Winter in Hungary

Just a few pictures that were taken in the Hungarian countryside last time I was there.

The Uncommon Touch by Tom Harpur

After reading some of Tom Harpur's other books (The Pagan Christ, Prayer, Life After Death, Finding the Still Point - A Spiritual Response to Stress and The God Question), I plunged into the The Uncommon Touch with great anticipation. I have long been interested in the spiritual aspects of healing - be it powered by the individual's faith or by external intervention by a healer person or by some invisible force that the healing is attributed to. I must immediately admit, I am not the ideal unbiased observer in this area as I do firmly believe in the ability of people to have significant influence on their own and others' recovery from physical, mental, spiritual or emotional trauma.

The Uncommon Touch is an expertly organized, well-balanced examination of the phenomenon of spiritual healing. Tom Harpur, a prolific Canadian spiritual author, journalist and TV host, first attacks some familiar stereotypes: TV evangelists who exhibit faith healing are mostly charlatans. Harpur's premise is that spiritual healing is an enabling and powerful ally, rather than an opposition to conventional medicine; and spiritual healing includes all those patients as well who "simply" believe they will get the cure, and do, as opposed to those individuals who give up all hope and die. Harpur cites abundant testimony on historical figures such as Godfrey Mowatt (the famous "blind healer"). He then references the work of Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and student of Freud who postulated "orgone energy." Orgone energy is a massless universal life force that is, perhaps, tapped into through the laying on of hands. (The Star Wars series' references to the "Force" may also have its origin in the concept of Orgone energy.) Harpur gives also an account of the Canadian biologist Bernard Grad's attempt to measure orgone energy in the laying on of hands of a contemporary healer, Oskar Estebany, with double-blind experiments involving mice. Wounded mice that Estebany had handled recovered more rapidly than the control group. There's also discussion in the book on what one might call the "positive thinking" aspect of prayer. Welcome evidence for those inclined to embrace it.


Seven Principles of Cosmic Spirituality (from Tom Harpur's own web site):

1. The entire cosmos is the manifestation of Divine Mind-every molecule, every cell, every creature, every rock, tree, mountain, planet, blazing star, whirling galaxy and universe of galaxies.
2. We are all an integral, interconnected part of the whole cosmos and our own inner world is a holograph of the cosmos within us.
3. One basic datum underlies every religion under the sun, the principle of Incarnation. The Word or Logos, God's self-expression made manifest, has given the light of its divine spark to every mind/soul coming into the world. Christians call this the Christ or "Christ in us." Other faiths have different names or modes of expression for this same inner reality.
4. Every religion whose ethical core is summed up by the word "compassion" or "loving-kindness" to all other creatures without exception has a vision of the truth and is a valid "way" to Transcendence.
5. No one faith or religion-whatever its claims may be, alone has The Truth.
6. True cosmic spirituality is steeped in, flows from, and derives its most powerful analogies and metaphors from the natural world -- from the tiniest bit of dust to the spiraling stars above.
7. The core aim of cosmic spirituality is radical transformation, both personal and societal.

Merry Christmas!

I wish you and your loved ones a Blessed Christmas!

It's a small world

Yes, indeed. My wife's nephew spent a few months with us earlier this year. We initiated him into the world of martial arts by signing him up for a month at the Academy we attend. Upon returning to Hungary, he signed up for some Karate classes at the dojo nearest to where he lives. Now I just learned, the chief instructor of his art Shito ryu in Central Europe (Zsolt Szénási) and I were classmates!

A new laundry room

I have recreated our laundry room into my wife's pottery supplies storage and work area. She loves it. So do I. The room has been ready for a while I just never got to making a picture of the final product. Here it is now...

All You Need Is Mozart!

According to various music therapy researchers, the number one composer whose works have been most frequently "prescribed" is, not at all surprisingly, Mozart. What is perhaps interesting though is the wide range of healing properties (for a variety of neurological diseases and brain function enhancements) Mozart's music is supposed to have. Don't take me wrong, I love Mozart's music, and can listen to it almost any time. I have myself, on a great number of occasions felt his music revitalize me, relax my busy mind, or helped me meditate and fill me with positive energy.

There is even some scientific evidence that there is something really special (and spatial) about Mozart. The "Mozart effect" as it became to be known, first came to light in a 1993 paper in Nature, when neuroscientist Fran Rauscher showed that college students who listened to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major for 10 minutes performed better on a spatial reasoning test than students who listened to some new age music or nothing at all. (Interestingly, there were numerous attempts to replicate the original results but mostly without success. These resulted in a series of authors dismissing the "Mozart effect" as mere hoax or as a self-propelling reflection of a "deeply-rooted but generally unspoken human impulse, to 'get something for nothing'" as Norman Weinberger puts it.)

The term "Mozart effect" was coined by Dr. Alfred Tomatis for the alleged increase in brain development that occurs in children under age 3 when they listen to the music of Mozart. He (and Mozart) even helped French actor Gerard Depardieu to transform a young delinquent and wanderer into a leading actor capable of such performances as his Cyrano or Bernard Granger in Truffaut's Le Dernier métro.

"Before Tomatis," Depardieu says, looking back, "I could not complete any of my sentences. He helped give continuity to my thoughts, and he gave me the power to synthesize and understand what I was thinking."

So, if it helped Depardieu, I might as well use its benefits, too. In order to test the claims, I am going to recreate one of the chart breaker Mozart Effect CDs with the following main features from my own CD collection:

For Intelligence & Learning
1. Allegro, Violin Concerto No.3 in G Major, K. 216
2. Allegro, Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Major, K. 107
3. Rondo-Allegretto grazioso, Sonata in F Major for Violin and Piano, K. 376
4. Rondo-Allegro, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in D Major, K. 525
5. Andante grazioso, London Night Music No. 1, K. 247
6. Molto Allegro, Symphony #14 in A Major, K. 114
7. Presto, Divertimento in D Major, K. 136
8. Allegro, Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major, K. 218
9. Church Sonata in C Major, K. 336

Maszat

Our late dog, Maszat came into my mind this morning.

Fly little white dove, fly

I recently discovered a musical treasure that just makes simple-sweet melodies continually buzz in my mind causing me to hum even in moments others may not find all that appropriate for humming. This treasure's name is 'The Bells', a Canadian band that was formed in Montreal in the same year I was born on the old continent. My newest favourite is their hit song from 1970, Fly little white dove, fly.

When we're stuck in troubled days
We must learn to love each other
Instead of going different ways
We must try to get together

Chorus:
Fly little white dove, fly, way up high
Spread your wings, sing out your cry
'Cross the universal sky

If we love the Human race
Peace should be your aspiration
Let’s make this a better place
Spread the word to every nation

[Chorus]

When a simple word is spoken
It should be our guiding light
If vows for peace are never broken
Then the whole world will unite

[Chorus]
(repeat until fade)

Soul of the Samurai

"In all things, uncertainty exists because of not knowing. Being doubtful, those stay in your mind. When the principle is clarified, nothing stays on your mind. This is called consummating knowledge and perfecting things. Once there is nothing on your mind, everything becomes easy to do."

from Martial Arts: The Book of Family Traditions by Yagyu Munemori

Firewalking

Finally, a couple of pictures from the firewalking event I participated in a while ago (see my earlier entry). I feel I want to repeat the experience.

"For tyrannosaurs - love was a dangerous game"

Being a dinosaur has always had its drawbacks. The most prominent being early extinction, of course. And now here's this one about dying prematurely due to sex among all things!

As US and Canadian researchers have published it in Science, under the cryptic title of "Tyrannosaur Life Tables: An Example of Nonavian Dinosaur Population Biology", tyrannosaurs had trouble coping with midlife crisis. With their overaggressive lifestyle (rivalry for mates, constant abuse of lesser species, and the mandatory abuse socially aware father T-Rexes had to expose their child dinos to), excessive eating, and the occasional over-fasting while nesting all are among the causes of an increase in the mortality rate among those tyrannosaurs that enter the age of sexual maturity. So, when life finally becomes really interesting, you die.

"For tyrannosaurs - love was a dangerous game" states Gregory Erickson, "death awaited those entering the breeding population".

My contribution to today's science will be an extension of Erickson's statement: Love is a dangerous game. Period. No exception to this rule, no matter how idealized a view one holds about love. It sure bears a great deal of danger for all "those entering the breeding population". Just think about the black widow spider or the praying mantis from the animal kingdom. We have examples in great abundance among humans as well: Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, Helen of Troy and Brad Pitt, or the Adam-Serpent-Eve triangle, for that matter.

For a summary of the article, go to:
http://bio.fsu.edu/~gerick/sciencemag/
Full article can be accessed at:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/313/5784/213

My roses in bloom

Charisma:

Golden showers:


Lavaglow:


Princess Margaret

Judo with Words: An Intelligent Way to Counter Verbal Attacks by Barbara Berckhan

Verbal attacks can cause injuries the same way physical attacks do, only without visible scars. Many of us are so dumbstruck when verbal attacks occur that we do not even find words to express our emotions. Only significantly later, when the attacker has already moved on to other, equally unsuspecting and vulnerable prey, can we recompose ourselves and find some of the words we could have or should have said. Others of us retaliate immediately thus entering the classic viscous spiral of escalating the conflict possibly even to the level of physical conflict.

As a student of Aikido (the classic non-resistant martial art) and other martial arts, I can fully appreciate what this little book can do for people who want to be better prepared in such situations. In this unassuming book (180 pages with minimalistic illustrations), Barbara Berckhan presents 12 basic tactics one can use in our everyday life when we find ourselves in a verbal attack situation. The book promises the reader to acquire self defense techniques to intelligently recognize the best way to stay out of a potentially escalating conflict, deflect and diffuse an obviously malevolent attack, or to stop a behaviour that if unchecked can resurface in increasingly hostile forms.

Even though the book will probably never earn its author the fame of being the most refined writer of the century (lots of vague statements and repetitions of trivialities), I still recommend it for those wishing to icrease their self confidence when attacked verbally. Some techniques may be a bit difficult to apply due to oversimplification.

People do mellow with age

"Elderly people may be better at perceiving happiness and worse at perceiving fear" suggests the New Scientist based on a study by Leanne Williams and colleagues (Westmead Hospital in New South Wales, Australia). The researchers asked the study subjects to view pictures of people showing various facial expressions ranging from fear to happiness and from anger to disgust and sadness. Why exactly this is still largely unknown but it was found that older people more accurately recognized happy expressions while younger subjects were better at spotting fearful expressions.

My layman explanation is that in the societies of our ancestors it was typically the role of the younger people to participate in activities directly related to the survival of the community (hunting, fighting off invasions, etc.) in which recognition of such expression as aggression or fear could substantially contribute to the success of such expeditions.

Whichever way it is, I sure am looking forward to mellowing and recognizing only happy faces around me.

The Da Vinci Code - my 2 cents

There. Finally I saw it too. I managed to avoid the initial suicidal rush so as to experience the movie without lineup or being stuck in the last row next to the snoring virtual technician and young couples desperate for some privacy whatever the show. The movie brought some ambivalent feelings to me.

The fuss. This movie is a good fast-pace thriller based on a vague speculation, namely that Jesus sired a bloodline, which itself is based on some other people's vague speculations (lawsuit pending despite judge Smith's cryptic verdict). Many people are up in arms about the movie and the book from which it was made as they supposedly attack faith and are heretic. Some countries even banned the movie from showing. Makes for great publicity.

Let me add my two cents worth to the plethora of opinions on the subject. This movie and the book are fiction, not statements of doctrine or historical facts, even if presented in that fashion. (I am not even sure I'd turn to Dan Brown or Ron Howard for enlightenment on any contentious topic of Christian doctrine or unbiased accounts of medieval history, anyway.) Still, a great number of people take it that way. I believe one does not go to the books of Poe, Doyle, Christie, Carr, Queen, Simenone, or Grisham for historical facts or theological truths but for some light entertainment and a good thrill. Dan Brown, a talented writer of some excellent suspense-thrillers (Deception Point, Digital Fortress) is simply riding the now popular anti-catholic, antichurch, anti-institutionalized-religion, anti-whatever media wave. Bluntly stated, he simply wants to sell his books. And he's doing a darn good job at it, too (40 million copies worldwide and counting).

Let's not confuse the ambitions of an author of conspiracy thrillers with the truths of one's belief. Faith is a transpersonal relationship with God or a higher power. It is an internalized hope about something awaiting us all after our deaths, and a realization of this conviction into the conduct of our daily lives. Faith is based in thousands of years of tradition and the teachings of enlightened individuals whose minds and charisma shine through countless generations. Faith is well beyond the reach of a thriller, however well written it might be.

Acting. I am sorry to report that the best acting was not exhibited by Tom Hanks (Langdon) or Audrey Tautou (Neveu). Not even by Jean Reno (Fache). But by Ian McKellen (Teabing) and Paul Bettany (Silas). No sparks are flying between Langdon and the beautiful Neveu. It appears Dab Brown has some issues with describing one of humankind's most natural phenomena, the falling in love of a man and a woman. Fache is overtormented and overacted. Teabing, however, is excellent. Shows the joviality and the deep obsession leading to horror expected based on the book's character. Silas, though I find the director is overemphasizing the role of self flagellation, is portrayed magnificently.

Directing I very much wanted to see what Ron Howard did with the story that I quite enjoyed reading. Well, he followed the story fairly closely (to the extent possible within the confines of a two-hour movie) but this ended up in a film with so much dialogue that if you didn't read the book, would be hell boring. This indeed was the case for my wife who confessed having hard time to keep her eyes open at some points during the movie.

Our garden

Here are some recent pictures from our garden. Of course, the one with the Rhododendron is a tad older than the others. The plants all appear to be enormously excited about the arrival of the Summer and want the world know just how beautiful they are. And I tend to agree with them.

Brown belt

Brown belts have been handed out to me, my wife and a few of our friends at the Energy Martial Arts Academy. This is great joy we all have worked very hard for this. Of course, we also know this is not the arrival at any desination, simply a marking of where we are on our journey to bettering ourselves and bringing strength, piece and harmony to our lives and those we interact with.

"Like a rolling stone..."

His Bobness (a.k.a. Bob Dylan [born Robert Allen Zimmerman]) is 65. Bob Dylan's 65th birthday celebration at Toronto's Hugh's Room will feature The Dylan Tree, a very cool band formed of four really fine Toronto musicians I heard this morning on Breakfast Television. I am very much looking forward to seeing them live!

http://www.hughsroom.com/

Firewalking

A good friend of mine invited me to a firewalking event over the weekend. This was his first time as well, so neither of us knew much about what to expect or what firewalking is all about, anyway. I was mostly driven by curiosity and a desire to walk the fire as another way of defeating my own fear of things unknown.

I was quite surprised when the instructor lead our preparation not into the direction of what or how we will be doing but toward us defining intentions we can very strongly identify with and visualize to a degree that it becomes an irresistible force toward action to make our intentions manifest externally. It is exactly the power of this intention that allows the mind to get distracted from the glowing coal (1200-1600 F) under one's feet. It's not really the heat of the coal one has to conquer. Rather it is the fear of it. We have individually been taught for decades to stay away from fire. As humankind, we have trained ourselves to keep away from the flames for millions of years. An extremely strong instinct has been, as it were, burnt into us all. And for a very good reason, too.

Firewalking has become to me the freeing of oneself from this very specific fear, and about braving a powerful instinct. But the real goal, I find, is not within conquering one's fear of walking a few steps across hot coal, though that can be a serious challenge itself. It is rather far beyond this single incident. It is in finding the ability to free ourselves from self-limiting beliefs that, like towering obstacles, block us from reaching the goals and ambitions we want to realize in our lives.

It's what awaits you on the other side is what makes this experience so amazing and powerful. It does not matter whether you know anything about the heat conductivity properties of the skin on the sole of your feet. It also has no relevance how long you wait before starting your walk. The magic lies in the ability and willingness to believe, against our instinct, that we can do it! That we have the capability to open up to the possibilities beyond those of our ordinary lives. It is one step on a journey to becoming extraordinary.

(I have yet to receive pictures taken by others so I can show myself walking the fire.)

Two pictures I took at my recent trip to Hungary. There are plenty more. I just have to make time to publish them in a fashion befitting the beauty of that country.