Socrates quotes

“If all our misfortunes
were laid in one common heap
whence everyone
must take an equal portion,
most people would be contented
to take their own.”

“He is richest who is content with the least,
for content is the wealth of nature.”

“Wisdom begins in wonder”

“Nobody knows what death is,
nor whether to man
it is perchance the greatest of blessings,
yet people fear it as if they surely knew
it to be the worse of evils.”

“Get not your friends by bare compliments,
but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.”

“He who is not contented
with what he has,
would not be contented
with what he would like to have.”

 

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The ‘black armband’ view of Australian history – Part 3

The following extracts from my book ‘Hidden Footprints of Unity’ (chapter 3 ‘To have a dream’) touch upon the terrible practice of forcibly removing lightly-coloured children from their mothers. What happened to Christian morality?

“The same sort of negative attitudes surfaced when the report on the ‘stolen generations’ was released, except that the counter-attack was strangely bitter. The authors of the report, their motives, methodology, definitions, and findings were all attacked, but only by a noisy handful.

The semanticists, pretending to be fair, focused on the meaning of ‘stolen’ and the scope of the word ‘generation’. The other critics, seemingly less erudite, simply went ballistic, with all manner of quaint arguments. Yet, no one could deny, that many, many, lighter-skinned children were removed from their mothers (pounded may be a more appropriate term in some cases) in ways which were both immoral and illegal. Can the white tribe do no wrong?

The claimed motivation for removing the children seemed to be multi-faceted. The need to save them from a terrible future amidst the dust of the cattle stations was one claim. A related caring claim was that, as part-whites, they could be assimilated through separation from their mothers and the rest of their people.

If these motives were genuine, how did those in authority see the rights of the mothers and their communities? Since the children were to become no more than servants, what did assimilation offer them? … A more honest motive was to ‘to f..k them white’, in order to avoid a biological throwback to their indigenous heritage.

Preventing the allegedly ‘quick-breeding half-caste’ from contributing to the growth of the creole community seems a more honest motive. As the Aborigine was then seen to be an early version of the Caucasian stock, there were thus hopes of breeding out the black peoples as a whole. But was there any intention to have white families adopt these poor kids, as claimed by a friend of mine? What were the odds of white families even considering such adoptions? I am, however, inclined to believe that some did. … …

… … The maltreatment of many of these ‘pounded’ children is now well documented. They were forbidden to speak their language; denied food, clothing and blankets at times; physically and sexually abused; and not taught to read and write. So said many of the survivors of the policy!

The priesthood does not come out too well from this experiment either. But, why punish the children for the sins of their parents? Who were the sinners? Weren’t they the white men who sired them so casually without accepting responsibility? Or, like rape victims, does one blame the women, or perhaps their ‘culture’? To claim that the intent of the practice of removing the fairer children was of the highest order was to ignore what actually happened.

There seems to be clear evidence of white males in the outback traveling with a black teenager in tow (a sort of multi-purpose slave); of masters of cattle stations and their white employees ‘begatting’ and then ignoring their mixed-blood offspring; of black drovers being ordered to stay out until the sun went down, so that the white men “… could go and f..k … the gins …”; of Aboriginal women who had been “… raped by whites, Greeks, Japanese, Chinese or whatever …” (indicating the common ends of many men in the outback).”

 

 

The ‘black armband’ view of Australian history – Part 2

“A very substantial majority of the Aboriginal people died in the years following the invasion. Killing was both official and private. ‘My father used to round you mob up and shoot you for Saturday and Sunday entertainment.’ This was uttered by a school mate of a recent head of ATSIC (the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission).

One does not visit the sins of the father upon the son.

Yet, there are Australians today who attempt to defend the historical brutality that led to women and children being shot without compunction, and large numbers of fellow humans being killed through the use of poison. What sort of humans were the early arrivals that they could do this? What does it say about their origins, the way they lived before arriving in Australia, and their moral and cultural values? Why were these casual killers so debauched?

Refusing to accept that the indigenes got the rough end of the pineapple collectively, whilst their women were collaterally used freely to create a new creole people, some modern moral purists argue that the major cause of the initial near-extinction of the indigene was not slaughter but disease. One of these iconoclasts even claimed that it was the Chinese and other Asians who had brought the deadly diseases to Australia. How many Chinese did Cortez take with him into America?

Another defender of ethnic cleansing claimed that the Aborigines should thank God that they were ‘displaced by Christian people’. On the contrary, I think that the Indians and Chinese might have treated the indigenes better. Their historical record, from the Arabian Sea to the Gulf of Tonkin, down to Bali, suggests that.”

(This extract is from Chapter 3 ‘To have a dream’ in ‘Hidden Footprints of Unity.’

It is truly amazing that there should be so much residual antipathy today towards the Australian indigene. Generation after generation, Australian Aborigines are becoming ‘more like us’ (the basal requirement of the superior white); in fact, most urban residents look like tinted Europeans or Indians. If they are not tinted and yet claim to be Aborigines, they can be disparaged.

There is far too much prejudice in this land, which is yet collecting tinted foreigners by the planeload. How explain the prejudice towards their own tinted ones?)

Th/e ‘black arm-band’ view of Australian history

The deplorable record of the invasion of Australia by the British is undeniable. However, certain influential Australians would prefer to have no mention of this record in the public domain or in our schools.

They insist that the ‘black armband’ view of Australia’s history should be dispensed with. Educators and the media are to refer with reverence to the wonder of multiculturalism having risen from successful settlement.

There you have it. The past should not live in the present, contrary to genetics, psychology; and subconscious tribal memories. I doubt if the Australian Aborigine will agree with this devout attempt to whitewash the past.

The extract below is from Chapter 3 ‘To have a dream’ in my book ‘Hidden Footprints of Unity.’ The thrust of the book is to seek the Australian Family of Man arising from the recently achieved cultural diversity. Yet what was done to the Australian indigene cannot be ignored.

“A few years after the initial ‘discovery’ of Australia by Lieutenant Cook, it was apparently known that the indigenes not only occupied the land and used it with economic purpose, but also (according to the highly respected Dr.Coombs) “… lived in clan or tribal groups, that each group had a homeland with known boundaries, and that they took their name from their district, and rarely moved outside it”. It was also known that they had, and applied, firm rules about trespass, kinship ties, marriage, child rearing and other matters, the hallmarks of an organised society; that they had a “habit of obedience” to their rulers and leaders, a hallmark of a political society; and that they had an ordered ceremonial life, reflecting the sharing of a spiritual vision, a hallmark of a civilisation.

Apparently, they also had their own zodiac, which guided their activities. Their artistic records are also well known and respected.

It has now been accepted that the indigenes did not cede any of their land. As the famous poet Oodjaroo Noonuccal said, “We are but custodians of the land”. Whilst the settlers saw themselves at war, and killed to acquire land, officialdom (later supported by local jurists) preferred occupation to conquest. Occupation follows discovery, of a presumed empty land. How were the natives to establish ownership without a Titles Office?

Because the morally political Australian rejected the idea of an invasion, a Senate Committee came up, in the early 1980s, with prescription. This apparently applies when there is no clear title to sovereignty by way of treaty, occupation or conquest. An extended occupation, and an exercise of sovereignty were apparently enough to vest title in the Crown.

But, prescription requires a show of authority on the one side, and acquiescence on the other (says Prof. Reynolds, the renowned contributor to the nation’s enlightenment on this black subject). Since the natives never acquiesced to anything, voluntary abandonment was claimed. The Senate’s clever semantic exercise seemed to accept that being killed or driven away is tantamount to voluntary abandonment!

A prominent white Australian sociologist reminded me that cities such as Melbourne and Sydney represented the most effective sites of ethnic cleansing; and that every fence in Australia encloses land that was once the soul, or the shared possession of a particular group of Aborigines.”

Comment: Why should all this be hidden? To ease the conscience of white supremacists?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unknown author quotes

“Be weird.
Be random.
Be who you are.
Because you never know
who would love the person you hide.”

“The best revenge
is always to just happily move on
and let karma do the rest.”

“Be the type of person that not only turns heads,
but turns souls as well.”

“Life is a play that does not allow testing.
So, sing, cry, dance, laugh and live intensely,
before the curtain closes
and the piece ends with no applause.”

“Positive thinking is not about
expecting the best to happen every time
but accepting that whatever happens
is the best for this moment.”

“Open minded people embrace being wrong,
are free of illusions,
don’t mind what people think of them,
and question everything even themselves.”

Quotes about death

“We are here to laugh at the odds
and live our lives so well
that Death will tremble to take us.”

~ Charles Bukowski

“Perhaps they are not stars,
but rather openings in heaven
where the love of our lost ones
pours through and shines down upon us
to let us know they are happy.” 

~ Eskimo Proverb

“Death comes to all,
but great achievements build a monument
which shall endure until the sun grows cold.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882)

“I would never die for my beliefs
because I might be wrong.”

~ Bertrand Russell

“The only way we can really achieve freedom
is to somehow conquer the fear of death.”

 – Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929-1968)

“Dream as if you’ll live forever,
live as if you’ll die today.”

~ James Dean
(1931-1955)

 

Dr. Seuss quotes

“It’s a troublesome world. All the people who’re in it
are troubled with troubles almost every minute.
You ought to be thankful, a whole heaping lot,
for the places and people you’re lucky you’re not.”

“Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…
get on your way.”

“You are you.
Now, isn’t that pleasant?”

“The more that you read,
the more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
the more places you’ll go.”

“Don’t cry because it’s over.
Smile because it happened.”

I’ve bought a big bat.
I’m all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going
to have troubles with me!”

“You know you’re in love
when you can’t fall asleep
because reality is finally better
than your dreams.”

“Think left and think right
and think low and think high.
Oh, the thinks you can think up
if only you try!”

The mind in its context

The human mind is a cog in a complex mechanism of existence – and non-existence. I have received evidence, and reported on, the operation of the mind in non-existence – in the realm of the ethereal, the spirit world; a member of this domain involved in a rare contact with Earth-bound humans.

In the domain of near-indefinable explanatory concepts, it should be noted that the Upanishads (the epitome of Hindu metaphysics) states that the human mind is only an instrument of Consciousness.  This is credible in the light of the contacts some of us have had with spirits (who were formerly embodied souls on Earth).

In contemplating such cryptic concepts, one might need to move away from Newtonian concepts in physics to concepts arising from chemistry, to yet more amorphous  and incomparably complex relationships – assuming that the current capacity of the human mind is capable of conceiving (and capturing) such complexity.

That enlightened humans are able to experience such complexities is of no benefit to the rest of us mere mortals. Such rare insights are, quite correctly, said to be beyond words; and thereby incommunicable!

Pondering on – what of a human mind encompassing the associated personality residing, not in the brain, but in a cloud-land? If so, this could be what we refer to as consciousness. The expert tv presenter of the program about how the brain operates may have had in mind something similar to capture at the point of death: consciousness surrounding the brain, mind, memories, and personality.

If consciousness happens to be a pervasive essence which surrounds us, while infiltrating our bodies and minds, or which just enables our minds to be what they are, then the death of a brain should not affect this ‘cloud-land’ consciousness. The mind and personality, by remaining outside the body in consciousness, could continue to exist independently. Most importantly, the mind must have access to memories in the brain.

That Consciousness may be the substrate of all existence is not new. And modern scientists continue to work on this concept with open minds.

Being in Nonbeing

“At first there was neither Being nor Nonbeing.

There was not air nor yet sky beyond.

What was it wrapping? Where? In whose protection?

Was water there, unfathomable and deep?

In the beginning Love arose,

Which was the primal germ of the mind.

The seers, searching in their hearts with wisdom,

Discovered the connection of Being in Nonbeing.

Who really knows? Who can presume to tell it?

Whence was it born? Whence issued this creation?

Even the gods came after this emergence.

Then who can tell from whence it came to be? “

The above is from the Vedas. Included in the Afterward by Michael Nagler (Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature, University of California) to ‘The Upanishads’ by Eknath Easwaran. The Vedas apparently precede all other writing (in the current civilisation?). These words appeal to both mind and emotion.

Nagler continues: “The Vedas give us glimpses into a mythological world which looks like those of Greece, Rome, and the rest of Europe, but different. The Upanishadic universe also contains ‘three worlds,’ but those are not the underworld, ‘middle-earth,’ and heaven as in the West, but the visible world, heaven (or the sky), and another plane that is far  beyond phenomenal reality.”

“The human being is not a puny speck in this cosmos, as we may appear physically. By virtue of a power called tapas … or in deep stages of meditation, ordinary men or women can compel profound changes in the universe. The hard line between mortality and immortality, between and the gods … is blurred and crossable.”

Yet more uplifting thoughts!

The path to immortality

“Hear, O children of immortal bliss!

You are born to be united with the Lord.”

This is an extract from The Upanishads by Easwaran (see previous posts). Forget about all of us being ‘born in sin’ or ‘conceived in sin,’ phrases in common usage when I arrived in Australia in the late 1940s; and about Satan and Hell.

Easwaran then introduces us to the Self. “As an eagle, after soaring in the sky, folds its wings and flies down to rest in its nest, so does the shining Self enter the state of dreamless sleep, where one is free from all desires. The Self is free from desire, free from evil, free from fear … “

What is the Self? Easwaran explains. “In all persons, in all creatures, the Self is the innermost existence. And it is identical with Brahman: our real Self is not different from the ultimate Reality called God.” Brahman is explained as “the irreducible ground of existence, the essence of everything,  – of the Earth and sun and all creatures, of gods and human beings, of every power of life.” That is, God is present in all His creations!

Easwaran continues: “This tremendous equation – ‘the Self is Brahman’ – is the central discovery of the Upanishads.” He goes on to say “the same Self dwells in all.”

“As the same fire assumes different shapes

When it consumes objects differing in shape,

So does the one Self take the shape

Of every creature in whom he is present.”

In his Afterword to Easwaran’s The Upanishads, Michael Nagler wrote “This Self cannot possibly be subject to any change, not even death. This is probably why belief in reincarnation died hard in the West. It was a cherished belief not only in pagan but also in various Jewish and Christian groups in the early centuries of our era.”

My view is that reincarnation had to be dispensed with in the West because it interfered with the control by the religious leaders of their respective flocks in the relatively new religions; whereas reincarnation encourages free will, directed to self-choice and self-improvement morally, life by Earthly life.

As said in the Upanishads, “As a caterpillar, having come to the end of one blade of grass, draws itself together and reaches out for the next, so the Self, having come to the end of one life and shed all ignorance, gathers in its faculties and reaches out from the old body to the new.” As Easwarwn wrote,’ the continuity of personality is not broken.”

This stanza sums it all well:

“The world is the wheel of God, turning round

And round with all living creatures upon its rim.

The world is the river of God,

Flowing from him and flowing back from him.

On this ever-revolving wheel of being

The individual self goes round and round

Through life upon life, believing itself

To be a separate creature, until

It sees its identity with the Lord of Love

And attains immortality in the indivisible whole.”