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khaelisfics · 6 years

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Short Soumate AU - the concept was “your soulmark is a reference to what your soulmate likes the most”, and I rather liked it!

Tagging @doctorroseprompts, in case this can fit into a prompt!

I hope you’ll like it! :-)

He had scoured every modern art museum, every ephemeral exhibition throughout the country, combed through thousands of websites about painting, drawing, sculpting, bought hundreds of magazines and books about the subject. No name, no face he had encountered had caused that spark he was desperately looking for.

He tossed his ticket in a nearby bin, annoyed and disappointed he hadn’t found her in that tedious expo in a dark corner of London. Listening to wrinkled man on the verge of falling asleep each time he stopped talking in that monotonous crow had put his patience to the test. Looking at depressing paintings about death and phantasmagorical creatures made by an artist who obviously didn’t know black and grey weren’t the only colours that existed hadn’t helped. Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing he hadn’t found her there, actually. He didn’t know what he would feel if his soulmate happened to be a deranged woman fascinated by necromancia and festering cadavers.

A liquid shiver rolled down his spine at the thought, and he hurried to take out his list of current exhibitions he needed to go to.

“Nope to Nighthorses 66, then,” he mumbled under his breath, crossing the name of the exhibition with the pencil he always kept in his pocket. “Next is… S.C.M. Just hope this doesn’t stand for super creepy monsters."

He shoved his quickly shortening list back into his pocket and headed for the nearest underground station. It was already quite late in the afternoon, and he knew he should call it a day, head back home and get a full night of sleep if he didn’t want to doze off over his desk the morning later. But he also knew the disappointment and frustration of not making any progress, the longing he felt to finally find her growing into some kind of unhealthy obsession only predicted long hours spent tossing and turning in his sheets without finding Morpheus’ comforting embrace.

He took a quick look at his watch, ignoring the soulmark on his arm as if it’d just been a cheap tattoo he would forever regret, and made his decision. He hopped out of the train a few stations later, didn’t look twice at the large mural on the wall he had learnt a few years back had been painted by a foreign young artist, and made his way up the stairs. He was getting tired to try and see her where she wasn’t. A sticker on lamp post with a cartoonish drawing. Crass tags in back alleys, elaborated frescos on iron curtains. Street traders who sold ridiculously expensive prints of artworks stolen on the Internet. Everywhere he looked, he was tempted to believe it was her, and every time, he was a tad more disillusioned when he found out it wasn’t.

His worn chucks squished on the wet pavement as he made his way to one of his favorite places. It was a cramped bookshop in the corner of an ever-deserted street he had discovered the first time he had moved in this part of the city, rather by accident than real intention, and he came back to it every week, some weeks every day. It wasn’t as much the books as the owner that always brought his steps back to that small shop that smelled of yellowed paper and dust. Rose, was her name. A young woman with honey-eyes and wheat-hair, full lips and round nose. He knew she was just his friend, but sometimes, he wished his soulmark could be a small pile of books, or a meaningful quote from her favorite author - not that odd-shaped moon that belonged in a Van Gogh painting. His soulmate was an artist, not a bookworm. Not the woman he had dreamt of so often he believed he must have broken a hundred rules and, though unwillingly, cheated on his real soulmate on several occasions. Not Rose. Never Rose.

The small bell chimed when he pushed the ancient door open and the sound of his steps died on the heavy carpet. She was nowhere in sight - probably in the cellar she called a storage room, or in the broom cupboard she called an office. She would eventually pop out, like she usually did whenever the bell rang. His feet took him to the only alley he was interested in, and he picked up an old encyclopedia that had lost a bit of its varnish. He had always wanted to buy this book, but it almost was a relic, and not only did it look like it, it was also worth it. He sifted through random pages, smiling at the centuries-old mathematical formulas and theorems that had long been replaced by more precise, and especially more valid ones.

“You should buy it before it’s gone.”

He hurried to slide the heavy book back in its space at the sound of her smiling voice and twirled on his feet to greet her with a smile of his own.

“Rose, hi, how…” he started before his mouth gaped open and his voice died in his throat.

He first noticed the dark blue apron she was wearing over her eternal oversized jumper. Then he spotted the pencil she had stuck behind an ear. And he finally understood the multicoloured stains dotting and streaking the apron were paint. That wasn’t right. Rose loved books. She was a bookseller. Not an artist. He would know if she were, after so much time spent sharing coffees and pointless conversations. So much time spent wishing she could be the one.

“Fine, if your question was how are you,” she giggled, wiping her hands on her apron so she could give his shoulder a friendly slap without harming his pinstriped jacket. “How are you?”

“I, uh, yeah, good, I suppose,” he nodded - he found his voice again when he managed to ame his heart hammering against his ribs. “What are you doing with all that equipment?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, John?” she taunted as she motioned for him to follow her through the maze of crammed corridors. “I was about to close, I didn’t think anyone would come so I just started working on a little something. D’you wanna sneak a peek?”

“You never told me you liked painting,” he said, almost reproachful.

“You never asked.”

She led him to the door that was plastered with a large sticker that read storage, offered him a shy smile and pushed the door open with a finger.

He couldn’t move. Instead of a dark, small room filled to the brim with rows of old books, he saw a bright, large space void of anything. Anything but paintings, hanging on the walls, haphazardly propped up against the walls. Colours bursting out of the canvas like fireworks, fiery landscapes and smooth still-lives, abstract shapes that made him feel so many things at once his heart flew to his throat, meticulous portraits of people she probably knew given the depth and the familiariaty that oozed from the faces. She was painter. A very talented painter. An artist. Rose was an artist.

“I wanted to show you the one I’m working on,” she said as she strutted towards her easel that was directed towards the window, unaware he was staring a her as if she’d just turned into one of the monsters he’d seen at the weird exhibition. “I think… You’re the expert, maybe you can tell me if I did it right?”

He could only nod even though he barely heard her words and watched, speechless and on the verge of collapsing under the weight of the unexpected revelation. Rose was an artist. She turned her easel towards him, and what he saw made his stomach twist into tight and uncomfortable knots.

“That’s a golden spiral,” he said, running a feverish hand through his spikes of hair. “Logarithmic spiral, it’s… Maths.”

“Yeah, I know,” she smiled, a quivering smile that lacked its usual enthusiasm. “Does it look… Dunno, accurate?”

“Accurate isn’t the first word that came to my mind,” he said softly, taking a few steps towards the painting to let his fingers hover over the snake of yellow and soft orange. “This looks beautiful, Rose. Why did you paint this?”

“‘Cause I found out…’ she started, sheepishly rocking on the ball of her feet. “What my soulmark is. I didn’t want to know, because I’ve always thought I would meet my soulmate whether I knew or not. But then… I mean, you came along and you made it really hard to resist the temptation.”

“What’s your soulmark, Rose? Please, show me.”

He held his breath as she slowly rolled her sleeve up her arm, stared at her pale skin covered with lines and lines of tiny numbers from her wrist to the crook of her elbow. He wanted to scream his joy, cry his relief, he wanted to hug her and kiss her and let his whole body and soul finally love her. But he simply blinked and swallowed it all down. She had never told him about her mark. She had never wanted him to know, and she probably had a hundred good reasons not to tell him.

“That’s the Fibonacci sequence,” he told her, unconsciously tugging on his own sleeve to make sure she wouldn’t see his mark. “It’s… My favorite sequence, actually.”

“I know,” she shrugged with an embarrassed twist of her lips. “I mean, I figured. You’ve bought several books about that sequence from me, you know. Doctor Smith, clever scientist and mathematician and all.”

He noticed the dejection in her voice, the way she gently kicked the foot of her easel and lowered her eyes to the carpet. He was hurt, deep and violent, that she didn’t seem to want any of what he had to offer, but that didn’t make him any less indifferent to her own pain. He slipped a finger under her chin to catch her eyes and give her a gentle look she didn’t want.

“Talk to me, Rose,” he said softly, fully cupping her cheek when she started to bow her head again. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I know you’ve got a bit of Starry Night on your arm,” she answered with a sharp nibble on her lip. “I know that… You would have found out I like painting, sooner or later.”

“Why wait until now, then?” he asked, befuddled by the tears that started to roll down her cheeks. “Rose, I don’t understand, what’s wrong?”

“Look at me, John,” she sighed, swatting his hand away from her face. “Look at me and tell me I’m the soulmate you’ve always wanted. Tell me I was made for you. Tell me you can ever love me. I don’t want you to think I’m the one is all. There has to be someone else for you, John.”

They matched. He didn’t understand why she refused to see it, refused to believe it, refused to accept she could be his soulmate. They matched. That’s all he understood. Her mark was a mathematical sequence. His mark was actually borrowed from a Van Gogh painting. They matched. And he had fallen for that woman so long ago, To know he had already learnt everything he loved about her, to know she was the one. That left no room for tears or unhappiness.

Despite her protests, he cupped bot her cheeks again and hurried to press a soft, lingering on her lips before she could draw back. Rose was an artist. Rose was the one.

“You’re the one I’ve always wanted,” he whispered, catching her lips between his again to steal her answer. “You were made for me, like I was made for you.”

“John…” she tried to complain, though she was slowly melting into his arms, little by little, a little more each time his hot breath caressed her chin and his lips danced against her own. “I’m not…”

“There’s no one else for me. You, just you. God, why did you have to wait so long, Rose, we’ve lost so much time. All that time spent looking for you when I had already found you. All that time spent pretending I didn’t love you when I could have shown you how much I do. “

“You do?” she breathed out, pulling away to see that truth in his eyes.

He only sat on her stool and pulled her sitting over his lap, his mouth hungrily looking for those lips he wanted to devour, his chest pressing hard against that body he wanted to touch, his heart reaching out for that shared loved he wanted to drown into. Rose wasn’t just an artist. She was his soulmate.

#ficandchips #doctorroseprompts #ten x rose #soulmate #au #john smith x rose tyler #first kiss #fluff #romance #<3

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biblicalmusings · 4 years

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Hiroshima’s Castigation of Humanity’s Best Attempts at Peace

Early one August morning, Tsutomu Yamaguchi was preparing to return home from the town where he had spent the last three months on business. He worked for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan as a draftsman, and was working over the summer on a shipbuilding project. He was on the bus heading to the station with two of his colleagues when he realized he left his ticket behind. His friends continued on while he returned to the company dormitory to retrieve it. Once he did, he began walking back toward the shipyard. Mr. Yamaguchi remembered the day well: “It was a flat, open spot with potato fields on either side. It was very clear, a really fine day, nothing unusual about it at all. I was in good spirits.”

But that would change in an instant for him and the approximately 300,000 others in Hiroshima that day, Aug. 6, 1945. “As I was walking along I heard the sound of a plane, just one. I looked up into the sky and saw the B-29, and it dropped two parachutes. I was looking up into the sky at them, and suddenly... it was like a flash of magnesium, a great flash in the sky, and I was blown over,” he explained. (Richard Lloyd Parry, The Times, “The Luckiest or Unluckiest Man in the World?”, March 29, 2005).

The plane he saw was the Enola Gay. It had just completed its mission of dropping the first atomic bomb (called “Little Boy”) ever used in a military operation. He continued, “When the noise and the blast had subsided I saw a huge mushroom-shaped pillar of fire rising up high into the sky. It was like a tornado, although it didn’t move, but it rose and spread out horizontally at the top. There was prismatic light, which was changing in a complicated rhythm, like the patterns of a kaleidoscope. The first thing I did was to check that I still had my legs and whether I could move them. I thought, ‘If I stay here, I’ll die.’

“Two hundred yards ahead, there was a dugout bomb shelter, and when I climbed in there were two young students already sitting there. They said, ‘You’ve been badly cut, you’re seriously injured.’ And it was then I realized I had a bad burn on half my face, and that my arms were burned.”

Mr. Yamaguchi’s story is one of thousands of first-hand accounts of the horrifying devastation that single bomb created. One patient of Michihiko Hachiya, who was the director of the Hiroshima Communications Hospital, recounted this story, which Hachiya kept in a diary along with dozens of other stories he heard from patients at that time:

“The sight of the soldiers . . . was more dreadful than the dead people floating down the river. I came onto I don’t know how many, burned from the hips up; and where the skin had peeled, their flesh was wet and mushy . . . And they had no faces! Their eyes, noses and mouths had been burned away, and it looked like their ears had melted off. It was hard to tell front from back” (Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, 1986, p. 726).

With one bomb, approximately 140,000 people were killed. Every person who survived had his or her own account of the suffering they witnessed, and those accounts numbered in the tens of thousands. “People exposed within half a mile of the Little Boy fireball . . . were seared to bundles of smoking black char in a fraction of a second as their internal organs boiled away. ‘Doctor,’ a patient commented to [Dr.] Hachiya a few days later, ‘a human being who has been roasted becomes quite small, doesn’t he?’ The small black bundles now stuck to the streets and bridges and sidewalks of Hiroshima numbered in the thousands” [Rhodes, pg. 714-715]. The magnitude of the destruction is beyond comprehension. No words can adequately describe it.

How Could We Do This?

The capacity of people to kill each other entered an entirely new and never before imagined age that day. For the first time in history, the dreadful prophecy that mankind would completely destroy itself if it weren’t for the return of Christ was actually conceivable (Matthew 24:22). Yet instead of being chilled by such destructive power, over the next several decades, ever more powerful atomic weapons were developed across the globe in an arms race between the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War. The most powerful weapon ever tested was the Russian Tsar Bomba, with an explosive power nearly 3,000 times that of the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Today, the nuclear arsenal of just the United States and Russia (to say nothing of India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, France, China and other countries known to possess nuclear weapons) is sufficient that the inhabited portions of the earth could be destroyed multiple times over.

Why did the United States drop the bomb in Japan that day? To end the war faster. Japan was all but defeated, yet their national pride kept them from surrendering. The American military was gearing up for a massive land invasion of Japan, so they reason that if the bomb could be used and proved effective in forcing Japan to an unconditional surrender first, then the lives of perhaps tens of thousands of American servicemen could be spared. In his history of the Second World War, Winston Churchill summarized the thinking behind the decision: “To avert a vast, indefinite butchery, to bring the war to an end, to give peace to the world, to lay healing hands upon its tortured peoples by a manifestation of overwhelming power at the cost of a few explosions, seemed, after all our toils and perils, a miracle of deliverance.” [Rhodes, p. 697].

A miracle for whom? The men and families of the men who would have been sent to the shores of Japan to fight the enemy in conventional warfare if it weren’t for the bomb, yes. But certainly not those who lived in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nor for the billions born since who have lived in the shadow of the Bomb.

This is the peace that mankind produces.

Apocalyptic Forerunner

When trying to picture the events Jesus talked about that will happen before He comes back, I don’t think it’s entirely off-base to imagine the desolation in Hiroshima, and multiply it the whole world over. In that coming tribulation, every citizen of every country of the world will be at risk.

I recommend looking up the book The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (which I have been quoting from in this article), and reading its final chapter, “Tongues of Fire.” As I read its account of Hiroshima’s devastation—beginning months in advance with the American military preparing an island from which to launch this and other attacks on Japan, and concluding with page after page of firsthand survivors’ recollections of the misery they witnessed that day—my heart began to pound. Rhodes makes a chilling statement:

“‘There was a fearful silence which made one feel that all people and all trees and vegetation were dead,’ remembers Yoko Ota, a Hiroshima writer who survived. The silence was the only sound the dead could make . . . They were nearer the center of the event; they died because they were members of a different polity and their killing did not therefore count officially as murder; their experience most accurately models the worst case of our common future. They numbered in the majority in Hiroshima that day.” [Rhodes, p. 715, emphasis added).

There is only one thing that can give us hope in the face of such unspeakable evil and the fear that ensues from living in an age where to be utterly destroyed remains a possibility: God’s promise of salvation.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared . . . I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, ‘Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever’” (Revelation 21:1-4, New Living Translation).

There is a day coming when no one will ever have to worry about destruction from bombs, guns, chemicals, tanks, landmines; a day when there will no longer be a feeling of unease that somebody in a different country might come hurt you and your family simply because you are a different skin color, religion, culture or have something they want. God will enforce His law of love, which mankind has so blatantly torn to shreds.

At that time, He will take the earth—destroyed, tattered and burned as it will have been by mankind—and remake it. All the death, the sorrow, the evil, the hatred, the legacy of humankind’s aggression against God and each other will be destroyed and forgotten. He will raise all those killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and all those who have died in every war or accident or by natural causes through all of history—and they will be given a new life. A life free of hatred, sorrow and suffering; instead full of love, service and joy (Revelation 20:5, 12).

Whatever happened to Mr. Yamaguchi? After getting his bearings and finding cover at an air raid shelter that terrible day, his wounds were bandaged, and he spent the night. The next day he and his companions managed to return to their hometown—Nagasaki. Despite his wounds, he reported for work two days later, Aug. 9, 1945. At work, he and his boss were having a conversation when the second atomic bomb detonated above the city, killing tens of thousands more as the first had done in Hiroshima. Mr. Yamaguchi was not injured in the second blast, and he and his wife both went on to live into their 90s. They both died in 2010, and are survived by three children. He is the only person officially recognized by Japan for having survived both atomic blasts, though there were many others.

“The reason that I hate the atomic bomb is because of what it does to the dignity of human beings,” he said in an interview. “I can't understand why the world cannot understand the agony of the nuclear bombs. How can they keep developing these weapons?” (Michael W. Robbins, Military History, “Japanese Engineer Survived Atomic Strike on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” July/August 2009).

There will be a day Mr. Yamaguchi will have his wish fulfilled. God speed that day.

(A version of this article was originally published at ucg.org here)

#hiroshima #75th anniversary

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hasansonsuzceliktas · 5 years

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An Enlightened History of Humanity

There is a more positive way of looking at history than in the context of who fought which wars or invaded and became the leader of which countries. That way of regarding history tells us that humanity has remained really childish. I believe most children have played the game; “I’m the king of the castle and you’re a dirty rascal!” If we look at newspapers or read history books it appears that humanity at large is still stuck in these childhood games. Just the other day for example, Trump sent out a tweet saying that: “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” This tweet of course sparked intense debate and fears of a demented world leader starting a third world war! I offer here another vision of history, an Enlightened vision. Instead of remembering and honouring political leaders and warmongers of all kinds, let us turn our attention towards the Enlightened ones and how they have benefitted humanity. Being With A Master

It was my great good fortune to sit at Osho’s feet from 1973 till his death in 1990. During those years, he gave hundreds of discourses on the many enlightened beings that have graced this Earth. In this way, I was introduced to another version of history, one that brings so much richness and appreciation of humanity’s potential for genius, love and compassion. It is one of the greatest legacies of Osho, to have introduced to the world for posterity, a deeper understanding of the mystical geniuses who have graced this planet. These enlightened beings are in fact our greatest heritage. When an Enlightened one dies, their light and love remain in the ether, available for future generations to tap into and be uplifted by. Each Enlightened being functions as a portal through which we have access to Universal Consciousness. Being with a Master is a love affair. Who can say why a person is attracted to this master, or to another one? Similar to falling in love with a woman or with a man, we are magnetically drawn towards the Master who will best suit our unique being on multiple levels. I remember hearing Osho say that the way to know if a Master is right for you is: If you feel that your heart is expanding and growing wings, this is a right master for you. If you feel your heart shrinking, then this will be a wrong master for you. This attraction goes beyond the physical. Even after a Master’s death, people still can be initiated into the Master’s spiritual lineage and be benefitted from his non-physical presence. I offer some examples: Hermes Trismegistus Hermes was a King, a Philosopher, an Alchemist and a Spiritual Master of great renown in Egypt in the very ancient world. Some say he lived 9000 years ago and was the originator of the Emerald Tablet, revered by Egyptian Mystery Schools and reputed to contain the three dimensions of wisdom regarding the whole universe. There is much speculation about him and no definitive proof. However, his Hermetic writings have and continue to hold a powerful influence in the Western world.

He taught the alchemy of transcendence and revealed the ways and means to have an overview of our dual world, moving into a non-dual state of being. His teachings inspired the Middle Eastern and European tradition of the Magi (also known as magicians). There was a division in his followers, some who followed his wisdom teachings for the greatest good of all beings and for the Earth (the Gnostics) and some who twisted his teachings into black magic and manipulation of the masses (the Illuminati). Unfortunately, The Gnostic wise people were exterminated and the Illuminati gained power over much of the earth, which they still hold secretly to this day. Osho spoke on the Great Law of Magic in his book, My Way the Way of the White Clouds. In this discourse he encapsulates in just a few sentences the entire transmission of Hermes. It is certainly an awesome methodology. Osho says: “Choose happiness – that means you are choosing the effect – and then see what happens. Choose ecstasy and see what happens. Choose to be blissful and see what happens. Your whole life will change immediately and you will see miracles happening around you – because now you have created the effect and causes will have to follow. This will look magical; you can even call it the law of magic. The first is the law of science and the second is the law of magic. Religion is magic, and you can be the magician. That’s what I teach you: to be the magician, to know the secret of magic. Try it! You have been trying the other your whole life – not only this but many other lives also. Now listen to me! Try this magic formula, this mantra I give to you. Create the effect and see what happens; causes immediately surround you, they follow. Don’t wait for the causes; you have waited long enough. Choose happiness and you will be happy.” Wikepedia says: “Hermetic tradition” refers to alchemy, magic, astrology, and related subjects. The texts are usually divided into two categories: the philosophical and the technical Hermetica. The former deals mainly with philosophy and the latter with practical magic, potions, and alchemy.” A quote attributed to Hermes says: “If then you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot apprehend God; for like is known by like. Leap clear of all that is corporeal and make yourself grown to a like expanse with that greatness which is beyond all measure; rise above all time and become eternal; then you will apprehend God. Think that for you too, nothing is impossible; deem that you too are immortal, and that you are able to grasp all things in your thought, to know every craft and science; find your home in the haunts of every living creature; make yourself higher than all heights and lower than all depths; bring together in yourself all opposites of quality, heat and cold, dryness and fluidity; think that you are everywhere at once, on land, at sea, in heaven; think that you are not yet begotten, that you are in the womb, that you are young, that you are old, that you have died, that you are in the world beyond the grave; grasp in your thought all of this at once, all times and places, all substances and qualities and magnitudes together; then you can apprehend God.” The Vigyan Bhairav Tantra This is a scripture attributed to Lord Shiva. It was most likely part of an oral tradition and then written down about 5000 years ago. Osho has given us two volumes of discourses on the 112 sutras contained in this scripture. Osho’s discourses on this subject are in ‘The Book Of Secrets’.

The Vigyan Bhairav Tantra is the most valuable scripture in the world in my opinion because it is simply offering practical methods for attaining expanded consciousness. It is not giving dogma, theory or a set of beliefs, just methods. By practicing the methods, your own innate wisdom will begin bubbling up and overflowing into every aspect of your life. The storyline for the Scripture is Devi (Shiva’s Consort) sitting in his lap and asking him questions about life, love and spirituality. Each one of Shiva’s 112 answers is in sutra form and constitutes one method of meditation. Devi Asks Shiva: “O Shiva, what is your reality? What is this wonder filled universe? What constitutes seed? Who centers the universal wheel? What is this life beyond form pervading forms? How may we enter it fully, above space and time, names and descriptions? Let my doubts be cleared!” When we go deeply into the practice of Shiva’s methods we begin to realise that the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra has seeded many of the world’s religions. Perhaps a seeker of truth stumbled on one or more of the methods and through this, became enlightened. He then began teaching it and by and by this became the foundation of a new religion. For example, Buddha’s Vipassana is from the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, as are methods of Bhakta, Sufism, Pythagoras, Atisha, Zen and so on…. I teach the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra Retreat each year in Dharamsala, India in Osho Nisarga, a center at the foothills of the Himalayas. I have been teaching this retreat there for many years and each time it gives me immense joy to again be immersed in these meditations. Each of the techniques is a masterpiece, and we can feel the Enlightened being who gave birth to these sutras was of the highest calibre. We can still feel the vibrant aliveness of Shiva and Devi through the sutras and through the practice of the methods. Osho says in his Book of Secrets: “Vigyan Bhairav Tantra is five thousand years old. It is the most ancient and yet the latest, yet the newest. Old like the hills, the methods seem eternal; and yet they are new like the dewdrop before the sun, because they are so fresh.” “These 112 methods are for the whole of humanity-for all the ages that have passed, and for all the ages that have yet to come.” A selection of 3 Sutras from the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra “Attention between eyebrows, let mind be before thought. Let form fill with breath essence to the top of the head and there shower as light.” “At the start of sexual union keep attentive on the fire in the beginning, and so continuing, avoid the embers in the end.” “O Shakti, each particular perception is limited, disappearing in Omnipotence.” Krishna Lived about 5000 years ago. He is one of the most passionately loved and revered Masters of all time. His story is very romantic. Having been raised with cowherds, he grew up to become a Spiritual Master and a King with far reaching power and influence. During his teenage years, it is said he had 15,000 girlfriends, with the most prominent being his Soul Mate, Radha. He played the flute in the forests of Vrindavan, which the women of the surrounding countryside found absolutely irresistible. They would spend hours in Ras Leela, intoxicated on the divine presence of Krishna.

His religion is purely Bhakti, based on love and devotion. To this day, devotees of Krishna dance and sing in large gatherings, calling his name over and over in an ecstasy of adoration. Krishna was also highly influential in the great ‘Mahabharata War’ (also known as the Kurukshetra War), which Osho describes as having broken the backbone of India and from which India never recovered. Even though no one can prove this, it certainly sounds from written accounts in the Mahabharata that nuclear weapons were being used at that time. “Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful vimana (fast aircraft) hurled a single projectile (rocket) charged with the power of the Universe (nuclear device). An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose with its entire splendour.” (There are many more passages in the Mahabharata describing several types of very advanced weapons used in the war.) Osho has given us a large book on Krishna, the Man and His Philosophy, which is a masterpiece of insight into this enigmatic enlightened being. Osho says: “His significance, his greatness lies in the fact that he is all things together, all things rolled into one, all contradictions living hand in hand, and there is a great harmony in all his contradictions. He can play the flute and he can dance, and with the same ease he can fight his enemy in the battlefield with his chakra, his wheel-like weapon. And there is no contradiction between the two roles. He can play pranks with the girls of his village, running away with their clothes when they are bathing in the river, and he can also make the most profound statements like in the Geeta. He can be a thief and a perfect yogi together. Krishna is one person in so many diverse roles — and that is his grandeur, his glory. And this is the uniqueness of Krishna, his individuality. You will not find it in Rama, Buddha, Mahavira or Jesus Christ. Krishna is a blending of contradiction, a beautiful synthesis of all contradictions. I say so for the reason that I don’t find these contradictions to be really contradictory. In fact, all of life’s truth is a blending, a synthesis of contradictions. The whole of life is based on contradictions, and there is no discordance in those contradictions; rather, there is full accord, absolute harmony among them.” Some Quotes attributed to Krishna are: “When a person responds to the joys and sorrows of others as if they were his own, he has attained to the highest state of spiritual union.” “Actions do not cling to me because I am not attached to their results. Those who understand this and practice it live in freedom.” “The body is not yours, neither are you of the body. The body is made of fire, water, air, earth and ether and will disappear into these elements. But the soul is permanent, so who are you?” Amitabha Buddha Amitābha is known as “The Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Life”.

He is spoken about by Gautama the Buddha as having lived 2,500 years before Gautama the Buddha. It is said he established a pure land paradise where those who call upon him can go after death to become steeped in Dharma and return to the world as Bodhisattvas for the benefit of all beings. It is said that if his name is recited, anyone whether monk or layperson, can achieve Spiritual Liberation. The way to unite with Amitabha is to recite his name and also to visualise this world as the lotus paradise. Amitabha made a vow to wait at the portal of Enlightenment and not to go through until all beings of our world have become enlightened. He has great followings of people in Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam and Tibet. Wikipedia says: “His most important enlightenment technique is the visualization of the surrounding world as a paradise. Who sees his world as a paradise, awakens his enlightenment energy. The world can be seen as a paradise by a corresponding positive thought (enlightenment thought) or by sending light to all beings (wish all beings to be happy). After the Amitābha doctrine, one can come to paradise (in the Pure Land of Amitābha), if they visualize at their death Amitābha in the heaven (sun) over their head (western horizon), think his name as a mantra and leave the body as a soul through the Crown Chakra.” The mantra for manifesting a connection with Amitabha Buddha and all he represents is: OṃAmideva Hrīḥ pronounced as Om Ami Dewa Hrih. It is advised by devotees of Amitabha Buddha to recite this mantra 108 times each day. A quote attributed to Amitabha Buddha is: “Every day, every hour, every minute, every second, whether you are praying, working, driving, cooking, sleeping, eating, lying and even breathing or whatever, learn to be mindful of your thoughts, actions and speech. Make it a natural way of life and realise the calmness within; feel the happiness that arises and know that anyone can attain this state of calmness.” Gautama Buddha He lived 2,500 years ago in Northern India. He was raised as prince Siddartha in great luxury and sensual enjoyments. However, being a seeker at heart, he escaped from the palace when he was 30 years old and went in search of Enlightenment. He tried numerous paths, followed several Gurus, and went deeply into asceticism. Having nearly died from his ascetic practices, he finally let go of all effort to become enlightened and simply witnessed his breath, while sitting under a tree. He slept and as the dawn broke, he entered the enlightened state. He then established a Sangam (spiritual gathering) of monks, who roamed with him in India for over 40 years. His teaching is centered on the spiritual practice of meditation and compassion.

His great tree of spirituality has spread into many branches, covering the whole of the Eastern world. Even today, many people attain Enlightenment using his teachings and techniques. (It is interesting that his principal method, Vipassana is actually one of the methods from the 5000 year-old scripture, Vigyan Bhairav Tantra.) I once saw a documentary in which a mathematical image mapping of the universe was shown. At the very center of the universe was a clear image of a Buddha seated in Meditation. So evidently, this posture of meditation in which the Buddha is depicted, resonates with the vibration of the core of our universe. Perhaps it is for this reason that so many people have entered universal consciousness while seated in meditation. Osho has given us many volumes of books on the Dhamapadha (Buddha’s teachings) plus many books on Zen (one of the branches in Buddha’s lineage). For anyone who is attracted to the teachings of Buddha, Osho’s books offer rare insights and stories regarding this mystical path. Osho Says: “Gautam Buddha’s emphasis on compassion was a very new phenomenon as far as the mystics of old were concerned. Gautam Buddha makes a historical dividing line from the past; before him meditation was enough, nobody had emphasized compassion together with meditation. And the reason was that meditation brings enlightenment, your blossoming, your ultimate expression of being. What more do you need? As far as the individual is concerned, meditation is enough. Gautam Buddha’s greatness consists in introducing compassion even before you start meditating. You should be more loving, more kind, more compassionate. There is a hidden science behind it. Before a man becomes enlightened, if he has a heart full of compassion there is a possibility that after meditation he will help others to achieve the same beatitude, to the same height, to the same celebration as he has achieved. Gautam Buddha makes it possible for enlightenment to be infectious.” A Quote of Buddha says: “A generous heart, kind speech and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.” Lao Tzu Born in China, Sixth century B.C.E. Died: Sixth century B.C.E.

Was a great Taoist Master in China. It is said he was born already old, meaning he was born wise. He was a contemporary of Confucius and indeed it is very humorous to read the description by Confucius of his meeting with Lao Tzu. It is obviously the meeting of an intellectual scholar with an Enlightened Master. Confucius stumbled out of the meeting with Lao Tzu in a very dazed and confused state, saying, “I understand the order of things, how fish are able to swim and birds are able to fly, but I have met with a Dragon and cannot grasp how he can levitate into the clouds and reflect on what cannot be known.” In typical Taoist style, Lao Tzu gives the supreme teaching of ‘suchness.’ Even though highly revered, he shunned fame and fortune and lived a simple life. At around the age of 80 he left the city to go on an eternal pilgrimage. At the Hanku Pass, near Loyang the guard at the gate recognised him and detained him, requesting that before he disappear from the world, he should write down his wisdom for the benefit of all beings. Under duress, Lao Tzu wrote down 5 thousand wisdom teachings and this later came to be known as the Tao Te Ching. Osho says about Lao Tzu: “When I speak on Lao Tzu I speak as if I am speaking on my own self. With him my being is totally one. When I speak on Lao Tzu it is as if I am looking in a mirror – my own face is reflected. When I speak on Lao Tzu, I am absolutely with him. Even to say absolutely with him is not true – I am him, he is me.” A quote from Lao Tzu’s book Tao Te Ching, chapter 6, translated by Arthur Waley says: “The valley spirit never dies It is named the mysterious female And the doorway of the mysterious female Is the base from which heaven and earth spring It is there within us all the while Draw upon it as you will. It never runs dry.” Patanjali (born 150 BCE)

Is known as the principal proponent of Yoga, even though he himself was part of a long lineage of Yoga Gurus. Due to his phenomenal articulateness on the subject of Yoga, we have the gift of being able to follow Yoga principles clearly, even today. It is a Godsend that Yoga is now so prolifically spread all over the world, even though many people do not understand the spiritual foundation of it and think of it only as physical exercise. According to Osho, it is much deeper than that and is indeed a path to Samadhi, spiritual liberation. Osho has spoken 12 volumes on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, offering us a wealth of understanding and insight on this subject. I have a friend, Yoga Deep who is a master Yoga teacher. He has studied many Yoga forms and has also studied in-depth Osho’s 12 volumes on Yoga. He is the only person in the world as far as I know who blends classical Yoga with Osho’s deep insights on Yoga. Osho says about Patanjali: “Patanjali is logical and rational, mathematical, scientific. He does not ask any faith. He asks only courage to experiment, courage to move, courage to take a jump into the unknown. He does not say, “Believe, and then you will experience.” He says, “Experience, and then you will believe.” And he has made a structure how to proceed step by step. His path is not haphazard; it is not like a labyrinth, it is like a super-highway. Everything is clear and the shortest possible route. But you have to follow it in every detail; otherwise you will move out of the path and in the wilderness.” Patanjali outlines an eight-fold path for attaining Enlightened Consciousness: Yama (Truthful, conscious and kind conduct.) Niyama (Spiritual lifestyle, including devotion to God or Guru, purity of body and mind, self-discipline, contemplation, and contentment in all circumstances.) Asana (Right posture with spinal column straight, body upright and firmly rooted in a comfortable position for entering meditation.) Pranayama (Practice of breathing exercises leading to awareness and experience of prana, the subtle breath of life.) Pratyahara (Withdrawal of senses from external objects.) Dharana (Holding the mind steady, ability to focus only on one thought.) Dhyana (Meditation.) Samadhi (The experience of remaining conscious and in a state of witnessing while the body is in dreamless sleep. This opens into superconsciousness.) Patanjali is quoted as saying that Yoga is: “Neutralization of the alternating waves in consciousness.” He also says: “When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; your mind transcends limitations; your conscious expands in every direction; and you find yourself in a great, new and wonderful world.” Issa (Jesus) (Born approximately 17 April, 6 B.C.)

Jesus has had the sad fate of being entirely misrepresented by Christianity. If we simply put the lie-based Christianity aside and focus on the man, Issa and his life story, he is indeed highly inspirational as a spiritually awakened Master. To understand the real Jesus (Issa) more deeply, read the book or watch the documentary by the same name: Jesus Lived In India.These contain irrefutable evidence of Jesus’s lost years both before and after the Crucifixion. He lived an incredible life! Before going to Israel and proclaiming his teachings there, he lived during his youth in India, studying Jainism, Vedanta, Upanishads, Yoga, Buddhism, and Tantra. After the crucifixion (which was rigged for him to survive) he travelled back to India where he established an Ashram (becoming a Guru to the large Jewish population in Kashmir), married a local peasant woman, had a son and lived to the ripe old age of 112. His tomb is in Srinagar, Kashmir. His teachings are kept on record at many temples, including in India and Tibet. Osho spoke at length on Jesus and it was from him that I first heard that Jesus studied in India, survived the crucifixion and went back to India where he lived to a ripe old age. Through further study, I found out that what Osho said is indeed true. Osho’s books on Jesus, The Mustard Seed and Come Follow Me, are a revelation about the man and his mission. Osho Says: “Jesus never renounced the world. He was standing in the midst of us all. He was not an escapist. He moved in the marketplace, he lived with the crowd. He talked to prostitutes, labourers, farmers, fishermen. He didn’t go out of the world. He remained here amidst you. He knew the world better than anyone who has escaped from it. It is no wonder that Christ’s message became so powerful. Mahavira’s message never became so powerful but Jesus converted almost half the world, why? Because he remained in the world; he understood the world, its ways, the people, the mind.” Beautiful translations directly from Aramaic of Jesus’s teachings can be found in the book: Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus by Neil Douglas Klotz A quote of Issa (Jesus) from Neil Douglas Klotz’ translation is: “O Birther! Father-Mother of the cosmos You create all that moves In light O Thou! The breathing life of all Creator of the shimmering sound that Touches us Respiration of all worlds We hear you breathing in and out In silence Source of Sound; in the roar and the whisper In the breeze and the whirlwind, we Hear your name Radiant one; you shine within us Outside us—even darkness shines—when We remember Name of names, our small identity Unravels in you; you give it back As a lesson Wordless action, silent potency Where ears and eyes awaken, there Heaven comes O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos!” Gorakhnath

Was a renowned Tantra Master who lived (approximately) in the 8th Century. He was reputed to be in the direct lineage of Lord Shiva. According to Yoga historian Romola Butalia he authored the following scriptures: “The Goraksha Samhita, Goraksha Gita, Siddha Siddhanta Paddhati, Yoga Martanada, Yoga Siddhanta Paddhati, Yoga-Bija, Yoga Chintamani.” He is also said to be the founder of Hatha Yoga. His influence is far reaching, even today, stretching from Nepal to South India. His greatest glory is to be experienced in Khajuraho, the village in Madhya Pradesh, India, which boasts a series of Tantra and Jain Temples. They are famous for the exquisitely formed erotic sculptures on the outer circumference of the temples. Some of these temples were built based on the wisdom teachings of Gorakhnath and with the support of the Chandela Dynasty. Wikepedia says: “Historical records note that the Khajuraho temple site had 85 temples by the 12th century, spread over 20 square kilometres. Of these, only about 25 temples have survived, spread over 6 square kilometres.” Osho Says about Khajuraho “If you meditate there, you will know what the Tantra masters were doing. They were creating in stone something that is felt in the ultimate orgasmic joy. It was the most difficult thing to do, to bring ecstasy into the stone. And if the stone can show the ecstasy, then everybody can move into that ecstasy easily. Khajuraho sculpture is not just to see, it is for meditation. Sit silently and meditate for hours. If one goes to Khajuraho, one should live at least for three months there, so he can meditate on each possible inner posture of orgasmic joy. And then, slowly, slowly, the at-onement, slowly, slowly, the harmony; then suddenly you are transported into another world — the world of those mystics who created this temple.” Osho had a supreme respect for Gorakhnath, listing him as one of the 4 greatest Mystics India has ever produced. Osho says: “The whole palace of India’s literature of the Saint Tradition rests on this one stone; everything is based on this one individual. He has said it all and slowly, slowly all he has said will go on becoming more beautiful, a many coloured splendour over time. People will meditate and base their spiritual practice on it for centuries to come. Who knows how many enlightened beings shall be born through him?” A Quote from Gorakhnath: “Neither emptiness nor fullness Neither Isness nor no-isness So unfathomable, beyond the senses In the Inner sky of the crown chakra It is the innocent voice of a child How can it be named? Laughing, being playful, The knack of meditation Day and night Sharing this divine inspiration He laughs, he plays, his mind untroubled This unwavering one is always with God.” Padma Sambhava (lived during the 8th Century) Is known as the second Buddha in Tibet. He travelled from India and established Tantric Buddhism in Tibet and was also influential in Bhutan. His Tantric consort was the Princess Mandarava from Rewalsar, India. The cave they lived in is a revered place of pilgrimage today. I have been there and meditated in the cave and it is indeed a place filled with superpowers.

In Tibet, Padma Sambhava worked with a team of 133 translators on translating Tantra and Buddhist Scriptures and gave Tantra teachings. Due to his genius in helping enemies of the Dharma turn towards the Dharma, the Emperor of Tibet offered Padma Sambhava his own wife, Yeshe Tsogyal as a second consort. When we see depictions of a male and female in the Tantric Yab Yum position, this is usually depicting Padma Sambhava and his consort in deep embrace. He is also depicted in paintings as sitting in the middle between his two consorts. It is said that both of Padma Sambhava’s consorts attained Enlightenment during Tantra Sexual Union practices and that in the form of a Rainbow Body and Terma, they are ever available to help Tantric practitioners on the path. (Terma is a word which means the hiding of deep spiritual teachings in the ether. When a seeker arrives, who is ready to receive the transmission, the Terma is delivered as a download into the psyche of the recipient.) During the sacred tour of Leh Ladak in September 2018, we will be visiting a monastery where Padma Sambhava lived for some time. A quote from Padma Sambhava says: “If you want to know your past life, look at your present condition. If you want to know your future life, look at your present actions.” Saraha

Was born as a Brahmin during the 8th Century in Roli, within the city-state of Rajni in Eastern India. He later became a renowned Buddhist scholar. His Enlightenment happened when he became a disciple of a female Tantra Initiatress and Master known as ‘the Arrow-smith Woman.’ His teachings also went to Tibet and had a great influence on the Tantra lineages there and a Tantra stream in India represented by the Baul Mystics still keep his teachings alive. (If you would like to meet a Baul Mystic Master come to the Tantra Festival in Delhi in November 2018.) Osho has given two volumes of discourses on the Baul Mystics, called ‘The Beloved.’ It is very special to read or listen to Osho’s discourses on the Royal Songs of Saraha. Osho’s discourse called ‘Aiming At the One’ detailing Saraha’s life story and the meeting with his Tantra Female Master is simply breath-taking. A quote from Saraha says: “Here in this body are the sacred rivers, here are the sun and the moon as well as the pilgrimage places. I have not encountered another temple as blissful as my own body.” Abhinava Gupta (950 – 1016 AD) Was a highly influential and revered Tantra Master in Kashmir, India. Kashmir was a melting pot of many different nationalities as it was on the Silk Road and people from China to Rome passed through there. The many spiritual traditions introduced to the region by travellers found a welcome amalgamation through Tantra. The tradition of Tantra simply expanded to make space for all approaches of spirituality to be embraced under one umbrella.

Abhinava Gupta was thus very open minded, with an incredible intellect, and profound spiritual insights. He was born to Tantric adept parents and his first Guru was his father. He subsequently studied with 15 different Gurus. His most profound initiation happened through the wife of one of his Gurus, Sambhunatha. She acted as a conduit for the great Goddess in a Tantric Ritual. He lifted Tantra out of the shackles of a male oriented Tantra Yoga approach and taught the equal honouring of both male and female in life, love and spirituality. He taught that householders as well as renunciates could have full access to Tantra teachings and benefits, thus deleting the stranglehold of elitism. At that time, Tantra was simply a way of life for all. Wikipedia says: “His desire was to create a synthetic, all-inclusive system, where the contrasts of different scriptures could be resolved by integration into a superior perspective.”—“By his own testimony, he had attained spiritual liberation through his Kaula practice, under the guidance of his most admired master, Śambhunātha.” Because the region was a crossroads, Kashmiri Tantra spread to the whole of the known world, from China to Europe. If we look at the web of Tantra throughout the world, all the silken threads lead back to Kashmir and Abhinava Gupta. Of course, there were many illustrious Masters spanning many generations before and after him but the teachings of Abhinava stand out, illuminating across time and space. This is also because he was a great scholar among his other attributes and wrote down Tantra scriptures for posterity. A quote of Abhinava Gupta says: “The couple (yamala) is consciousness itself, the unifying emission and the stable abode. It is the absolute, the noble cosmic bliss consisting of both Shiva and Shakti. It is the supreme secret of Kula; neither quiescent nor emergent, it is the flowing font of both quiescence and emergence.” (Tantraloka) Atisha (Born 982 – Died 1054 CE)

Was a devotee of the Goddess Tara. The goddess Tara is renowned for alleviating the suffering of all beings both physically and spiritually. After a series of dreams and visions where the Goddess appeared and gave him instructions and initiations, Atisha travelled from India to Tibet bringing the wisdom teachings of Tara and sparked multiple streams of Tibetan Tantra and Tibetan Buddhism. A quote from Atisha says: “To be kind to those who have come from afar, to those who have been ill for a long time, or to our parents in their old age, is equivalent to meditating on emptiness of which compassion is the very essence.” Tilopa Born 988—Died 1069 Had a very interesting life. He was born to Royalty but left his family to become the disciple of a female Tantra Master. He travelled far and wide, also receiving the transmission from 6 other Masters. His last Master, Matangi, sent him to become a pimp and bouncer in a brothel. While working there, he experienced a download of Mahamudra (meaning the great gesture arising from the Ultimate Orgasm with the universe). He then began teaching Tantra and his greatest disciple was Naropa, who became his successor. Tilopa gave 6 powerful instructions to Naropa for adhering to the Tantra path:

1) Don’t recall; (Let go of what has passed.) 2) Don’t imagine; (Let go of what may come.) 3) Don’t think; (Let go of what is happening now.) 4) Don’t examine; (Don’t try and figure anything out.) 5) Don’t control; (Don’t try and make anything happen.) 6) Rest; (Relax right now, and rest.) Osho gave beautiful discourses on Tilopa’s Song of Mahamudra, in Tantra: the Supreme Understanding; Osho Says: Tilopa says in the song, “Become like a hollow bamboo, nothing inside.” And suddenly, the moment you are a hollow bamboo, the divine lips are on you; the hollow bamboo becomes a flute and the song starts. This is The Song of Mahamudra. Tilopa has become a hollow bamboo; the divine has come and the song has started. It is the song of the ultimate experience itself.” Tilopa says: “At first a yogi feels his mind Is tumbling like a waterfall; In mid-course, like the Ganges It flows on slow and gentle; In the end, it is a great vast ocean, where the Lights of Son and Mother merge in one.” Osho gave talks on Upanishadic Rishis whose written teachings form one of the main foundations of the Hindu Religion. Written Upanishads are from the 6th century BCE to 15th-century CE and before that there was a long oral tradition. Osho also spoke on many other Enlightened beings that we may never have heard of if it were not for him. He has certainly exposed to the world the glory of Mother India as a fountainhead of Enlightened beings and Enlightened research. He has also spoken on Sufi Masters of the Middle East, on Hassids of Israel, on Heraclitus and Pythagoras of Greece, on Gurjieff who was from Russia but lived in France, and many more. As the number of Enlightened Beings who have graced this Earth number in the thousands, it is not possible to write down the stories of all of them in this article. Many have remained unknown. However, their fragrance wafts through the ether, touching our heart and soul. Out of the many Enlightened beings, it is important to mention the Pagan, Gnostic and Shamanicapproaches to life. In many indigenous cultures, an Enlightened lifestyle was simply a way of being. One contemporary culture that functions in this way today are the Kogi of Columbia. See the film Aluna to learn more about them. The Gnostics had a very simple and intelligent way of being in communion with the divine in everyday life. They had mystery cells of 8 men and 8 women who went through initiation with a Master and after experiencing illumination, they too would start their own mystery cell. These mystery cells were spread throughout the middle east and Europe for a thousand years before Christianity and indeed are the true roots of the Western spiritual heritage. Christianity did a massive genocide of Gnostics, burning their scriptures and killing them in the millions till every trace of them was purged from historical memory. One historian John Lamb Lash, has spent 20 years studying any records he could unearth about them and has written a ground-breaking book about the Gnostics called Not in His Image. This book holds an important key for our future as well as vital information about our roots. A Quote on the Gnostics from John Lamb Lash is: “Gnosis is psychosomatic illumination, the full-body rush of cognitive ecstasy and direct sensorial reception of the vital intelligence of the earth.” The Hawaiian Huna Tradition deserves special mention. Their wisdom, carried most probably from the famed continent Lemuria (Mu) is really timeless, being nature based and leading to harmony within and without. An affirmation from the Huna Tradition is: Ike (awareness) Kala (freedom) Makia (attentiveness and concentration) Manawa (Presence in this moment) Aloha (Love) Mana (Confidence) Iroquois Nations In the USA there are innumerable examples of indigenous wisdom, and no more so than the Iroquois People. They were wisdom holders of the highest order and it is actually they, who are the true authors of the American Constitution. When early American statesmen were searching for an appropriate foundation document for the new country, they came to know about the amazing peacekeeping and governance strategies used by the Iroquois Indians. They took their vision statement and used it for the American Constitution. To understand the depth and breadth of the Iroquois’ Nation read the book, The Walking People A native American Oral History by Paula Underwood. A quote from Gloria Steinhem says: “When a Laguna law student from New Mexico complained that her courses didn’t cite the Iroquois Confederacy as the model for the U.S. Constitution—or explain that this still existing Confederacy was the oldest continuing democracy in the world—I thought she was being romantic. But I read about the Constitutional Convention and discovered that Benjamin Franklin had indeed cited the Iroquois Confederacy as a model. He was well aware of its success in unifying vast areas of the United States and Canada by bringing together native nations for mutual decisions but also allowing autonomy in local ones. He hoped the Constitution could do the same for the thirteen states. That’s why he invited two Iroquois men to Philadelphia as advisers. Among their first questions was said to be: Where are the women?” A quote from the Iroquois at the time of Thanksgiving is: “Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as People. Now our minds are one.” Some persons reading this newsletter may be wondering how to meet an Enlightened being who is still alive in the body. In my lifetime so far, I have met 5 Enlightened beings. Krishnamurti, Osho, Tamosan Uetzusan Kohrogi Sensei Osho

I met him in 1973 and remained in his community for 26 years. I never saw him do anything which was not in service of awakening consciousness in individuals and for the collective. He worked through powerful discourses, meditation methods and devices aimed at drawing out the fullest potential of each human being. His compassion was simply breath taking in its depth and vastness. His methods were designed to shock us out of our long sleep, to dissolve collective conditioning, to reveal to us our own grandeur. Osho says: “To be an Enlightened Mystic means that the song this person was born to sing has burst forth, the fragrance that was hidden in this flower has been released to the winds. An enlightened consciousness means you have become that which you were destined to be. And naturally, in the fulfilment of this destiny, there is supreme bliss”. Krishnamurti (11th May 1895—17th February 1986)

I met him in Mumbai after having been initiated by Osho. I could recognize his Enlightened quality and felt great appreciation of him and his work. However, I found him too serious for my taste and therefore did not seek him out again, though I greatly enjoyed some of his books. Osho spoke about Krishnamurti many times and offered great respect towards him, teased him and also expressed compassion for what he went through earlier in his life. Krishnamurti says: “It is only those who are in constant revolt that discover what is true, not the man who conforms, who follows some tradition. It is only when you are constantly enquiring, constantly observing, constantly learning that you find truth, God or love.” Tamo san (enlightened Japanese Priestess)

She came to Osho’s community in November, 1989, saying: “I came to give my energy to Osho that his strength would come back. He can make a big change in the world. I want to make sure he can be well.” Osho publicly recognised her as enlightened by showering her with Rose Petals. He gave her a certificate which said: “I Osho, as a Buddha in my own right, recognise and rejoice in your Enlightenment. I know and you must be knowing, that there is one step more, going beyond Enlightenment, and being nothing.” Later, I visited her in Japan. She had an altar with pictures of Buddha and Osho. Her way of working was very interesting. She was a tiny woman but with superhuman strength. She would pick up a huge grown man, give him a powerful blow on the back and put him back down. She did this to me and I was reeling from the lightning bolt of energy that ran through my body for days afterwards! Tamo san left her body on 21st November 2001. Tamo san says: “In the old days, evil things spread rapidly, but now good things spread rapidly. If you understand…everything begins to appear wonderful and beautiful, and it naturally makes people stop wasting or stop desiring unnecessary things. This awakening is contagious and it will be transmitted to everybody soon.” Uetzusan He came into my life for a brief period and we taught together for about a year, and during that time we created a world-wide movement for teaching our combined work of meditation and Tantra. He is a charismatic Healer and offers a simple yet powerful transmission of Expanded Consciousness. In 2008 he gave me a transmission which propelled me into Universal Consciousness.

Uetzusan says: “Live with love and compassion for everybody and everything; this is the practice of truth. The ultimate purpose of the body is to live with this understanding, that everything is love, everything is compassion.” Kohrogi Sensei Is a Japanese Master who has been in my life since 1994. He is a healer using the method Ito Thermie and also teaches a group called Natsukashi, which means ‘coming back home to your original nature.’ He teaches in Japan, Tokyo area, and also comes to Europe about once per year. His teaching is beyond definition, but if I could name a flavour, it would have to be Tao. He is both ordinary and extraordinary. His teaching is both simple and profound. I have participated in his groups and trainings about 18 times and never get tired of it because it is the refined flavour of his teaching which brings me back again and again. Every time I think of him, an inner smile comes to my lips. Kohrogi Sensei says: “You are not just alone. Everything is supporting you. Hold a leaf and have eye contact. Hold a rock and have eye contact. These will help you to remember. Natsukashi means, “Everything is already present.” We have forgotten this. When we ‘remember’ this is Natsukashi.”

The Ocean Of Consciousness Humanity tends to behave like fishes who are in the sea, crying out, “Where is the sea?” when the sea is all around! I hope this blog has awakened your enthusiasm regarding the true history of humanity, the Enlightened history. Let us not celebrate the villains who are raping and pillaging the treasures of our world. Let us place our attention and highest regard towards those beings who are showing us the way to live in harmony, peace, love and wisdom. These Enlightened Beings are our best resources. They each have different ways of helping humanity to awaken. And all of their varied devices lead to the same ocean of consciousness. (Article taken from Sarita's blog: http://www.tantra-essence.com) Read the full article

#earth #east #leadership #meditation #soul #spirituality #tantra #world #yoga

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rogeramir · 5 years

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Kill The Buddha

I was in the metro (underground train) once in Milan, Italy. And I was in the first car, standing with my face towards the last car. As the metro was going through the streets towards downtown Milan, suddenly, for a second, all the cars lined up straight and I saw the people sitting and standing in the last car, which was probably the 7th or 8th car from me. I am sure it has happened to many people at many times, but it was the first and probably the last time for me. That's why it was so interesting. I said to myself, "Wow... tunnel vision".

At another level, I think that that is what happens to people branded as geniuses. Through hard work, perseverance and a bit of luck (in different proportions for different people), all the dots in their particular discipline suddenly line up for them and they see something maybe no one has seen before. They make sense of things which could have been non-sensical before.

I think Gautam Buddh, if he existed, was one such genius. He was able to connect the most critical dots about the human psychological and spiritual condition thousands of years before others did. He especially came to understand the effects of attachment like very very few others have before and after him. His words astonish and enlighten us to this day.

His basic saying on attachment is: "Attachment is the source of all suffering."

Another one is, "You only lose what you cling to."

There are many others.

Twenty five hundred years or so after his death, we still don't get it. We still continue to be attached to innumerable things, people, ideas, concepts, thoughts, desires, goals, images, etc.

Gautum inspired thousands of others to start exploring themselves. When Buddhism reached China, one of these inspired ones was Zen Master Linji, who gave one of the most shocking yet illuminating pieces of advice to the disciples, also about attachment, i.e., spiritual attachment in this case. It goes like this:

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him immediately.

What? Kill the Buddha? Isn't he like the originator of the Buddhist tradition? How can a seeker / a disciple kill the Buddha?

Lets break up the sentence and go deeper into it.

The sentences has two parts:

- "If you meet the Buddha on the road"

Lets remember that Linji is advising the disciple. Not all disciples are going to have the same path or the same experiences on the path. Hence he used the word, "if".

What is the experience Linji is talking about? "Meet the Buddha". It can have many meanings. One meaning is that when you are on the path, you have to leave all images behind. 'Buddha' is also an image. (And I am not talking about the statues of Buddha, which Gautum Buddh would be shocked and disappointed to find, since he was so much against statues and worship.) When we read about Buddhism or we listen to Buddhist sermons or we see Buddhist quotes or we see the statues, we develop an image in our minds as something good or bad or useless or something to be pursued or something to be converted to. We develop goals, i.e., to be a 'buddhist', to attain enlightenment, etc.

Another meaning could be that, when you are on the path you might come to a point when you start feeling that you are progressing towards enlightenment and that you are becoming a buddha yourself. Again, that is an image you hold in your mind. And Linji is warning that if you start thinking in terms of what you are 'achieving' or 'gaining' on the path, then you have actually left the path. You have lost your way. Thus, he says, if you see the buddha on the road, kill him immediately.

The moment we have developed goals and images and the moment we start thinking of ourselves as 'special' or as a 'buddhist' or as coming close to enlightenment, we are finished. We are no longer going in the right direction. Then the real teachings of Buddha will remain out of our reach and we will be stuck to those goals and images and thoughts.

The moment we we start getting attached to or holding on to a 'scripture' or a 'book of God' or when we start worshipping a prophet or 'son of God' or 'the mother of the son of God' or the Buddha or a 'guru' or 'tirthankara', the spirituality in us dies.

The difference between a living spirituality and a dead spirituality is the difference between a beautiful living flower on a stem and a dead flower someone has saved in a book. If you like to save dead flowers in books, of course there's nothing 'wrong' with it. Its just that it will not have the fragrance and the colors of a living flower. But if you don't want the fragrance or the colors, then it's not a big deal.

Buddha and Linji were talking to people who like living flowers on stem rather than dead flowers. They wanted us to stay alive, not become spiritually dead.

So, as we saw above, the words, "meet the Buddha" can have different meanings. It could mean having images or thoughts of the Buddha in your mind. Or, it could also mean having images about your own buddhahood. Yes, you are a buddha. Its just that you have forgotten that you're a buddha. And you have started thinking of yourself as a much smaller 'I', i.e., the ego

And what is a buddha? Someone who is unattached, silent, observant and unshakeably present in the herenow.

What is the road?

There is only one road, one path. On this path, one direction goes towards the inside, towards God. It is the direction of silence, stillness, quiet observation, simple and content living, a blissfulness without any goals. A world without time. Time is a utility which can be put aside and one can be timeless, without the attachment to the past or the future. Just being in the present. The forever flowing stillness of now. The pendulum stops. The polarities disappear. If someone throws a stone in the lake, it disappears in the lake without creating any ripples. No ripples at all. Someone hits me, I don't respond. Someone abuses me, I don't respond. Someone praises me or says they love me, I don't respond. Someone takes away all of my possessions, I don't respond. There is no response to the 'good' and no response to the 'bad'. There is just silence, stillness and observation. Images are flashing on the inner screen and passing away, then more images and more. And none of the images elicits a response.

The other direction is towards the outside, towards money, towards material possessions, images, goals, desires, discontentment, mental stress, anxiety and fear. 'Time is of the essence'. Goals need to be met. Net worth needs to keep growing. Images need to be maintained. The 'circle of control' needs to be expanded all the time and power needs to be exercised over as many people as possible. The past defines the present and the present must lead to a certain well thought out future. Everything must conform to our own plans. Otherwise, there is discontentment. Stillness is death. Silence is weakness. This direction also includes religious or spiritual goals, dreams and aspirations. Trying to be a good person to win the ticket to heaven, where there are all kinds of pleasures and comforts.

There is a beautiful Native Indian Cherokee story, in which a father teaches his son about good and evil through a parable involving two wolves. He tells his son that there is a terrible fight going on inside him between two wolves. One is good and the other is evil. The evil wolf has anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The good wolf has joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, kindness and compassion. This fight, he told the young boy, is going on inside every one, including the little boy.

The boy is listening attentively. He asks, "Which wolf is going to win?"

The father says, "The one you are going to feed."

(see firstpeople.us/CherokeeLegends/TwoWolves)

It is is a beautiful parable. The two wolves are the two directions on the path we are talking about. You can choose which wolf to feed, which direction to start walking in.

Attachment, including attachment to spiritual or religious goals and aspirations, lies on the path of the ego.

Again, there is absolutely nothing 'wrong' with the path of attachment and ego. If that is what you need right now, then that is what you will get.

Whether you know it or not, consciously or sub-consciously, there is one thing you are seeking in life (see my other Post titled, 'The Big Fish'). That is the thing you will give anything to get. That is what you are after. It could be money or power or prestige or spiritual status or any other thing. That one thing, the 'Big Fish' in your life, determines which wolf you are going to feed, which side of the path you are going to choose.

Next, what does it mean to kill the Buddha?

It means, be silent, watchful and still. When the seeker is on the path, he / she has to stay silent,watchful and still.

Linji is warning that on the path, the seeker has to be absolutely naked. There must not be any attachments or images when you start the journey and also during the journey. There will, of course, be moments when the seeker is weak or discouraged or harbouring doubts and tries to get encouragement from the image of the Buddha or the goal of attaining nirvana. And there will be moments when, for example, the seeker has mastered the art of meditation or has attained an insight into some sutra or saying of the Buddha or has achieved something else which he considers as a substantial step on the journey and is ecstatic over it. Linji is saying that all these will pull the seeker back on the path.

If we see the teachings of the great wisdom teachers in parallel, we will find many consistencies / similarities. Why? Because their paths were identical and their destination was the same. Jesus, in one of his parables, has also warned that the seeker can be set back on the path if he is not watchful. This is the parable of the woman with the jar full of wheat grains (Thomas 97). It goes like this: There was a woman who was carrying a jar of wheat grains. As she was walking along, the handle of the jar broke and the grains started dropping out. The woman, not being very mindful and perhaps busy with her thoughts, did not realize what had happened. By the time she reached home and looked inside the jar, it was empty. All the grain was gone.

This is probably what Linji is warning about. We have to be watchful on the path. Otherwise, we will lose whatever understanding we have gained, whatever progress we have made. If there are any images arising in our minds, these need to be discarded. The mind has to be like a mirror. Any dust on the mirror has to be removed, otherwise we will not be able to see ourselves in the mirror. Whatever thoughts, ideas, images, experiences arise, we observe them and let them go. There is no holding on to anything, any thought, any image. If there is a reaction to these thoughts, ideas, images, we observe that reaction too. The more we observe, the more these thoughts, ideas and images will become like clouds passing by in the unchanging sky. There will emerge a silence and a stillness. That silence and that stillness is the path and it is also the destination. In that silence and stillness is the divine / the eternal / the universal, i.e., our true self.

So, "kill the Buddha" means letting go. Osho used to say it brilliantly: spirituality is not about finding God, its about letting go of yourself. The 'I' is the only thing separating God and us. If we let go of the 'I', there is no separation. All is one.

The 'I' / the ego is like a robe we are wearing and this robe is made of images. If we are not watchful, the Buddha or the idea of nirvana or moksha or enlightenment also becomes one of the images that the ego is made up of.

Linji is telling us to remain utterly naked. To maintain the oneness by not letting anything come between ourselves and God, not even the Buddha.

The events in Jesus' life, especially towards the end of his life, are also relevant here. Just before his arrest and trial for blasphemy and sedition, he is at a place called Gethsemane. Judas Iscariot (his disciple who turned traitor) has already told his enemies where Jesus is, so that they could come and arrest him. Jesus knows that he is about to be arrested. He is saying his final prayers, asking to be saved: "---Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet, not as I will, but as You will"

Jesus knows that he will be tried and crucified. However, as the time is approaching, Jesus is feeling afraid of losing his life. He is fearful of death and is requesting God / Father to help him avoid death, if possible. At the same time, he is also submitting himself to God's will by saying, "not as I will, but as You will"

This is a moment of weakness which Jesus had just before the crucifixion. He has fallen prey to the fear of death. He is an enlightened being, he has felt oneness with God, he has transcended the boundaries ordinary individuals have and has experienced the eternal / universal self, he calls God his 'Father' and himself God's son, he has already become a great teacher, his vision is clear. And, yet, here he is, telling God that he does not want to die. He has lost his Buddha-nature. Or, to be more precise, he has lost his Christ-nature. Here he is just the man Jesus.

In the version given in the Book of Matthew, he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

He is complaining. It is as if he had some image of God and some expectation of what God was going to do if he (Jesus) was about to be hanged and that expectation is not being fulfilled.

But, Jesus is no ordinary being. He does fall, but he bounces back very quickly. When he is being crucified, he says from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

For someone beaten mercilessly, hanging on the cross, with nails in his hands and feet, about to die, these are not the words of an ordinary man. No, he is back as the enlightened master and is setting yet another example of love by praying for people who are killing him.

This event from Jesus' life shows vividly what Master Linji was trying to teach. If you fall on the path, you've got to pick yourself up. You've got to kill the Buddha. Jesus killed his buddha, to speak metaphorically. He conquered his weaknesses and doubts. He regained his mindfulness. He let go of the final attachment, i.e., to his own life.

So, in a nutshell, meeting the Buddha on the road means falling down, falling prey to your own attachments... killing the Buddha means getting back up and letting go.

(Image by Charles Rondeau from Pixabay )

#buddha #spiritual #mystic #oneness

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vox · 8 years

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Donald Trump has revealed himself to be a president who lacks empathy

“Nancy Pelosi and Fake Tears Chuck Schumer held a rally at the steps of The Supreme Court,” President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday morning, “and mic did not work (a mess)-just like Dem party.”

The jibe was a follow-up to remarks the president made to reporters earlier in the day after a White House meeting with small-business owners.

"I noticed Chuck Schumer yesterday with fake tears," Trump told the press pool. "I’m going to ask him who is his acting coach."

Devising mocking nicknames for his political adversaries, particularly ones that accuse them of lacking clichéd qualities of dominant masculinity, is nothing new for Trump. But the mere fact that old habits are repeating themselves in the White House is noteworthy. Election Day exit polls revealed that 63 percent of the population (including something like a quarter of the people who voted for Trump) believed that he lacked the appropriate temperament to be president. Indeed, to help consolidate the support of Republicans who didn’t necessarily admire his antics, one of Trump’s key campaign pledges was to behave more professionally in office.

"I will be so presidential," he promised during an April Today show appearance, “you will be so bored. You'll say, 'Can't he have a little more energy?'"

The jibe at Schumer, the senior legislative leader of the Democratic Party, is yet another reminder that there is no New Trump, there is no pivot, and there never will be. But the particular manner in and grounds on which Trump has chosen to mock Schumer are especially revealing. Trump is so profoundly lacking in empathy that he can’t even begin to comprehend the possibility that another person might experience it. As president, he makes life-and-death decisions on a daily basis, and he’s doing so without any awareness of the internal lives of others.

Donald Trump has made many people cry

The immigration restrictions the Trump administration rolled out on Friday were cruel in both their design and their effect — deliberate impositions of suffering on some of the weakest, most vulnerable people in global society. They were also implemented with stunning speed, leaving hundreds of people already in transit stuck in limbo. One woman and her two children were detained at Dulles Airport with no food for 20 hours.

But beyond those directly impacted, Trump’s order affects many millions of Americans because it wounds our sense of who we are as a nation.

Schumer is one such American. His great-grandmother died in the Holocaust, as did seven of her nine children. Virtually every Jewish person in America has stories of family members who fled persecution abroad to find a new and better life in the United States, and of other family members who didn’t make it out and died as a result. For most American Jews — especially those of us who, like Schumer and I, grew up in New York under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty — the sense of the United States as a place of refuge from the blood-and-soil nationalism of Europe is integral to our sense of American greatness.

Trump is killing an important piece of American identity

America is a vast and diverse country, and there are as many visions of America as there are kinds of Americans. This particular vision of America doesn’t speak directly to the family experience of everyone, especially including the descendants of those brought here as slaves. But many American ethnic communities — from Jewish and Cuban to Hmong and Ethiopian — are largely descended from people who came to this country fleeing political persecution, and to us it’s a fundamental American story.

It goes back to the pilgrims who first came to these shores seeking shelter from religious persecution. In 1788, George Washington wrote to the Dutch revolutionary leader Francis Adrian Van der Kemp that he “had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.”

Over the centuries, a great many persecuted people never found a safe and agreeable asylum. But a great many did find it — here.

In words not yet purged from the State Department’s website, America’s “refugee resettlement program reflects the United States’ highest values and aspirations to compassion, generosity and leadership.” While only a relatively small number of refugees get resettled in third countries, “the United States welcomes almost two-thirds of these refugees, more than all other resettlement countries combined.”

A president without empathy is a scary thing

The presidency is an enormous job, and making life-and-death decisions on a daily basis is essential to it. While I was drinking my coffee this morning, I read Kevin Sieff in the Washington Post, reporting from Kenya on some of the most dire refugee cases. These are cases that involve children suffering from severe, but treatable, illnesses that will probably kill them by the time Trump’s temporary refugee suspension is over, regardless of whether the US resumes admitting refugees at its end:

One is a 9-year-old Somali child in Ethiopia with a congenital heart disease that cannot be treated in a refugee camp. Another is a 1-year-old Sudanese boy with cancer. A third is a Somali boy with a severe intestinal disorder living in a camp that doesn’t even have the colostomy bags he needs.

After President Trump’s executive order last week, their resettlement in America was put on hold. Now, the organization responsible for processing refugees in sub-Saharan Africa, Church World Service, says that order could be their death sentence.

I have a little boy at home myself, nearly 2 years old, and since his birth I’ve found it hard to bear stories of sad things happening to children. I understand a parent’s love in a way I didn’t used to, and my heart breaks for these kids and for their families. I teared up reading Sieff’s story the first time, and again rereading those passages to quote them here.

It is outrageous that Trump’s policymaking process is in such shambles that he didn’t bother to run his executive order on refugees past any of the career staff in various agencies who could have saved him from this moral obscenity. A properly run interagency process would have flagged this issue and gotten the order rewritten so that a move to secure the borders from terrorism didn’t bar an infant Sudanese cancer patient from receiving treatment.

Though Trump is unusually bad in this regard, all presidents make a certain number of rookie mistakes. There is a learning curve, and we all hope they will improve. A more alarming idea is that if Trump hears that people who read Sieff’s story cried, he might decide they are lying. That it’s all fake tears. That no one is actually upset that he is allowing children to die or to be killed for no reason.

This is unsettling because it means that Trump isn’t just blundering. It means that if someone does tell him about the 9-year-old with congenital heart disease or the Church World Service staffer trying to save his life, Trump assumes no one actually cares because he himself does not care. That’s a problem that cannot get better with time or practice because this man will — every day for thousands of days to come — make decisions with human lives hanging in the balance.

#empathy #politics #Donald Trump #Muslim ban #immigration #refugee #refugee crisis #Syrian refugee crisis

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funface2 · 5 years

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55 of Tim Vine's most hilarious jokes and one-liners – iNews

DistractionsJokes

“The advantages of easy origami are two-fold”

Wednesday, 28th August 2019, 09:08 am

Updated Friday, 6th September 2019, 14:48 pm

Tim Vine fronts the pun-filled BBC Comedy pilot, ‘Tim Vine Travels in Time’ (Photo: BBC)

Tim Vine, best-known for his his role on Not Going Out from 2006 to 2014, is a quick-witted connoisseur of comedy who often appears on best jokes lists that follow in the wake of festivals around the world.

Here are 55 of the comic master’s most ingenious jokes and one-liners:

“I’d like to start with the chimney jokes – I’ve got a stack of them. The first one is on the house.”

The i newsletter cut through the noise

“I did a gig in a fertility clinic. I got a standing ovulation.”

“I had a dream last night that I was cutting carrots with the Grim Reaper – dicing with death.”

“I rang up British Telecom and said: ‘I want to report a nuisance caller.’ He said: ‘Not you again.'”

“I saw this bloke chatting-up a cheetah and I thought: ‘He’s trying to pull a fast one.'”

“The advantages of easy origami are two-fold.”

“I rang up my local swimming baths. I said: ‘Is that the local swimming baths?’ He said: ‘It depends where you’re calling from.'”

The ‘king of one-liners’, Tim Vine (Photo: Getty)

“I said to the gym instructor: ‘Can you teach me to do the splits?’ He said: ‘How flexible are you?’ I said: ‘I can’t make Tuesdays.'”

“I’m against hunting. In fact, I’m a hunt saboteur. I go out the night before and shoot the fox.”

“This policeman came up to me with a pencil and a piece of very thin paper. He said, ‘I want you to trace someone for me.'”

“I met this bloke with a didgeridoo and he was playing Dancing Queen on it. I thought, ‘that’s Abba-riginal.'”

“I’ve decided to sell my Hoover – it was just collecting dust.”

“I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me ‘Can you give me a lift?’ I said ‘Sure, you look great, the world’s your oyster, go for it.'”

“I went down the local supermarket. I said: ‘I want to make a complaint – this vinegar’s got lumps in it.’ He said: ‘Those are pickled onions.'”

“I’ll tell you what I love doing more than anything – trying to pack myself in a small suitcase. I can hardly contain myself.”

“I was at sea the other day and loads of meat floated past. It was a bit choppy.”

“You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen, it said ‘Parking Fine.’ So that was nice.”

“I’m so lazy I’ve got a smoke alarm with a snooze button.”

“I’ve spent the afternoon re-arranging the furniture in Dracula’s house. I was doing a bit of Fang-Shui.”

“I was stealing things in the supermarket today while balanced on the shoulders of vampires. I was charged with shoplifting on three counts.”

“Uncle Ben has died. No more Mr Rice Guy.”

“I once did a gig in a zoo. I got babooned off.”

“Eric Bristow asked me why I put superglue on one of his darts. I said ‘you just can’t let it go can you?'”

“I saw this advert in a window that said: ‘Television for sale, £1, volume stuck on full.’ I thought, ‘I can’t turn that down.'”

“I’ve just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I’ll tell you what, never again.”

“Conjunctivitis.com – that’s a site for sore eyes.”

“Do you ever get that when you’re half way through eating a horse and you think to yourself, ‘I’m not as hungry as I thought I was?'”

“Black Beauty – now there’s a dark horse.”

Tim Vine has won numerous best joke awards (Photo: Getty)

“I was reading a book – ‘The History of Glue’ – I couldn’t put it down.”

“I got home, and the phone was ringing. I picked it up, and said ‘Who’s speaking please?’ And a voice said ‘You are.'”

“Exit signs? They’re on the way out!”

“Velcro? What a rip-off!”

“I went to buy a watch, and the man in the shop said ‘Analogue?’ I said ‘No, just a watch.'”

“I was in this restaurant and I asked for something herby. They gave me a Volkswagen with no driver.”

“I went to the doctor. I said to him ‘I’m frightened of lapels.’ He said, ‘You’ve got cholera.'”

“I met the bloke who invented crosswords today. I can’t remember his name, it’s P-something T-something R…”

“I was having dinner with my boss and his wife said, ‘How many potatoes would you like, Tim?’. I said ‘Ooh, I’ll just have one please.’ She said ‘It’s OK, you don’t have to be polite.’ ‘Alright,’ I said, ‘I’ll just have one then, you stupid cow.’

“A friend of mine always wanted to be run over by a steam train. When it happened, he was chuffed to bits!”

“I was in the army once and the Sergeant said to me: ‘What does surrender mean?’ I said: ‘I give up!'”

“This bloke said to me: ‘I’m going to attack you with the neck of a guitar.’ I said: ‘Is that a fret?'”

“I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger eating a chocolate egg. I said: ‘I bet I know what your favourite Christian festival is.’ He said: ‘You have to love Easter, baby.'”

“I used go out with an anaesthetist – she was a local girl.”

“Crime in multi-storey car parks. That is wrong on so many different levels.”

“I went to a Pretenders concert. It was a tribute act.”

“I went down my local ice-cream shop, and said ‘I want to buy an ice-cream’. He said ‘Hundreds & thousands?’ I said ‘We’ll start with one.’ He said ‘Knickerbocker glory?’ I said ‘I do get a certain amount of freedom in these trousers, yes.'”

“I bought a train ticket and the driver said ‘Eurostar?’ I said ‘Well, I’ve been on telly but I’m no Dean Martin.’ Still, at least it’s comfortable on Eurostar – it’s murder on the Orient Express.”

“I went into a shop and I said, ‘Can someone sell me a kettle?’ The bloke said ‘Kenwood?’ I said, ‘Where is he?'”

“I went in to a pet shop. I said, ‘Can I buy a goldfish?’ The guy said, ‘Do you want an aquarium?’ I said, ‘I don’t care what star sign it is.'”

“You know, I’m not very good at magic – I can only do half of a trick. I’m a member of the Magic Semi-circle.”

“My next door neighbour worships exhaust pipes. He’s a catholic converter.”

“He said ‘I’m going to chop off the bottom of one of your trouser legs and put it in a library’. I thought ‘That’s a turn-up for the books.'”

“And the back of his anorak was leaping up and down, and people were chucking money to him. I said ‘Do you earn a living doing that?’ He said ‘Yes, this is my livelihood.'”

“I bought some Armageddon cheese today, and it said on the packet ‘Best Before End…'”

“So this bloke says to me, ‘Can I come in your house and talk about your carpets?’ I thought ‘That’s all I need, a Je-hoover’s witness.'”

“So Batman came up to me & he hit me over the head with a vase & he went ‘T’PAU!’ I said ‘Don’t you mean KAPOW??’ He said ‘No, I’ve got china in my hand.'”

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Bài viết 55 of Tim Vine's most hilarious jokes and one-liners – iNews đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.

from Funface https://funface.net/funny-quotes/55-of-tim-vines-most-hilarious-jokes-and-one-liners-inews-2/

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50shadesofbrain · 7 years

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What makes a meme go viral?

A bit of a warning before reading: This post starts talking about Twilight roughly halfway through, and doesn’t really stop. I offer neither excuse nor apology.

Hello, internet, and welcome to another exciting installment of 50 Shades of Brain. I’m your host, Tim Carroll. Today, I’m delving into the exciting/horrifying world of internet memes.

What are memes?

The word “meme” was first invented by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book “The Selfish Gene.” A meme is an idea, behavior, or belief that spreads from person to person like a thought contagion. In the same way that a person can develop biological traits (hair color or skin color) by expressing the right genes, a person can develop mental traits (political beliefs and religions) by expressing memes. Just as the study of genes is known as genetics, the study of memes is known as memetics. (Meme rhymes with team, and memetics loosely rhymes with phonetics.)

Memetics and Psychology are closely related sciences. But while Psychology often asks “How do people find ideas?” Memetics asks “How do ideas find people?” [This quote - along with many of the ideas expressed in this blog post - is taken from the book Thought Contagion.]

I’m a big fan of the term “Thought Contagion” to describe memes, as it likens memes to viruses. Memes, like viruses, require people to spread, and, also like viruses, often don’t need the people involved to be willing participants in the spreading. That’s why memes are often described as “self-spreading ideas.”

Now keep in mind, an idea doesn’t have to be true in order for it to be a meme. A great example of a probably-untrue self-spreading idea is the story of Saint Elmo’s Fire. In case you’ve never heard of it, Saint Elmo’s Fire is a meteorological phenomenon in which glowing plasma surrounds tall, pointed objects during thunderstorms (or any situation where there’s a lot of electrical potential energy in the sky.)

This means that during intense thunderstorms at sea, the mastheads of old sailing ships would begin to glow. You can see a video of it here. Rather than seeing this as terrifying, sailors who saw these lights claimed that it was a sign that Saint Elmo, the patron saint of sailors, was there with them to ensure that they would make it through the storm.

Now, is that explanation true? Probably not. What makes the idea “a glowing mast in a storm is a good omen” memetic is that it’s a thought that’s nearly impossible to disprove. Think about it: the sailors who saw St. Elmo’s Fire and made it back to shore could tell everyone the story of Saint Elmo guiding them through an impossible and terrifying storm. Those who saw Saint Elmo’s fire and didn’t make it back to shore… well they couldn’t tell their tale to the contrary, could they? As such, with plenty of sailors to confirm the legend, and none to speak out against it, the legend – or should I say meme - spread.

This meme also had two other things going for it that helped it spread. The first is that it benefitted from some “pre-existing infrastructure.” Saint Elmo was a figure in an already-established and incredibly popular belief system, in this case, Christianity. [Christianity, as well as every other religion, is also a good example of a meme.]

The second factor that helped this meme spread was that it was generally a comforting thing to believe in. During a terrifying storm, a captain probably felt a lot better shouting “Saint Elmo is with us!” to his crew than “We are all so screwed…”

Saint Elmo’s fire is just one example of a meme. I mentioned religion above, but faith in science is also a meme. If you feel the urge to share this blog post with your friends, then the ideas inside are also memetic.

I could go on for hours listing examples of memes (any cultural/social norm for instance) but we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. But before we move on, I should also mention anti-memes – ideas that terminate themselves. A great example of an anti-meme is the idea “melee weapons are more useful than guns during warfare.” This idea died a rapid death in America right around the time of the Civil War. Care to take a guess as to why?

So that’s what the word meme used to mean….

But what does meme mean now…

The science of memetics has hit something of a stalling point in recent years. There are several reasons for this, but a rather salient one is the fact that the word meme has taken on a somewhat different definition.

Today, the word “meme” most commonly refers to pieces of media – be they images, gifs, or blocks of text, that are passed around the internet usually as a joke or to make a political point. Probably the most famous of these is Pepe the Frog. These are often thought to have started with the internet but it’s not too difficult to find historical examples. During the 40’s it was popular for WWII GI’s to scrawl the words “Kilroy was here” on walls and structures. In the 60’s and 70’s it was popular to wear buttons or make graffiti that said “Frodo Lives.” Or if you wanted to get really old fashioned, people have been drawing a square that reads “SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS“ since around the birth of Christ. (That last example looks much cooler when it’s arranged into a five by five square, rather than written out.)

Two thousand years is a long time for a five word message to hang around, wouldn’t you say? What makes those five words have more staying power than all the other Roman graffiti out there?

I guess I’m asking what makes certain memes have so much staying power. Or, in other words…

What makes a meme go viral?

Every year we post an estimated 1.8 billion images to the internet. (Just to give you an idea of how big a number that is, if you dedicated a single second to looking at every one of those pictures, you’d finish sometime in 2075.)

With such a massive number of pictures, it’s likely you could only view a tiny fraction of them, and share an even tinier fraction. And the fraction you see is almost entirely composed of pictures that others decided to share themselves.

What makes that fraction special? Why have over a hundred million people looked at this dress, but not this one? Why is this frog so damn popular, but this one isn’t?

Today on Fifty Shades of Brain, I’m going to endeavor to answer these questions. It turns out there’s not one answer as to what makes a meme more sharable than another. However, I’ve found that almost all memes have one or more of the following things in commons. The first of which is:

1. Pre-Existing Infrastructure

Up above, we talked about pre-existing infrastructure being important in the spreading of the legend of St. Elmo’s Fire. Turns out having a “fan base” helps your meme immensely. In fact, as this Daily Dot article about the ‘wistful Javert’ meme explains, most memes become famous as derivatives of other memes.

If you have a favorite meme – and who doesn’t – you can track its evolution on the surprisingly comprehensive website Know Your Meme, where you can see not just how that meme started, but all of the ways that that meme has crossed over into other memes.

But why would we prefer derivatives? Shouldn’t we like originals just as much, if not more?

Not exactly. The answer lies in something called the Mere Exposure Effect. The Mere Exposure effect is a logical fallacy that causes us to like things more that we’ve seen before. It applies to pretty much everything. We’ll even think that Chinese characters mean nicer things if we’ve seen them before.

In fact, things become funnier the more you’re exposed to them. The more people are exposed to a newspaper comic, the funnier people think it is. [I have a hypothesis that this repeated exposure effect is why comics like Dagwood and the Family Circus have stuck around for so many years.]

Now sometimes memes can be a reference so obscure, that it’s almost impossible to know what the original topic being referenced was without the aforementioned Know Your Meme website. In fact sometimes the joy of spreading an obscure meme is…

2. The ability to be part of a cool secret club.

When we look at some of the ancient memes above we find that a lot of them have a component that is difficult to read to outsiders. For example, the phrase “Frodo lives” doesn’t mean much to people who don’t know about Lord of the Rings. And “SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS” doesn’t mean much if you don’t speak Latin.

So why all the secrecy? Don’t we like it when people understand what we’re talking about? Isn’t that the whole point of communication?

As a rule, humans don’t like keeping secrets. A 2013 study in the journal of adolescence found that keeping secrets was toxic to your health. Their exact words were “secrecy was associated with increased delinquency, physical complaints, depressive mood, loneliness, and with lower quality relationships.” Yikes.

However, humans do love feeling superior to an outgroup. It’s even been argued that it’s crucial to our self-esteem to believe our ingroup is better than our outgroups.

What better way to feel superior to others than to possess relevant information that they don’t have? And what better way to make the information you have relevant than by plastering it everywhere you can?

This love of having special information (or, at the very least, appearing to have it) would explain the internet’s love of increasingly obscure memes. Intentionally incomprehensible memes have become so common that some have likened memes to Contemporary Dadaism. (For those out of the loop, according to Wikipedia, original recipe Dadaism “consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works.”

So we like memes that build on infrastructure and memes that make us look like part of a knowledgeable ingroup. What else do we like in our memes?

3. They make an argument without making an argument.

Here on 50 Shades of Brain, I try not to get political. I tend to leave that to other edgier blogs. That said, this argument is best done with political example

It’s not too hard to find a Facebook page that’s willing to share political messages in the form of pictures. But out of a very strong desire to stay out of current politics, why don’t we hop on a time machine to the year 2009 and look at this picture. In case you didn’t click on it, it’s a photo of Obama’s Inauguration that says, “One Million people attended Obama’s Inauguration and only fourteen missed work.” It doesn’t take much googling to find that both of those numbers are demonstrably untrue. A quick check on Wikipedia will tell you that roughly 1.8 million people attended the inauguration, including thousands of currently-employed security personnel]

Still the implication of this message is clear: “The people who voted for Obama didn’t have jobs and voted for him because he’d help them stay that way.”

But here’s the fun part about posting that picture to your Facebook page, you didn’t actually say that thing about Obama’s supporters. You implied it. So when your crazy/sane liberal Uncle Jeff comes to your wall and says that plenty of people who attended Obama’s inauguration had jobs or that it’s totally normal for people without jobs to vote against the party in power, you can tell him that it’s only a joke.

Isn’t it great? You get to be snarky and sarcastic with none of the consequences or commitment.

And we do love not being committed to an argument. People may like arguing online, but they hate being locked into things they can’t get out of. A study by Dan Ariely shows that we like keeping our options open. We’ll even throw away potential profits to keep options that we know are bad for us open, just because we can’t bear to be hemmed in. Even if we are completely aware that those options are worse for us than the path we’re on now.

Now, disliking Obama in 2008 wasn’t exactly a rare opinion. Roughly 47.1% of the country agreed with you on it. But just in case you’re confronted by that persnickety 52.9%, you can claim it’s just a joke and get out of the argument. This also helps if you’re not as well versed in politics as your aforementioned uncle since we hate losing arguments.

But if we didn’t like engaging in arguments then why even post this stuff? Well that brings us to the final thing that makes for a good meme.

4. Memes that allow us to declare our allegiance.

To understand this next bit, it might help to learn a little about signaling. In both Psychology and Biology, we have a term called “Signaling.” Basically, anytime we have an aspect of ourselves that we want to show off, we need to find a way to “signal” it to the world. In the (non-human) animal world, a peacock “signals” how sexy and well fed it is by showing off a nice coat of feathers. In the human world, a man might show off how much money he has by buying an expensive sports car.

One of the most important things in signal theory is understanding that every signal has a cost. Basically, the more time and effort you put into broadcasting a signal, the more others will assume you care about what you are signaling. For instance, if you donate $200 to breast cancer research, one would think you’re way more dedicated to ending breast cancer than if you just tweeted about it. Granted, what is considered a high-cost signal for you is probably not what would be considered a high cost signal for Bill Gates or Elon Musk.

Now, memes are pretty clearly low cost signals, but sometimes quantity can matter more than quality.

Signaling dovetails nicely with the innate human desire to belong to a group. A lot of popular memes allow you to declare your allegiance to something.

For instance, we talked about this dress earlier. The entire controversy around that dress was based around picking a side. Did you see it as black and blue or white and gold? Either way you get to belong to a new ingroup. An ingroup you get to be in with celebrities.

If you want to get more elaborate you can declare a side within declaring a side. Do you remember Team Edward vs. Team Jacob? [If you don’t, it’s a reference to the Twilight novels where the main character’s two love interests were the sexy brooding vampire Edward and the sexy brooding werewolf Jacob. Now that I told you, you can feel like you’re part of the in-the-know ingroup. You’re welcome.] You could declare your team on t-shirts, coffee mugs, posters, and of course, with internet posts. Now this is a double declaration of your team, not only can you show off that you’re a Twilight fan (a Twihard, if you prefer) but also you can share your allegiance within the Twilight Fandom.

But hey, isn’t shouting Team Jacob also a way of building upon something that’s already part of “pre-existing” infrastructure? Isn’t it also a way of being understandable to your ingroup (Twihards) and not your outgroup? Weren’t those things we talked about earlier in the post?

Yeah, maybe instead of taking a look at these four things separately, we should be talking about them all together.

Bringing it all together

So if you’ve been counting, we’ve narrowed it down to four things. We like memes that are the following.

1. Build upon some “pre-existing infrastructure”

2. Be understandable to your ingroup but not your outgroup.

3. Make an argument that you can walk away from.

4. Show off your allegiance.

Now, it’s not too hard to see that these four objectives do dovetail nicely with each other. The ideal meme would signal to your ingroup that you’re a member (possibly with a humorous reference), but leave your outgroup with no information. This meme would also present an argument you can easily dismiss as ‘just a joke.’

If we wanted to keep going with our Twilight example (and honestly, why would we want to stop talking about Twilight for any reason?) When you shout, “Team Jacob,” you are 1. Referencing the well-known love story Twilight. 2. Showing off knowledge that is potentially-unknown to your outgroup. 3. Making an argument that you can walk away from (after all, isn’t the other side ridiculous for starting an argument about a book?) 4. Showing off your allegiance to the chiseled werewolf known as Jacob.

Almost every meme we’ve mentioned in this article falls into one or more of these four categories. The Obama election meme above is a very clear way of signaling your allegiance and making an argument you can walk away from. Saint Elmo’s Fire allows you to build off of the pre-existing infrastructure of the Catholic Church and also show your allegiance to that same Catholic Church.

Now there may be a few other factors that help memes spread, and we’ll talk about them and a few other things in this blog post’s appendix, which you should expect to see on this blog in the next month. (Unless I decide I want to do the next post first)

Until then that’s all for this blog post. Be sure to share the ideas in it with literally everyone you can.

Further Reading

If you’re interested in the subject of memetics, I highly recommend the book Thought Contagion by Aaron Lynch. I’ve cited it several times above, but I suggest you buy the book if you’re at all interested in the subject.

Another fun thing to look at might be the (fictional) story of SCP-55. We touched on anti-memes (ideas that lead to their own ending) only briefly. SCP-55 is an entity that is an anti-meme so potent, no one can quite remember that it exists.

#psychology #Neuroscience #research #memes #meme #dank memes #50shadesofbrain

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bornfromscarletcords · 7 years

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A Wolf Story

Like many societies this one had its legends, though absolutes were a far cry from the typical suspicion or superstition of the masses. It was generally agreed that four great lords were responsible for the shaping or reshaping of their world, but as to who these lords were or why they appeared there was as much dispute as there was doubt. There was little information as to what existence was like before their intervention, if there was a before outside of folklore and old childhood stories, but supposedly humans were a more dominant species in those times or at the very least a more encounterable. As things were, the terrain we will sort of monitor was dominated primarily by werewolves. There were rumors that near the beginning vampires may have held regional supremacy, but none were precisely sure just how the first werewolves were connected to the species. They could have been subjugated by the night peoples, or their curses may have left them both mutually and grudgingly tied to the fate of one another, and still some believed that they simply shared a similar ancestor, possibly in one of the great four lords, who may have been something like a hybrid or proto species. Who’s to say, it was a long time ago. As things were the vampires were a pretty rare lot to encounter in this era, there were no great courts to speak of as they had long since fallen, the vampires were generally uncooperative and the werewolves broke up any large gatherings they found in the region. Still vampires were pretty powerful as far as individual creatures of magic went, but the werewolves were organized and individually strong in their own right.

A companion species was developed alongside the werewolves after the need for more violent solutions to regional territory disputes diminished. Some simply called themselves dog-shifters, but others claimed what was perhaps a more tribal or cultural monicker of “hunding”. Most were pretty sure the hunding were descended from the werewolves in some way, possibly due to their generally congenial relation to one another; werewolves rarely got along with any type of outsider, yet most didn’t mind their doggish neighbors one bit. Although it should be clear that anything can be felled or killed under the right circumstances or even with a great amount of determination or energetic momentum, the werewolves were commonly considered much more deadly than the hunding. An analogy might explain things better. The werewolves were like samurai compared to the general population of hunding who were like your modern japanese. They shared much of the same genetic structure and even some heritage but their focus of survival was often extremely deviated. Werewolves, in general came from a “we could die at any moment and existence is mostly agony paired with perverse carnal sweetness” type of mindset and cultural education whereas the hunding operated on a “carpe diem, isn’t it amazing just to be here” type of mentality. In many ways it had something to do with their difference in shifting. Werewolves could change from beast to more “human-like” visages with awkward painful, grotesque spasms which could last up to twenty minutes, maybe more on a bad day. The hunding shifted more or less instantaneously with little to no pain. This may also explain the difference in potency of their magic as werewolves seemed to operate, rather bizarrely on a sustained critical threat level of meditation which could boost their effectiveness to strange extremes. The hunding had a similar range of magic and biological prowess, super strength, speed, senses, healing and a capacity to connect with one another through an exchange of energies centered around a pack like structure, but these traits often emerged in a diluted fashion and far less frequently as far as population concentration went. On the other hand, where werewolves sexually reproduced rarely and with much discomfort (not that sex was uncomfortable but navigating violent changes with a fetus inside of you was difficult at the best of times; mostly impossible) the hunding did so with great ease. Some werewolves even looked to the hunding as a source for viable reproductive partners, which mostly worked, though it could create many tensions between the species.

The werewolves, do to the violence needed to change humans into one of their kind, and the trouble of reproducing amongst their own people, were generally somewhat small in population size which was not exactly a bad thing as even in lower numbers they could devastate neighboring communities to gross extremes. Still this sort of biological isolation could call them to take on apprentices from their own ranks or the hunding. It was not uncommon for a family of wolves or some of their more influential pack members to form ceremonial ties with hunding lineages who more or less managed their estates or served as their honored guards. Some went so far as to claim something of a death bond with their companions sharing in eachother’s energies, powers and strength though also risking to take on eachothers pain and demise should one or the other fall in battle. It was some real gangster stuff.

There were of course other creatures of interest in this land but if they want their story told they can tell it themselves, though we suppose it doesn’t hurt to mention that every now and then a band or lone wanderer fashioning themselves in the manner of coyotes would pass by, often causing more trouble than they stopped mind you. Our focus will instead shift to a somewhat humorous member of the community, a werewolf named Daniel Blackwood. Daniel was something like four hundred years old though most mistook him for a newly made wolf due to his general avoidance of responsibility, his possibly artificially constructed aura of immaturity, and his habit of drifting into somewhat risky bestial behaviors. The last one was common for the newly turned due to their unfamiliar relationship with their wolves, but many suspected that Daniel had always been more wolf than man anyway, though his mastery of puppy dog eyes and pining could often tempt them to forget it. His great grandmother, who was also a werewolf, more or less ran his surviving family, and when she wasn’t busy marching them around like a psuedo army, she was trying to make him into a more respectable member of the community, which often meant trying to make him challenge one of the alphas or advance in position in the local pack. As things were he was content to make comic books, and tutor some of the remnants of his brother’s dojo which had been left in his care after he died. He was not surprised, though thoroughly annoyed when his great grandmother had took it upon herself to revive an alliance of sorts with one of the hunding families and so, after abandoning his brothers estate to the dog shifters who had cared for it for years, as, he was quoted saying “it was more theirs than mine anyway” he was still shackled to some of the more questionable traditions of his family.

The hunding he was paired with was a female named Bethany, and she was “pretty hot” as he said it, with nice curly brown hair, a healthy ruddy complexion, “A great rack” as he also said, and strong form trained for fighting. His grandmother explained that she was to be his guard, his sword, shield, and companion through war and peace. Though what she meant was “put a baby in her so that I can raise cute children and finally get some use out of you.” Daniel was tempted by the allure of her...hot flesh, but interacting with others was not his strong suit, and the prospect of creating life was disturbing to him at the best of times. Although werewolves would mostly live until they were killed, either in combat, or by each other, stuck in a state of fit youthful adulthood, the hunding had slightly more conventional deathspans. They could survive for a while, often reaching the end of their adolescents within their first ten years of breathing, and from their aging at about a tenth the rate of most humans, and though few did it was not impossible to see some, a bit grey haired and wrinkly, who survived to about a thousand years. So one of the plans Daniel was relying on involved more or less outliving his new companion. She was supposedly something like two hundred years old but Daniel was as patient as he was unorthodoxly cunning.

Daniel played a game called Cardinal Beasts or something like that. It mostly dealt with a strange balancing of cosmic energies using alchemic elements as well as primal world knowledge. In theory it could be used for anything as a player could just as simply build a row of stone buildings as they could a band of shape shifting hunters. Daniel’s style was focused around the grooming of chaos with his signature formula dealing with the sacrifice/hunting of foxes. Oddly enough, amongst his people, he was known as one of the best fox trackers and enders in the terrain as the creatures were fond of drifting too close to the affairs of werewolves, so perhaps he was a man of oddly sturdy positioning. His weapon of choice in both cards and flesh was typically a crossbow though his method relied very much on the subtle rearranging of his opponents terrain under the cover of an array of invisibility. This “cloak” of sorts was made of many cards both offensive and defensive though it’s effectiveness was boosted to extraordinary extremes by a perverse sense of timing which was one of Daniel’s more mysterious talents.

There was another person who was almost as quality a player as Daniel, another werewolf named Louis. People weren’t exactly sure just how old or young Louis was as he had a habit of feeding people to their own perceptions or assumptions and so was often as old, as young, as tall, as short, as beautiful or as ugly as people wanted or needed him to be. All he required was for them to witness. Louis had a slightly different style though it was no less effective in it’s own right. Louis was known for his ability to destroy other werewolves, both in cards and in flesh. He had a tendency to make a pack eat or run down his target which was often one of their own, or pulling those powerful within their terrains out of said those terrains often of their own volition. The latter method was often simpler to explain away if too much questioning dialogue was drawn or crafted. He could occasionally disguise himself as one of the packmembers, no one in particular, just a passing face they had no reason not to recognize. This allowed him to kill from the inside out. If he was destroying a whole pack he could utilize a band of crafty huntsmen or the local army encampment, or a strange spell he could summon but would not hold due to his natural suspicion about magic. You could say that he was cloaked in his own way as well.

Though both well armored and well armed, instead of being annoyed by the presence of the other they seemed to be more or less entertained by the other’s existence as well as eager to test their skills against the other’s hand. Some outsiders would even host bets on who would best who on which day or turn, and if we’re being honest, it was a vaguely lucrative source of fun, if slightly tragic.

Occasionally When Daniel Went hunting, he would invite Louis to accompany him. Of course Bethany was there as well, which often put Louis on edge because he did not entirely trust the hunding or anyone for that matter. It seemed that a partner in cards to him was much different from the bodyguard of your packmember. Louis was often curious about observing Daniel’s patterns in the flesh, and though Daniel’s prey was often more vulpine, Louis returned the favor by occasionally inviting him to observe him bring justice to a wolf who had broken a few too many laws. Daniel was never entirely sure if these had been official jobs, as Louis was a member of the local system of enforcement, but he tried not to forget that some people were always looking for a golden opportunity to fell something which was most likely already teetering downward. Louis might say something like “accelerating the inevitable”.

They took horses with them for this mission. There had been reports of bandits near one of the villages hugging some of the common roads for cargo transport. The fox-changers or the Vulpine-Exchange as some of the more organized gatherings called themselves were generally opportunistic. Most were foolish though resourceful, but a rare few actually had a degree of genuine cleverness to them. Most were dangerous for one reason or another but the latter breed could apply this danger to a wide assembly of profits, or concentrated and long lasting societal/cultural wounds. Humans wished they were so effective, and though they could be annoying for different reasons, generally speaking they were more or less buffers for the cosmic forces of true greatness. It was for this reason Daniel didn’t mind routing out some rogues or highwaymen, but having to squash a couple of humans was boring work, and a sign that his senses had been keen but not keen enough to capture the great prey he had been tracking. They were pretty quick these foxes, and flexible, like cats but with greater familiarity to more lupine or canine mannerisms. If curiosity killed the cat, hilarity killed the fox.

The three dismounted and killed the first of the bandits patrolling their choke points. They were mostly human but Daniel managed to land a killing blow on one of the foxes in disguise. He wasn’t exactly sure what fueled their transformations, they had a habit of disrupting rules rather than adhering to them, though one had once suggested that they each paid subtly differing tithes to allow themselves the shifting of shape. This was a slight relief to daniel as he feared they were simply dumb witches or skinwalkers with too much time on their hands but it seemed they actually did have some culture and art to claim. He’d even read somewhere that certain lineages held special skills. They tracked around for a while, picking off foxy stragglers, before a taste of their blood revealed the location of their primary den which was, more or less an oddly contorted dimensional cave.

Daniel was more or less entertained though Louis seemed disturbed and Bethany was busy keeping her sword at the ready and trying to be less irked by her wolf’s peculiar disinterest in her. She believed herself quite interesting and though she’d been weird she’d been liked well enough. Well, in truth most people believed her to be something of a pariah and pretty bitchy at times but those who had sat down and actually talked to her knew that her bitchiness was a pretty smart survival tactic. Daniel didn’t seem to care either way though, he just seemed to like killing things and drawing, often drifting into maniacal laughter with both hobbies. The fox-changers put up a pretty good fight, but they’d stumbled on them during their meal time, which meant they were mostly unprepared, but gods were their traps as peculiar as they were plentiful. Much of Louis confusion came from the fact that, you could say, he was used to having more honorable prey, though honor didn’t always make for a useful person. Having to deal with so much lawlessness and blatant perversion of anything resembling stability, was a little too much for his usual sensibilities.

They killed the chief fox-changer, and were going to leave things there; well Daniel wanted to take his head as a confirmation of completion but Bethany told him his habits were too disgusting sometimes, so he rolled his eyes and relented. Instead though they were confronted with a conundrum of sorts. There were three foxes left which they had missed in the carnage. One looked something like an adult perhaps the mother or an older sister, as she still looked young enough. The second girl seemed smack dab in the middle of adolescence, while the boy seemed to be just teetering towards its edge. He had sandy hair, the oldest long dark waves, and the middle a short fiery crown with freckles. They were all pale of skin as opposed to Louis and Daniels very dark almost smoky complexions. The oldest more or less pleaded for their lives, saying that they had been abducted by this band who had terrible plans in mind for their persons before the lupine intervention liberated them. She said she’d do anything if they took them in, which got some of the more devilish ideas in Daniel’s mind cooking, but Louis stated that the pack would frown on inviting strangers into their domain. Then the woman, who was sister to the younger two, said that she would even sell herself into slavery if they’d provide for the other two. It was at this point that Daniel felt a little uneasy about it all, as if all at once he was becoming too much the bad guy in this particular cosmic play, and though he could play a mean archvillain, this was all much too petty for his tastes. He said he’d hire them as his servants if that would stop her from disgracing herself so damn much. It was depressing as he put it.

At this Bethany gave him a mildly horrified expression, looking a little sad as if he was going to replace her. He rolled her eyes and assured her that he doubted those sorry sacks would be as good in a brawl as she was. This seemed to put a little more fire back into her bearing, but Daniel was still disturbed by the quality execution of her puppy dog eyes. He almost started petting her. That would have been awkward. Louis was still weary of the “cargo” they had to escort home, though Daniel made it clear that he had done far more questionable deeds in his own right so he had no reason to complain, plus they could confirm that they had, in fact accomplished their mission.

The young boy was short tempered but witty, the middle sister was competitive but contemplative, and the oldest sister was creative but clearly manipulative. Daniel found it hard to explain to strangers why he found keeping what many would consider his mortal enemies as household fellows so thrilling. He told them it was purely an educational experience, but he couldn’t help remarking the sexiness of the females, the hot feuds which rose up between Bethany and the dark haired fox woman as they vied for his acknowledgement of their prowess, and the potential the younger ones presented of being able to train viable apprentices. It seemed their own kind had treated them just as bad as anyone else had, so they had few problems learning a few tricks to tracking down their kin and running them through.

The boy’s name was Sean, the middle girl Charlotte, and the oldest girl Margot. Apparently the life spans of their kind varied as much as their skillset and lineage traits, with some being as ancient as the first stones, and others capping at seventeen years of age. Charlotte suggested that their time shifted based on who they surrounded themselves with, and harkened it back to something their dead parents told them about the company you keep. Sean was about 12, Charlotte was something like 16, and Margot was 19. Of course this was all in fox years so Daniel had no absolute idea how it translated into wolf logic.

Margot seemed to like trying to tempt Daniel to allow her into his bed, and she almost had him a couple of times but he was a crafty man himself. Still in his dreams he all but unhinged using her and his desires as he pleased. When he foiled her schemes she seemed to like trying to make him jealous by flirting up visitors, but Daniel had long since given up on romantic ideals, except in stories of course, so many of her actions were wasted. Still this did not stop him from occasionally requiring Bethany to share his sleeping quarters because “he had a bad feeling that night” or him inquiring about Charlotte's occasional “nightmares” and how she might want someone warm to hold her while she slept. It was not a surprise to anyone except maybe sean that these rather hot nights directly corresponded to Margot’s lack of restraint in her affections. .

#Dogs Wolves Death Heat

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funface2 · 5 years

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55 of Tim Vine’s most hilarious jokes and one-liners – iNews

Here are 55 of the comic master’s most ingenious jokes and one-liners:

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“I’d like to start with the chimney jokes – I’ve got a stack of them. The first one is on the house.”

“I did a gig in a fertility clinic. I got a standing ovulation.”

“I had a dream last night that I was cutting carrots with the Grim Reaper – dicing with death.”

“I rang up British Telecom and said: ‘I want to report a nuisance caller.’ He said: ‘Not you again.’”

“I saw this bloke chatting-up a cheetah and I thought: ‘He’s trying to pull a fast one.’”

“The advantages of easy origami are two-fold.”

“I rang up my local swimming baths. I said: ‘Is that the local swimming baths?’ He said: ‘It depends where you’re calling from.’”

The ‘king of one-liners’, Tim Vine (Photo: Getty)

“I said to the gym instructor: ‘Can you teach me to do the splits?’ He said: ‘How flexible are you?’ I said: ‘I can’t make Tuesdays.’”

“I’m against hunting. In fact, I’m a hunt saboteur. I go out the night before and shoot the fox.”

“This policeman came up to me with a pencil and a piece of very thin paper. He said, ‘I want you to trace someone for me.’”

“I met this bloke with a didgeridoo and he was playing Dancing Queen on it. I thought, ‘that’s Abba-riginal.’”

“I’ve decided to sell my Hoover – it was just collecting dust.”

“I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me ‘Can you give me a lift?’ I said ‘Sure, you look great, the world’s your oyster, go for it.’”

“I went down the local supermarket. I said: ‘I want to make a complaint – this vinegar’s got lumps in it.’ He said: ‘Those are pickled onions.’”

“I’ll tell you what I love doing more than anything – trying to pack myself in a small suitcase. I can hardly contain myself.”

“I was at sea the other day and loads of meat floated past. It was a bit choppy.”

“You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen, it said ‘Parking Fine.’ So that was nice.”

“I’m so lazy I’ve got a smoke alarm with a snooze button.”

“I’ve spent the afternoon re-arranging the furniture in Dracula’s house. I was doing a bit of Fang-Shui.”

“I was stealing things in the supermarket today while balanced on the shoulders of vampires. I was charged with shoplifting on three counts.”

“Uncle Ben has died. No more Mr Rice Guy.”

“I once did a gig in a zoo. I got babooned off.”

“Eric Bristow asked me why I put superglue on one of his darts. I said ‘you just can’t let it go can you?’”

“I saw this advert in a window that said: ‘Television for sale, £1, volume stuck on full.’ I thought, ‘I can’t turn that down.’”

“I’ve just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I’ll tell you what, never again.”

“Conjunctivitis.com – that’s a site for sore eyes.”

“Do you ever get that when you’re half way through eating a horse and you think to yourself, ‘I’m not as hungry as I thought I was?’”

“Black Beauty – now there’s a dark horse.”

Tim Vine has won numerous best joke awards (Photo: Getty)

“I was reading a book – ‘The History of Glue’ – I couldn’t put it down.”

“I got home, and the phone was ringing. I picked it up, and said ‘Who’s speaking please?’ And a voice said ‘You are.’”

“Exit signs? They’re on the way out!”

“Velcro? What a rip-off!”

“I went to buy a watch, and the man in the shop said ‘Analogue?’ I said ‘No, just a watch.’”

“I was in this restaurant and I asked for something herby. They gave me a Volkswagen with no driver.”

“I went to the doctor. I said to him ‘I’m frightened of lapels.’ He said, ‘You’ve got cholera.’”

“I met the bloke who invented crosswords today. I can’t remember his name, it’s P-something T-something R…”

“A friend of mine always wanted to be run over by a steam train. When it happened, he was chuffed to bits!”

“I was in the army once and the Sergeant said to me: ‘What does surrender mean?’ I said: ‘I give up!’”

“This bloke said to me: ‘I’m going to attack you with the neck of a guitar.’ I said: ‘Is that a fret?’”

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“I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger eating a chocolate egg. I said: ‘I bet I know what your favourite Christian festival is.’ He said: ‘You have to love Easter, baby.’”

“I used go out with an anaesthetist – she was a local girl.”

“Crime in multi-storey car parks. That is wrong on so many different levels.”

“I went to a Pretenders concert. It was a tribute act.”

“I went into a shop and I said, ‘Can someone sell me a kettle?’ The bloke said ‘Kenwood?’ I said, ‘Where is he?’”

“I went in to a pet shop. I said, ‘Can I buy a goldfish?’ The guy said, ‘Do you want an aquarium?’ I said, ‘I don’t care what star sign it is.’”

“You know, I’m not very good at magic – I can only do half of a trick. I’m a member of the Magic Semi-circle.”

“My next door neighbour worships exhaust pipes. He’s a catholic converter.”

“He said ‘I’m going to chop off the bottom of one of your trouser legs and put it in a library’. I thought ‘That’s a turn-up for the books.’”

“And the back of his anorak was leaping up and down, and people were chucking money to him. I said ‘Do you earn a living doing that?’ He said ‘Yes, this is my livelihood.’”

“I bought some Armageddon cheese today, and it said on the packet ‘Best Before End…’”

“So this bloke says to me, ‘Can I come in your house and talk about your carpets?’ I thought ‘That’s all I need, a Je-hoover’s witness.’”

“So Batman came up to me & he hit me over the head with a vase & he went ‘T’PAU!’ I said ‘Don’t you mean KAPOW??’ He said ‘No, I’ve got china in my hand.’”

More jokes:

Paul Merton’s 36 best jokes and funniest one-liners from Have I Got News for You 38 of the funniest cat jokes and memes Jeremy Hardy: remembering the comedian’s funniest jokes and quotes 34 of the best Valentine’s Day jokes and funniest one-liners 30 of Michael McIntyre’s best jokes and funniest one-liners Best father of the bride jokes for a wedding speech to remember 100 best Christmas jokes and funniest festive season one-liners 100 of the funniest dirty jokes that will make you laugh and gasp Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer’s 41 best jokes and most surreal quotes 30 of the best jokes about Theresa May 25 of Dara Ó Briain’s best jokes and funniest quotes 38 of the funniest Russell Howard jokes The 28 funniest Greg Davies jokes and quotes The best Graham Norton jokes and most scathing put-downs Here are 10 of the funniest jokes written by kids 35 of the funniest jokes by Northern comedians The 31 funniest South Park jokes and quotes 100 of the funniest ever jokes and best one-liners 100 of the best knock knock jokes (some of which are actually funny) 26 of Seann Walsh’s greatest jokes 16 of Barry Chuckle’s greatest jokes 34 of Lee Evans’ funniest jokes and quotes 30 of Romesh Ranganathan’s funniest jokes and quotes 26 of Sara Pascoe’s funniest jokes and quotes 41 of Eddie Izzard’s funniest jokes and quotes 41 of David Mitchell’s funniest jokes and quotes 21 of Rhod Gilbert’s funniest jokes and one-liners 45 of the funniest 8 out of 10 Cats jokes 41 of Stewart Francis’ most ingenious jokes and one-liners 19 of the funniest World Cup jokes from stand-up comedians 30 of Jack Whitehall’s funniest jokes 43 of the funniest Donald Trump jokes 100 pun-based jokes that will make you laugh and cringe 50 Edinburgh Fringe one-liners that deserved to win Funniest Joke 31 Best Man jokes that will work for any wedding 100 of the funniest short jokes that will have you laughing in seconds 105 of the best bad jokes 105 of the best clean jokes and one-liners 50 football jokes to make you laugh – or groan 100 of the best jokes for kids that are actually funny 25 of Peter Kay’s most ingenious jokes and one-liners 26 of Stewart Lee’s most gloriously acerbic jokes 49 of Monty Python’s funniest jokes 45 of Ricky Gervais’ funniest jokes 17 of Ken Dodd’s most ingeniously funny jokes 27 of Sarah Millican’s laugh out loud jokes 50 of Jimmy Carr’s funniest jokes and one-liners 50 of Milton Jones’s most ingenious jokes and one-liners 50 of Tim Vine’s most ingenious jokes and one-liners 50 of Frankie Boyle’s funniest (and darkest) jokes 25 of Charlie Brooker’s most cutting jokes and insults 25 of Lee Mack’s wittiest jokes and one-liners 75 of Billy Connolly’s best jokes, one-liners and quips 30 of the best-ever jokes about Scotland – from Scotland

And some hilarious quotes:

29 best Gavin and Stacey quotes and funniest jokes from James Corden and Ruth Jones’ comedy 38 of the funniest Ron Swanson quotes that made Parks and Recreation unmissable 31 Richard Madeley quotes, gaffes and surreal moments that prove he truly is Alan Partridge Valentine’s poems: 32 most romantic quotes from history’s greatest poets 38 of the most darkly funny League of Gentlemen quotes 41 of the funniest quotes from The Good Place about life and death 30 of Stephen Fry’s funniest jokes and quotes Burt Reynolds’ greatest quotes – remembering the actor’s wit and wisdom following his death aged 82 23 of Outnumbered’s funniest (and possibly unscripted) quotes) 35 of Blackadder’s most cunning quips and insults 29 of the most outlandishly funny Mighty Boosh quotes 20 of the most absurdly funny quotes from Nathan Barley 39 of the greatest Brass Eye and Day Today quotes 25 of the most outrageous Summer Heights High quotes 25 of Rik Mayall’s greatest quotes 25 of the funniest ever Still Game quotes 50 of the funniest Father Ted quotes Red Dwarf: 30 of the funniest quotes and one-liners Derry Girls: 35 of the funniest quotes and one-liners 25 of the most cantankerous Martin Crane quotes from Frasier 25 of the most ‘textbook’ Alan Partridge quotes 50 of the best lines from Peep Show 20 of The Young Ones’ most gloriously silly quotes

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