiz