Dizziness

Dizziness

Let the rock fertilise to protect us from the fever of dizziness

Fix the moment into eternity

Freeze the wave that hurts us

Into the ogre's belly

If you truly are

The god of all seasons

A voice then will whisper:

"What use is it to throw a purple veil

Over this cursed vision"

My soul cried with pain

As cold and dead I walked

Across the markets of the city

While crowds were consumed by a ring of fire

How could I protect them from fire, from dizziness?

Dig more deeply, gravedigger

Dig the grave, dig

Khalil Hawi

(1919 – 1982)

One of Lebanon's best-known twentieth-century poets.

Born in Huwaya (Syria), Khalil Hawi grew up in Shwayr (Lebanon).

He studied philosophy and Arabic at the American University of Beirut, and he obtained a scholarship to enroll at Cambridge University, in England, where he was awarded his Ph.D. in 1959.

He then became a professor of Arabic literature at the American University in Beirut.

Within a few years, he established himself as one of the leading avant-garde poets in the Arab world.

His poetry relies heavily on symbols and metaphors and images, and it frequently has political and social overtones.

An Arab nationalist at heart, he repeatedly expressed his sense of shame and rage at the loss of Palestine in 1948 and at subsequent Arab defeats at the hands of Israel.

He lamented what he saw as the Arab world's political and cultural decay, and he expressed deep pessimism about the possibility of a true Arab cultural and political revival.

After 1975, Khalil Hawi experienced the desperation felt by all Lebanese who had to watch their country's slow descent into chaos, internal disintegration, and manipulation by outside powers.

He was outraged by Lebanon's inability to stand up to the Israeli army when the latter invaded on 3 June 1982, and he deeply resented the other Arab governments' silence about the Israeli invasion.

He committed suicide on 6 June 1982.

How Dr Chung saved my life?

38

How Dr Chung saved my life?

"Thank God we took a mule with us on the picnic

because when one of the boys was injured we used the mule to carry him back."

"How did he get injured?"

"The mule kicked him!"


"Could you recommend a good doctor?"

"I suggest Dr. Chung. He saved my life."

"How did that happen?"

"Well. I had this serious illness and went to see Dr. Ching.

I took his medicine and felt worse.

So I went to Dr. Chang.

I took his medicine and felt I was dying.

So I finally went to Dr. Chung- and he wasn't in."

PRAYER OF THE FROG PART 2

Anthony de Mello

WHO AM I?

74

WHO AM I?

A tale from Attar of Neishapur.

The lover knocked at his Beloved's door.

"Who knocks?" said the Beloved from within.

"It is I," said the lover.

"Go away. This house will not hold you and me."

The lover withdrew and pondered for years on the words the Beloved had said.

Then he returned and knocked again.

"Who knocks?"

"It is you."

The door was immediately opened.

THE SONG OF THE BIRD

Anthony de Mello

Finding Yourself!

Finding Yourself!

The great masters tell us that the most important question in the world is:

"Who am I?" Or rather: "What is 'I'?" What is this thing I call "I"? What is this thing I call self?

You mean you understood everything else in the world and you didn't understand this?

You mean you understood astronomy and black holes and quasars and you picked up computer science, and you don't know who you are?

My, you are still asleep. You are a sleeping scientist.

You mean you understood what Jesus Christ is and you don't know who you are? How do you know that you have understood Jesus Christ?

Who is the person doing the understanding? Find that out first. That's the foundation of everything, isn't it?

It's because we haven't understood this that we've got all these stupid religious people involved in all these stupid religious wars - Muslims fighting against Jews, Protestants fighting Catholics, and all the rest of that rubbish. They don't know who they are, because if they did, there wouldn't be wars.

Like the little girl who says to a little boy, "Are you a Presbyterian?" And he says, "No, we belong to another abomination!"

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Geniality

Geniality

I speak to myself,

then I interpret what I told to myself,

hence I act and execute…

therefore I am genius or saint or whatever… Geniality!

Breathe

Breathe

Breathe, breathe in the air.

Don't be afraid to care.

Leave but don't leave me.

Look around and choose your own ground.

Long you live and high you fly

And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry

And all you touch and all you see

Is all your life will ever be.

Run, rabbit run.

Dig that hole, forget the sun,

And when at last the work is done

Don't sit down it's time to dig another one.

For long you live and high you fly

But only if you ride the tide

And balanced on the biggest wave

You race towards an early grave.


The Dark Side of the Moon

(PINK FLOYD: Waters, Gilmour, Wright)

Speak to Me

Speak to Me

I've been mad for fucking years, absolutely years,

been over the edge for yonks, been working me buns off for bands..."

"I've always been mad.

I know I've been mad, like the most of us..

very hard to explain why you're mad, even if you're not mad..."

The Dark Side of the Moon
(PINK FLOYD: Mason)

Us and Them

Us and Them

Us, and them

And after all we're only ordinary men.

Me, and you.

God only knows it's not what we would choose to do.

Forward he cried from the rear and the front rank died.

And the general sat and the lines on the map moved from side to side.

Black and blue

And who knows which is which and who is who.

Up and down.

But in the end it's only round and round.

Haven't you heard it's a battle of words?

The poster bearer cried.

Listen son, said the man with the gun.

There's room for you inside.

"I mean, they're not gunna kill ya, so if you give 'em a quick short, sharp, shock, they won't do it again. Dig it?

I mean he get off lightly, 'cos I would've given him a thrashing - I only hit him once!

It was only a difference of opinion, but really...

I mean good manners don't cost nothing do they, eh?"

Down and out

It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about.

With, without.

And who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about?

Out of the way, it's a busy day

I've got things on my mind.

For the want of the price of tea and a slice

The old man died.

The Dark Side of the Moon

(PINK FLOYD: Waters, Wright)

Struggle and Friendship

Struggle and Friendship

Enkidu thrust himself at Gilgamesh and they fought in the square.


He came up to Gilgamesh and they met.


Enkidu put out his foot to block the door to prevent him from entering.


They grappled each other, holding each other like bulls.


They broke the door posts and the wall.


They sported like bulls locked together.


They shattered the door posts and the walls shook. Gilgamesh bent his knee with his foot planted on the ground, and with a turn, Enkidu was thrown.


Then immediately his fury died.


When Enkidu was thrown, he said to Gilgamesh: "Yes, there is not another like you in the world, Ninsun who is as strong as a wild ox in the byre, was the mother who bore you.


And now you are raised above all men and Enlil has given you the kingship, for your strength surpasses the strength of men!"





They embraced each other and their friendship was sealed.


The eyes of Enkidu were full of tears.


He left sad at heart, weary, and he tortured himself.


His sorrow paralysed the muscles of his throat,


his arms hung down still and his strength had turned into weakness!

Epic of Gilgamesh

(2500 B.C.)

DON’T CHANGE

52

DON'T CHANGE

I was a neurotic for years.

Anxious, depressed, selfish.

And everyone kept telling me to change.

And I resented them, and agreed with them, and wanted to change, but simply couldn't, no matter how I tried.

What hurt the most was that, like the others, my closest friend kept urging me to change.

So I felt powerless and trapped.

One day he said "Don't change.

I love you as you are."

Those words were music to my ears:

"Don't change. Don't change.

Don't change... I love you as you are."

I relaxed. I came alive.

And, suddenly, I changed!

Now I know that I couldn't really change till I found someone to love me whether I changed or not.

Is this how you love me, God?

THE SONG OF THE BIRD

Anthony de Mello S. J.

DID YOU HEAR THAT BIRD SING?

12

DID YOU HEAR THAT BIRD SING?

Hindu India developed a magnificent image to describe God's relationship with Creation.

God 'dances' Creation. He is the Dancer, Creation is his Dance.

The dance is different from the dancer,

yet it has no existence apart from him.

You cannot take it home in a box,

if it pleases you.

The moment the dancer stops, the dance ceases to be.

In our quest for God, we think too much, reflect too much, and talk too much.

Even when we look at this dance that we call creation,

we are the whole time thinking,

talking (to ourselves and others) reflecting,

analyzing, philosophizing. Words. Noise.

Be silent and contemplate the Dance.

Just look: a star, a flower, a fading leaf, a bird, a stone...

any fragment of the Dance will do.

Look. Listen. Smell. Touch. Taste.

And, hopefully, it won't be long before you see Him—the Dancer Himself!

The disciple was always complaining to his Master,

"You are hiding the final secret of Zen from me."

And he would not accept the Master's denials.

One day they were walking in the hills when they heard a bird sing.

"Did you hear that bird sing?" said the Master.

"Yes," said the disciple.

"Well, now you know that I have hidden nothing from you."

"Yes."

If you really heard a bird sing,

if you really saw a tree...

you would know.

Beyond words and concepts.

What was that you said?

You have heard dozens of birds sing and seen hundreds of trees?

Ah, was it the tree you saw or the label?

If you look at a tree and see a tree,

you have really not seen the tree.

When you look at the tree and see a miracle—

then, at last, you have seen!

Did your heart never fill with wordless wonder when you heard a bird in song?

THE SONG OF THE BIRD

Anthony de Mello S. J.

MONKEY SALVATION FOR A FISH

7

MONKEY SALVATION FOR A FISH

"What on earth are you doing?"

said I to the monkey

when I saw him Hit a fish from the water

and place it on a tree.

"I am saving it from drowning'," was the reply.

The sun that gives sight to the eagle blinds the owl.

THE SONG OF THE BIRD

Anthony de Mello S. J.

THE SONG OF THE BIRD

3

THE SONG OF THE BIRD

The disciples were full of questions about God.

Said the Master, "God is Unknown, the Unknowable.

Every statement about Him,

every answer to your questions,

is a distortion of the Truth."

The disciples were bewildered.

"Then why do you speak about Him at all?"

"Why does the bird sing?" said the Master.

Not because he has a statement, but because he has a song.

The words of the Scholar are to be understood.

The words of the Master are not to be understood.

They are to be listened to as one listens to the wind in the trees and the sound of the river and the song of the bird.

They will awaken something within the heart that is beyond all knowledge.

THE SONG OF THE BIRD

Anthony de Mello

Friends

Friends

As the divers seek pearls…

This way we have look for friends!

The Logical Song

The Logical Song

When I was young,
it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees,
well they'd be singing so happily,
oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me
how to be sensible, logical, oh responsible, practical.
And then they showed me a world where
I could be so dependable, oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical.
There are times when all the world's asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am
Now watch what you say
or they'll be calling you a radical, a liberal, oh fanatical, criminal.
Won't you sign up your name,
we'd like to feel you're acceptable, respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable!
But at night, when all the world's asleep,
the questions run so deep for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am,
Who I am, Who I am, Who I am

by Supertramp

Leaving Beirut

Leaving Beirut

So we left Beirut Willa and I

He headed East to Baghdad and the rest of it

I set out North

I walked the five or six miles to the last of the street lamps

And hunkered in the curb side dusk

Holding out my thumb

In no great hope at the ramshackle procession of home bound traffic Success!

An ancient Mercedes 'dolmus '

The ubiquitous, Arab, shared taxi drew up

I turned out my pockets and shrugged at the driver

" J'ai pas de l'argent "

" Venez! " A soft voice from the back seat

The driver lent wearily across and pushed open the back door

I stooped to look inside at the two men there

One besuited, bespectacled, moustached, irritated, distant, late

The other, the one who had spoken,

Frail, fifty five-ish, bald, sallow, in a short sleeved pale blue cotton shirt

With one biro in the breast pocket

A clerk maybe, slightly sunken in the seat

"Venez!" He said again, and smiled

"Mais j'ai pas de l'argent"

"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

______________________

Are these the people that we should bomb

Are we so sure they mean us harm

Is this our pleasure, punishment or crime

Is this a mountain that we really want to climb

The road is hard, hard and long

Put down that two by four

This man would never turn you from his door

Oh George! Oh George!

That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small

______________________

He beckoned with a small arthritic motion of his hand

Fingers together like a child waving goodbye

The driver put my old Hofner guitar in the boot with my rucksack

And off we went

" Vous etes Francais, monsieur? "

" Non, Anglais "

" Ah! Anglais "

" Est-ce que vous parlais Anglais, Monsieur? "

"Non, je regrette"

And so on

In small talk between strangers, his French alien but correct

Mine halting but eager to please

A lift, after all, is a lift

Late moustache left us brusquely

And some miles later the dolmus slowed at a crossroads lit by a single lightbulb

Swung through a U-turn and stopped in a cloud of dust

I opened the door and got out

But my benefactor made no move to follow

The driver dumped my guitar and rucksack at my feet

And waving away my thanks returned to the boot

Only to reappear with a pair of alloy crutches

Which he leaned against the rear wing of the Mercedes.

He reached into the car and lifted my companion out

Only one leg, the second trouser leg neatly pinned beneath a vacant hip

" Monsieur, si vous voulez, ca sera un honneur pour nous

Si vous venez avec moi a la maison pour manger avec ma femme "

______________________

When I was 17 my mother, bless her heart, fulfilled my summer dream

She handed me the keys to the car

We motored down to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and booze

Got bust in Antibes by the cops

And fleeced in Naples by the wops

But everyone was kind to us, we were the English dudes

Our dads had helped them win the war

When we all knew what we were fighting for

But now an Englishman abroad is just a US stooge

The bulldog is a poodle snapping round the scoundrel's last refuge

______________________

"Ma femme", thank God! Monopod but not queer

The taxi drove off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging bulb

No building in sight

What the hell

"Merci monsieur"

"Bon, Venez!"

His faced creased in pleasure, he set off in front of me

Swinging his leg between the crutches with agonising care

Up the dusty side road into the darkness

After half an hour we'd gone maybe half a mile

When on the right I made out the low profile of a building

He called out in Arabic to announce our arrival

And after some scuffling inside a lamp was lit

And the changing angle of light in the wide crack under the door

Signalled the approach of someone within

The door creaked open and there, holding a biblical looking oil lamp

Stood a squat, moustached woman, stooped smiling up at us

She stood aside to let us in and as she turned

I saw the reason for her stoop

She carried on her back a shocking hump

I nodded and smiled back at her in greeting, fighting for control

The gentleness between the one-legged man and his monstrous wife

Almost too much for me

______________________

Is gentleness too much for us

Should gentleness be filed along with empathy

We feel for someone else's child

Every time a smart bomb does its sums and gets it wrong

Someone else's child dies and equities in defence rise

America, America, please hear us when we call

You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and bustle

You got Atticus Finch

You got Jane Russell

You got freedom of speech

You got great beaches, wildernesses and malls

Don't let the might, the Christian right, fuck it all up

For you and the rest of the world

______________________

They talked excitedly

She went to take his crutches in routine of care

He chiding, gestured

We have a guest

She embarrassed by her faux pas

Took my things and laid them gently in the corner

"Du the?"

We sat on meagre cushions in one corner of the single room

The floor was earth packed hard and by one wall a raised platform

Some six foot by four covered by a simple sheet, the bed

The hunchback busied herself with small copper pots over an open hearth

And brought us tea, hot and sweet

And so to dinner

Flat, unleavened bread, + thin

Cooked in an iron skillet over the open hearth

Then folded and dipped into the soft insides of female sea urchins

My hostess did not eat, I ate her dinner

She would hear of nothing else, I was their guest

And then she retired behind a curtain

And left the men to sit drinking thimbles full of Arak

Carefully poured from a small bottle with a faded label

Soon she reappeared, radiant

Carrying in her arms their pride and joy, their child.

I'd never seen a squint like that

So severe that as one eye looked out the other disappeared behind its nose

______________________

Not in my name, Tony, you great war leader you

Terror is still terror, whosoever gets to frame the rules

History's not written by the vanquished or the damned

Now we are Genghis Khan, Lucretia Borghia, Son of Sam

In 1961 they took this child into their home

I wonder what became of them

In the cauldron that was Lebanon

If I could find them now, could I make amends?

How does the story end?

______________________

And so to bed, me that is, not them

Of course they slept on the floor behind a curtain

Whilst I lay awake all night on their earthen bed

Then came the dawn and then their quiet stirrings

Careful not to wake the guest

I yawned in great pretence

And took the proffered bowl of water heated up and washed

And sipped my coffee in its tiny cup

And then with much "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands

We left the woman to her chores

And we men made our way back to the crossroads

The painful slowness of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning light

The dolmus duly reappeared

My host gave me one crutch and leaning on the other

Shook my hand and smiled

"Merci, monsieur," I said

" De rien "

" And merci a votre femme, elle est tres gentille "

Giving up his other crutch

He allowed himself to be folded into the back seat again

"Bon voyage, monsieur," he said

And half bowed as the taxi headed south towards the city

I turned North, my guitar over my shoulder

And the first hot gust of wind

Quickly dried the salt tears from my young cheeks.

Lyrics by Roger Waters

IDEOLOGY

IDEOLOGY

Here is a newspaper account of torture practised in modern concentration camps.
The victim is bound to a metal chair then electric shocks ore administered to him in increasing intensity till he confesses.
The torturer cups his hands and slaps the victim on the ear repeatedly till the eardrum breaks.
A dentist straps the prisoner to a chair and drills till he strikes a nerve.
The drilling goes on till the victim agrees to cooperate.

Human beings are not naturally cruel.
They become cruel when they are unhappy —
Or when they succumb to an ideology.
One ideology against another;
one religion against another.
And people crushed in between them.
The men who crucified Jesus could very well have bean gentle husbands and loving fathers who practised cruelty to maintain a religion or an ideology.
If religious people had always followed the instinct of their heart rather than the logic of their religion we would have been spared the sight of heretics burning at stakes, widows walking into funeral pyres and innocent people slaughtered in wars that are waged in’ the name of God.

Compassion has no ideology.


THE SONG OF THE BIRD

Anthony de Mello S. J.

Certitude

Certitude

My reason is to lose all reason

My religion is indifference to religion

A simple answer is enough

After doubt, wine has borne my certitude

The day just broken is already done

Tomorrow is not yet here

Be happy today

Unceasingly fill your cup

And seize this

The sole chance of your existence

Although everything is born of ourselves

Yours and mine are

but two miserable lives

To be, is drunkenness and ecstasy

Tomorrow is the downfall of an age

Omar Khayyam

***

Omar Khayyam

(May 18, 1048 - December 4, 1122)

Was a Persian polymath: mathematician, philosopher, astronomer and above all poet.

As a poet, he is the most famous poet of the East in the West through various adaptations of his rather small number of quatrains (rubaiyaas) in Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

He has also become established as one of the major mathematicians and astronomers of the medieval period. Recognized as the author of the most important treatise on algebra before modern times as reflected in his Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra giving a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. He also contributed to calendar reform and may have proposed a heliocentric theory well before Copernicus.

His significance as a philosopher and teacher, and his few remaining philosophical works have not received the same attention as have his scientific or poetic writings. Zamakhshari referred to him as “the philosopher of the world”. Many sources have also testified that he taught for decades the philosophy of Ibn Sina in Nayshapur where Khayyam lived most of his life, breathed his last, and was buried and where his mausoleum remains today a masterpiece of Iranian architecture visited by many people every yea.