Thursday, 12th April 2012
10:57:Hrs;
That was yesterday .. today’s another day .. In fact that was yesterday around mid-day .. and the afternoon was different and the evening was different again ..
Intellectually we all know every moment is new .. and of course it is ! So .. lucky us .. human beings .. maybe not appreciating enough the wonder and marvel of simply .. life .. perhaps not giving enough thanks .. I would like to .. right here and right now ..
Whoo ! where to start with what’s been going on ? Generally speaking of course .. too much information .. both giving and receiving so .. a precis maybe ..
Yesterday’s stuff in the afternoon will be on the other comp .. I went to it to try out the simplicity of being on the sofa with just the comp and no peripherals .. went to Ableton 8.2.2 because it has a lot of sounds and instruments that I don’t have available on the Lite or trial 8 versions .. Made a couple of tracks of weird sounds using clips and the Operator synth .. Fun .. a bit crazy but a relief from the rigors of trying to make straight music in such a complicated way and also from all that heavy beats DJ type music which I don’t even like much and Ableton seems so oriented towards .. It would be great if they were a bit more balanced in their approach and gave a few more ‘normal’ instrument sounds at a lower entry level .. It’s perhaps not what they are all about but it seems a shame that maybe there isn’t an equivalent level for straightforward sounds and music .. Pro Tools perhaps ? (I should write to Hashim) .. Maybe I could write to their support team / forum and suggest it ?
So .. when I had done that I stuck them with some photos on Picasa and did a couple of videos .. just banged out .. one with a short and more spacey track using images of the universe that I had collected about the Unleashed book cover, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq_UZ7-LO0s&context=C46dea66ADvjVQa1PpcFNhfdob5DaKstjUiMqlXGk4UHU08dt9hBI=
and the other one more crashing and weird and a bit longer using the images of comic answers to the search for Truth, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9jCfEvrnZI&context=C4b894a5ADvjVQa1PpcFNhfdob5DaKshd4B8GWSWMlI7Cihsq_69s=
.. Quite fun .. although of course nobody’s going to look at them ! ha haa .. Who can I direct to them ? Mahmoud .. Martin .. Vicki .. Jamal .. Patricia .. I just basically think it’s nothing they haven’t seen before and they’re all much too busy to spend time on that stuff .. (?) .. negative attitude ? well maybe .. or just realistic .. I don’t know .. Of course it begs the question of why do it in the first place .. (answer .. practice .. getting better .. gradually jacking up skills in all areas & how to get them onto the net .. which equates to ‘general release’ .. maybe in the vain hope that someone will find them and like them .. a bit like the thing that that dear old Oxford professor type said to me in Brighton .. “You write to be overheard.” .. and like Alix’s thing of calling my music “Songs from another room.” ss’O.K.)
Then there are all the people on Facebook .. but what to do there ? Many of them will give over the top praise which they tend to do in a spirit of lovee and spirituality and positive thinking but it is hardly objective or useful criticism .. I don’t think I need it and really perhaps I don’t want it because I already know how amateurish the efforts are .. just ideas chucked out and bits and pieces put together using the tehnology available at a general level these days to make some collages and to me they are fun .. but ..
So anyway .. I did that .. (I know in some ways I should put all this stuff on the ‘Just Me’ blog .. but .. I don’t think anyone would want to read it really .. and it is a bit embarrassing sometimes and I have this silly thing about having started it on a Tuesday) .. so again .. too much information .. the mind running on and maybe I should learn to control it .. There were some good comments on that thing I looked at last thing at night the other day .. Some Zen quotes or something and somewhere in there it was well expressed about the one who is talking doesn’t have time to learn or something like that ..
So where was I ? Mmm (I pop back and put some links in to the vids just in case I do blog all this crap) ..
And .. I suppose the point is .. absolutely dog tired and falling asleep at the comp, I decided to have a look what it would be like using the keyboard with Mixcraft (and maybe afterwards Fruity Loops and Cubase .. ) .. Well that was fun .. !
So easy actually .. not a bad piano sound and actually a quite good sax sound .. (thinks .. could I import VST instrument into Ableton somehow ? .. probably) ..
I did a meandering track of an unedited paino idea as it came to me and then trying out the sax and then adding some bass .. (after the fact, which is not good timing-wise but helps to suss out, a) what is really happening vis a vis chord changes and basic arrangement and b) some sort of skill in doing bass instead of just following the melody)
and finally some drums .. which though it is not a typical drum kit thing of driving the rhythm is more like an added percussion to emphasise and underline bits .. a skill which I am developing out of necessity ..
Alltogether .. though very rough it was quick and easy and had ‘something’ a slightly haunting laid back thing and I liked it enough to listen to it a few times .. there is the germ of an idea there and also I am aware all the time that the last couple of things I have tried on the piano (after many years away from it and very rusty) .. have a lyric feel .. they beg for words and to be made into songs ..
So .. of course .. I banged it up on SoundCloud .. here:
http://soundcloud.com/sufibridge/meandering-trail
and .. to my surprise ! .. there is one comment on it from a guy in Los Angeles .. saying “Nice track.” Well ! ..
So this morning I went back to have a listen and played around putting some effects on which make the whole sound more rich .. I ought to put that version up if it sounds that much better (tho then I’d lose my one fan ! unless I leave both up and I am rapidly running out of time of course .. If necessary I can buy a £29.00 one or even get the five months if I go for the Ableton upgrade .. We’ll see .)
So is that it then ? .. more or less .. Another development was .. as I am interested in that lovely sax sound I like so much on arrangements (remember those days when people like Van Morrison and Joni Mitchel went jazzy with such lovely arrangements .. ?) I went and listened to Stan Getz of which I have quite a lot in my music folder, much of which I haven’t listened to properly, and got quite intrigued around a track called “Amorous Cat.” which is on an album called Apasionado. I also watched a video of the track on UTube .. and, as usual was impressed by the size of the venues and the numbers of people, as well as thinking about all the money that must be generated and how wealthy he must have become .. I didn’t go into his biography, which jumped up everywhere, but while looking for the chords or some music to the track did end up on one of those Guitar sites and had a quick look at Wonderwall and the words and chords .. I can’t for the life of me think what it is that intrigues me about Noel Gallagher .. I suppose bright and gutsy and Irish Mancunian .. The words are clever/poetic and the chords interesting enough to go back and check up on .. Strange to think how one may see a bit of how his head works (at least vis a vis the guitar) by looking at the chord progressions ..
There was all this advice about a capo on the second fret and your two fingers remaining on the same strings and I don’t know what .. but actually the chords are what is interesting .. I am kind of stuck around a sound I like, which seems to have originated in that kind of Los Angeles, Carol King, Steve Stills era thing .. and seems to be something to do with white notes on the piano and an A minor key perhaps .. the relative minor to C major ? so it would be good to try something different.
Anyway .. that’s about it .. except that the chords to what I was doing last night are around Amin7th Emin7th F and G .. though I think not exactly that ..
I even wonder wether to try to find someone to teach me about music as I was thinking a couple of years ago when I first arrived down here all ‘up’ and full of the joys of Spring and a new start etc etc ..
Hey ho .. Life is good all is well ..
Thursday, 12 April 2012
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Just Me.
Page 10
Tuesday, 10th April 2012
06:55:Hrs;
Hi, good morning, still crazy after all these years .. yess .. but .. I can hear my father saying “If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no tinkers left to mend them.”
Funny how I am thinking of him a bit recently in relation to things in his life as well as mine .. There’s a sad lump of pain when I think of him .. Why wouldn’t there be ? It’s how I experienced him .. in the phase of his life when the results of his ‘misbehaviour’ in the church had finally brought his whole life tumbling down and here he was with two kids and a very emotional and neurotic, though attractive and bright, wife.
I don’t think I want to go into all that right now .. it’s a tangled web which brings little result but it was just nice to have been to his school that day with Patricia and, through a series of strange circumstances, connected with a phase of his life, prior to my birth, when he was an energetic and sporting and bright young man with some ideology ..
It was a whole different view of him which brought immense relief from the pain I had been carrying about him all my life as well as completely changing my view of him and enabling more love and respect for him.
I have been in a state of irritation and almost humiliation particularly with regard to the music .. It is fairly clear that what little talent I had is somewhat diminished .. There was a time when I did some interesting and likeable things on the piano and also I could play some pretty good rythmic guitar with interesting chords and made a few little whistful songs with a mystic air .
I have a sneaking feeling that all this is leading up to an admittance that it might be best to leave the music .. as I had already done prior to this intense phase ..with its sort of mad ‘last shot’ tendency and all the complications and frustrations of digital technology ..
The worst of it though (or maybe the best .. who knows ?) is that behind that is the feeling that writing is really what I ought to do .. I have to admit that it is what I would always have dreamed of doing especially at about this age and living in the South West ..
I could go off into a long thing about the manifesting thoughts or dreams thing LoA or Law of Attraction .. in relation to where I am living and what I am doing .. However ..
Here I am and as the old Zen monk replied to the novice’s question. “What’s next ?” .. “Nothing, this is it.” ..
It’s like that really .. he said, going off into a thing about not starting sentences with “and” .. though really it is a new sentence and it does start with ‘and’ .. which serves as a sort of “Umm” .. at the beginning of a new phrase rather than joining it to the previous phrase.
“Foolish, foolish, foolish nonsense.” .. says the voice in my head .. I wonder why I always have to put myself down for being disperse and complicated .. as well as many other things .. If I believe in God and Unity and the perfection of imperfection then why can’t I accept me ? I would suppose because that is the very perfection of imperfection .. that I just can’t accept my imperfections is the essence of my perfect imperfection ..
However .. one would suppose that the I that is looking at that is free from the liking or the not liking .. it is the one which can observe precisely because it is not identified with the egoic or false self .. It is closer to the Real Self which is the Self of all.
The very thought of it brought that disidentification and I easily got up and left the table where I am writing and felt all that tension of being trapped inside duality and the illusory world , just drop away .. As I looked at the pen and the penknife lying on the writing pad in front of me, where I had been trying to sketch out a song yesterday, I saw the perfection of their positions and relative positions .. the empty mug from my tea was exactly where it should have been and everything began to glow with a kind of “isness”.. an inner reality connected to the fact that it could not possible be any other way. I went & sat on the sofa in wonderment at the beauty of the countryside outside and the sunlight as it gradually filters into the valley where I am living.
First comes a connection to the underlying unity .. then comes a kind of swimming in it ..
Yesterday while trying to write this song (which I have never done on the piano before) .. an image came about the fabric and the design upon it ..We miss the underlying unity when we are entranced by the variety of its manifestation .. being in duality is like being always aware of only the design on the fabric .. the surface nature of things .. then comes the realisation of the fabric .. then comes a stepping back and realising that both are one in non-duality the cloth and the design .. andd then a further realisation that the supposed separate me that is observing all this is none other than what is also .. there is in fact no separation .. the fabric the design the observation, the observer the observing and the observed are all one ..
The idealistic hope is that a general realisation of this truth .. the Truth behind illusion and then the realisation that the illusion is also The Truth .. that in fact there is nowhere to go and nothing to do .. it is all right here right now exactly as it is and unfolding exactly as it should .. and in reality there probably is no unfolding except to an observer limited by time and space .. The idealistic hope, is that the spread of that realisation, & a consequent raising of consciousness, would be the answer to solve the world’s problems and save us from the imminent self-destruction of the human race and much of this planet.
That last tiny thread of separation .. of hanging on to a separate me .. Allowing the unity .. the flow, the dissolving of the separate I .. It is all perfect right here right now .. the tapping of the typewriter keys .. the chirping of the birds outside .. the changes in the weather .. a slight chill and dampness in the air after an almost Mediterranean heat a week ago .. Doesn’t matter .. all is exactly perfectly right with no deviation right or left and no judgement .. Just is as it is because it must be and should be and can be no other way ..
Why the dissatisfaction ? One must learn to be satisified even with the dissatisfaction .. total acceptance of any circumstance or thing exactly as it is dissolves all the pain of dualistic judging and wanting anything in God’s perfect arrangement to be any other way ..
Pilsdon .. I don’t know why I think of that suddenly .. probably beecause it was the last time I tried to live with anyone in a community way and was sorely tested by others and had to work hard at accepting things being in a way which I did not like or approve of ..
The work here on my own is to accept what I don’t like in myself .. constantly confronted by my own ego and thoughts and finding my ‘self’ hard to live with .. a solution has to be found.
For some reason I got a bit intrigued by Noel Gallagher yesterday .. I had seen him being very amusing on the Graham Norton show .. and BBC iPlayer mentioned a Catch Up thing on an interview with Mark Lawson .. apart from the frustration of realising that catch up really meant ‘missed it’ .. or ‘what you missed’ precisely the opposite of catch up .. just emphasising the fact that it was too late to catch up .. as I say .. apart from that frustration .. I was able to observe in the clip that he has this incredibly competitive thing .. He has got to be on top with the quick put down and the “I’m the best.” “We’re the best.” attitude .. It all emphasised the emptiness of that whole thing .. yes .. attractive and amusing .. but what an ego one must have to have, and what ambition !
I have neither of those things .. not in a self confident get to the top way .. However perhaps it is a sort of sour grapes thing and in fact my way of being number one and always on top is to make sure that no one else is around to stop me having everything exactly my own way when I need & how I like it ..
I suppose .. any kind of enlightenment experience I may have is nearly always of the lonely poetic kind .. certainly not of the universal love kind .. useful and helpful to other people .. but then here I go again putting myself down .. Is there no escape ?
I wanted my writing to be useful .. and or interesting .. but basically I think it is mainly of interest to myself .. and even I cannot go back and read it sometimes .. the negative states it reflects being of no apparent use to anybody and only generating a kind of distaste ..
A strange thought came to me this morning in relation to my funny little musical attempts .. I was filled with dread and embarrassment to think that actually what I have put on SoundCloud is absolute crap .. emphasised by the fact that it all appears on Face Book too .. and was perhaps exagerating the nature of their musical ineptitude in my mind .. It was then that I realised that I actually have come to rather like the weird ‘unmusical’ ones best .. the ones where I am not trying to be ‘musical’ as such .. just making strange sound poems .. blank verse rather than clever rhyme schemes if you like .. and as I thought about them I internally referred to them as ‘my babies’ and it was then that I realised how it is that a mother can so love a child even if it is ugly or in some way deformed or has an impediment .. It is precisely that deformity or impediment that increases the love .. The child is simply loved .. and is loved for that deformity not in spite of it .. That is obviously why love is such a solvent for everything .. it transcends the opposites and only the perfection of things as they really are is seen.
In that spirit .. I wonder if I can return to trying to make a little music and even try to finish this song ? ..
After all .. the song is trying once again to express the inexpressible and may end by sounding trite .. I don’t know .. As I sang along the melody in the car on the way to Bridport yesterday I did think it sounded rather ordinary .. It is so hard to be objective about one’s own attempts at creativity ..
I suppose the thing is that it is disappointing after all these years to find that one has been writing and writing and writing, for instance, or attempting music over and over again, without any real advancement .. merely repeating the same old mistakes ..
However hopes and fears are exactly the essence of duality and what keeps one trapped there all the time ..
One could say that the very wanting of enlightenment is precisely what stops us from attaining it ..
And practical eperience reality says that the lack of wanting it enough is probably what really stops us ! .. And another aspect or reality also says .. it is written for the one who obtains it and it cannot be any other way and he who is supposed to be enlightened will be and he who isn’t .. won’t ..
So also one could say that if we all knew and totally accepted that, we’d probably all be enlightened !
--------------------------------------------------------------
08:49:Hrs; Funny to have to write all that stuff out even just to start the day .. but .. it is what I do .. that’s my way .. trying to change it .. or wanting to change it just makes me unhappy .. judging it in any way makes me unhappy .. I suppose I must just allow it .. I wonder wether to chuck it up on a blog or two .. ? Well at least one ..
I really still should have a blog which is nothing more than just my diary online .. “Just me.” or something .. take it or leave it but not pretending to be a “non-dualist” or a sufi or anything else .. just me .. (Unique just like everybody else).
09:59:Hrs;
Well .. I did that .. and found the new blogger thing .. well .. O.K. but like everything else it all moves all the time and all the improvements just keep one in a constant state of learning all the new updates ..
I did see some stuff to edit but found that quite hard to find .. and then .. when I found it I was too tired and exhausted and hungry to find all the words again in the edit version ..
Also I realised that I never said what I was going to .. which is that giving up the music again to concentrate on the writing is only probably like taking up the music again in the first place .. i.e. another illusion or delusion and to be followed by the inevitable disillusion ..
If I can just accept that it is what I do .. with no agenda and no apparent use .. then O.K. ..
of course being me and the way that I am I also worry about the fact that I started this one on a Tuesday .. the “devil’s day” of the week according to traditional Islam .. a day generally without barakah or blessing .. not a good day on which to start anything new ..
10:34:Hrs;
Trying to find the ‘proper’ way to underline a short line (like the time) & then quit the underline with no problems .. seems very complicated in this new Word ..
Going to look at Noel Gallagher’s web site for (what?) don’t remember now .. end up with some comment from Paul Weller and then finding NME .. so strange but also so nice to see people like Roger Daltrey talking .. all those guys have generally become such good blokes .. Some kind of nobility gets generated by all the experience and the power that money linked with communication and the power to influence people brings ..
Now I remember what it was .. trying to connect with his Twitter page to see what it throws up from time to time .. seems that if you put his name in a search you get loads of stuff with his name mentioned but not a link to his tweets ?
When I go to his website there is a link to his on the road diary but so much guff thrown at you (as usual) and so much signing up nonsense (as usual) that I just drop it before I even find out if he has anything interesting to say or there is some kind of reflection of the experience he has on tour ..
Anyway .. did it again and this time was easy using the FB sign in thing .. annoying in a way that they all want a piece of the action .. so the cleverest one wins, as usual .. which so often these days is FB .. I see they have just bought Instagram for a billion dollars (!) ..
One great new thing about Blogger is that I can copy and paste my stuff straight out of the new Word without having to change all the font sizes and so on .. wether that is the new Blogger or the new Word or both I don't know .. but .. keeping up with the new certainly helps in this techy digiworld.
Realization is but the opposite of ignorance. To take the world as real and one's self as unreal is ignorance, the cause of sorrow. To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also see yourself as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The same mirror that shows you the world as it is, will also show you your own face. The thought "I am" is the polishing cloth. Use it.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
11:27:Hrs;I try to go to the stuff I was doing yesterday but it all sounds pretty hopeless .. the fact that the violin makes that crazy scraping noise just palls me into a state of hopelessness fearing that it may be due to the CPU and if not .. how long will I spend trying to sort that one out ?
The piano playing varies and the idea of singing when I may be overheard puts me off .. (especially knowing that my voice hardly works for speaking now .. it gets so little use as I never see anyone) ..
I’m loathe to try and do it all again .. & have nearly lost all interest ..my last and only hope is to do stuff as I used to .. but I’ve forgotten what I did then ..all that messing around with clips and cutting bits up as they do in other DAWs ..
Bah ! I’ll have a little play around maybe .. but I despair of producing anything worthwhile listenable to or now .. even interesting .. the expenditure and the rigours of technology have spoiled it for me ..
Turn on the program again and .. no midi signal as is so often the way .. I just can’t be bothered with it .. I have lost interest and have to accept that I wasted my money ..
don’t know wether I want to change this keyboard before the month is up .. I’m completely fed up with it all now .. have to make up my mind when that pain is not screwing into the heart and the head and the humiliation ..
13:50:Hrs;
O.K. .. I’ve done something new in Live 8 .. thrown up loads of things of course as usual .. however .. not to be too negative ..
1) I managed to make a reasonable drum pattern.
2) I managed to make a reasonable organ clip.
3) I managed to make a reasonable guitar audio clip.
4) I whacked out some words and sang/spoke them.
5) I mixed it all and found fairly suitable effects
6) I sussed out the returns thing.
7) I did the transposing in both the note view and the audio view for the guitar and organ.
There are obviously many many anomolies and rough edges but .. as a rough first draft that is a great improvement on some of the other crazy experiments .. by which I mean I have a small measure of control and a better understanding of the software ..
All your going and coming, seeking pleasure, loving and hating - all this shows that you struggle against limitations, self-imposed or accepted. In your ignorance, you make mistakes and cause pain to yourself and others, but the urge is there and shall not be denied. The same urge that seeks birth, happiness and death, shall seek understanding and liberation. It is like a spark of fire in a cargo of cotton. You may not know about it, but sooner or later the ship will burst in flames. Liberation is a natural process and, in the long run, inevitable. But it is within your power to bring it into the now.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
I could put that on my blog ? .. generally true no ?
Tuesday, 10th April 2012
06:55:Hrs;
Hi, good morning, still crazy after all these years .. yess .. but .. I can hear my father saying “If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no tinkers left to mend them.”
Funny how I am thinking of him a bit recently in relation to things in his life as well as mine .. There’s a sad lump of pain when I think of him .. Why wouldn’t there be ? It’s how I experienced him .. in the phase of his life when the results of his ‘misbehaviour’ in the church had finally brought his whole life tumbling down and here he was with two kids and a very emotional and neurotic, though attractive and bright, wife.
I don’t think I want to go into all that right now .. it’s a tangled web which brings little result but it was just nice to have been to his school that day with Patricia and, through a series of strange circumstances, connected with a phase of his life, prior to my birth, when he was an energetic and sporting and bright young man with some ideology ..
It was a whole different view of him which brought immense relief from the pain I had been carrying about him all my life as well as completely changing my view of him and enabling more love and respect for him.
I have been in a state of irritation and almost humiliation particularly with regard to the music .. It is fairly clear that what little talent I had is somewhat diminished .. There was a time when I did some interesting and likeable things on the piano and also I could play some pretty good rythmic guitar with interesting chords and made a few little whistful songs with a mystic air .
I have a sneaking feeling that all this is leading up to an admittance that it might be best to leave the music .. as I had already done prior to this intense phase ..with its sort of mad ‘last shot’ tendency and all the complications and frustrations of digital technology ..
The worst of it though (or maybe the best .. who knows ?) is that behind that is the feeling that writing is really what I ought to do .. I have to admit that it is what I would always have dreamed of doing especially at about this age and living in the South West ..
I could go off into a long thing about the manifesting thoughts or dreams thing LoA or Law of Attraction .. in relation to where I am living and what I am doing .. However ..
Here I am and as the old Zen monk replied to the novice’s question. “What’s next ?” .. “Nothing, this is it.” ..
It’s like that really .. he said, going off into a thing about not starting sentences with “and” .. though really it is a new sentence and it does start with ‘and’ .. which serves as a sort of “Umm” .. at the beginning of a new phrase rather than joining it to the previous phrase.
“Foolish, foolish, foolish nonsense.” .. says the voice in my head .. I wonder why I always have to put myself down for being disperse and complicated .. as well as many other things .. If I believe in God and Unity and the perfection of imperfection then why can’t I accept me ? I would suppose because that is the very perfection of imperfection .. that I just can’t accept my imperfections is the essence of my perfect imperfection ..
However .. one would suppose that the I that is looking at that is free from the liking or the not liking .. it is the one which can observe precisely because it is not identified with the egoic or false self .. It is closer to the Real Self which is the Self of all.
The very thought of it brought that disidentification and I easily got up and left the table where I am writing and felt all that tension of being trapped inside duality and the illusory world , just drop away .. As I looked at the pen and the penknife lying on the writing pad in front of me, where I had been trying to sketch out a song yesterday, I saw the perfection of their positions and relative positions .. the empty mug from my tea was exactly where it should have been and everything began to glow with a kind of “isness”.. an inner reality connected to the fact that it could not possible be any other way. I went & sat on the sofa in wonderment at the beauty of the countryside outside and the sunlight as it gradually filters into the valley where I am living.
First comes a connection to the underlying unity .. then comes a kind of swimming in it ..
Yesterday while trying to write this song (which I have never done on the piano before) .. an image came about the fabric and the design upon it ..We miss the underlying unity when we are entranced by the variety of its manifestation .. being in duality is like being always aware of only the design on the fabric .. the surface nature of things .. then comes the realisation of the fabric .. then comes a stepping back and realising that both are one in non-duality the cloth and the design .. andd then a further realisation that the supposed separate me that is observing all this is none other than what is also .. there is in fact no separation .. the fabric the design the observation, the observer the observing and the observed are all one ..
The idealistic hope is that a general realisation of this truth .. the Truth behind illusion and then the realisation that the illusion is also The Truth .. that in fact there is nowhere to go and nothing to do .. it is all right here right now exactly as it is and unfolding exactly as it should .. and in reality there probably is no unfolding except to an observer limited by time and space .. The idealistic hope, is that the spread of that realisation, & a consequent raising of consciousness, would be the answer to solve the world’s problems and save us from the imminent self-destruction of the human race and much of this planet.
That last tiny thread of separation .. of hanging on to a separate me .. Allowing the unity .. the flow, the dissolving of the separate I .. It is all perfect right here right now .. the tapping of the typewriter keys .. the chirping of the birds outside .. the changes in the weather .. a slight chill and dampness in the air after an almost Mediterranean heat a week ago .. Doesn’t matter .. all is exactly perfectly right with no deviation right or left and no judgement .. Just is as it is because it must be and should be and can be no other way ..
Why the dissatisfaction ? One must learn to be satisified even with the dissatisfaction .. total acceptance of any circumstance or thing exactly as it is dissolves all the pain of dualistic judging and wanting anything in God’s perfect arrangement to be any other way ..
Pilsdon .. I don’t know why I think of that suddenly .. probably beecause it was the last time I tried to live with anyone in a community way and was sorely tested by others and had to work hard at accepting things being in a way which I did not like or approve of ..
The work here on my own is to accept what I don’t like in myself .. constantly confronted by my own ego and thoughts and finding my ‘self’ hard to live with .. a solution has to be found.
For some reason I got a bit intrigued by Noel Gallagher yesterday .. I had seen him being very amusing on the Graham Norton show .. and BBC iPlayer mentioned a Catch Up thing on an interview with Mark Lawson .. apart from the frustration of realising that catch up really meant ‘missed it’ .. or ‘what you missed’ precisely the opposite of catch up .. just emphasising the fact that it was too late to catch up .. as I say .. apart from that frustration .. I was able to observe in the clip that he has this incredibly competitive thing .. He has got to be on top with the quick put down and the “I’m the best.” “We’re the best.” attitude .. It all emphasised the emptiness of that whole thing .. yes .. attractive and amusing .. but what an ego one must have to have, and what ambition !
I have neither of those things .. not in a self confident get to the top way .. However perhaps it is a sort of sour grapes thing and in fact my way of being number one and always on top is to make sure that no one else is around to stop me having everything exactly my own way when I need & how I like it ..
I suppose .. any kind of enlightenment experience I may have is nearly always of the lonely poetic kind .. certainly not of the universal love kind .. useful and helpful to other people .. but then here I go again putting myself down .. Is there no escape ?
I wanted my writing to be useful .. and or interesting .. but basically I think it is mainly of interest to myself .. and even I cannot go back and read it sometimes .. the negative states it reflects being of no apparent use to anybody and only generating a kind of distaste ..
A strange thought came to me this morning in relation to my funny little musical attempts .. I was filled with dread and embarrassment to think that actually what I have put on SoundCloud is absolute crap .. emphasised by the fact that it all appears on Face Book too .. and was perhaps exagerating the nature of their musical ineptitude in my mind .. It was then that I realised that I actually have come to rather like the weird ‘unmusical’ ones best .. the ones where I am not trying to be ‘musical’ as such .. just making strange sound poems .. blank verse rather than clever rhyme schemes if you like .. and as I thought about them I internally referred to them as ‘my babies’ and it was then that I realised how it is that a mother can so love a child even if it is ugly or in some way deformed or has an impediment .. It is precisely that deformity or impediment that increases the love .. The child is simply loved .. and is loved for that deformity not in spite of it .. That is obviously why love is such a solvent for everything .. it transcends the opposites and only the perfection of things as they really are is seen.
In that spirit .. I wonder if I can return to trying to make a little music and even try to finish this song ? ..
After all .. the song is trying once again to express the inexpressible and may end by sounding trite .. I don’t know .. As I sang along the melody in the car on the way to Bridport yesterday I did think it sounded rather ordinary .. It is so hard to be objective about one’s own attempts at creativity ..
I suppose the thing is that it is disappointing after all these years to find that one has been writing and writing and writing, for instance, or attempting music over and over again, without any real advancement .. merely repeating the same old mistakes ..
However hopes and fears are exactly the essence of duality and what keeps one trapped there all the time ..
One could say that the very wanting of enlightenment is precisely what stops us from attaining it ..
And practical eperience reality says that the lack of wanting it enough is probably what really stops us ! .. And another aspect or reality also says .. it is written for the one who obtains it and it cannot be any other way and he who is supposed to be enlightened will be and he who isn’t .. won’t ..
So also one could say that if we all knew and totally accepted that, we’d probably all be enlightened !
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08:49:Hrs; Funny to have to write all that stuff out even just to start the day .. but .. it is what I do .. that’s my way .. trying to change it .. or wanting to change it just makes me unhappy .. judging it in any way makes me unhappy .. I suppose I must just allow it .. I wonder wether to chuck it up on a blog or two .. ? Well at least one ..
I really still should have a blog which is nothing more than just my diary online .. “Just me.” or something .. take it or leave it but not pretending to be a “non-dualist” or a sufi or anything else .. just me .. (Unique just like everybody else).
09:59:Hrs;
Well .. I did that .. and found the new blogger thing .. well .. O.K. but like everything else it all moves all the time and all the improvements just keep one in a constant state of learning all the new updates ..
I did see some stuff to edit but found that quite hard to find .. and then .. when I found it I was too tired and exhausted and hungry to find all the words again in the edit version ..
Also I realised that I never said what I was going to .. which is that giving up the music again to concentrate on the writing is only probably like taking up the music again in the first place .. i.e. another illusion or delusion and to be followed by the inevitable disillusion ..
If I can just accept that it is what I do .. with no agenda and no apparent use .. then O.K. ..
of course being me and the way that I am I also worry about the fact that I started this one on a Tuesday .. the “devil’s day” of the week according to traditional Islam .. a day generally without barakah or blessing .. not a good day on which to start anything new ..
10:34:Hrs;
Trying to find the ‘proper’ way to underline a short line (like the time) & then quit the underline with no problems .. seems very complicated in this new Word ..
Going to look at Noel Gallagher’s web site for (what?) don’t remember now .. end up with some comment from Paul Weller and then finding NME .. so strange but also so nice to see people like Roger Daltrey talking .. all those guys have generally become such good blokes .. Some kind of nobility gets generated by all the experience and the power that money linked with communication and the power to influence people brings ..
Now I remember what it was .. trying to connect with his Twitter page to see what it throws up from time to time .. seems that if you put his name in a search you get loads of stuff with his name mentioned but not a link to his tweets ?
When I go to his website there is a link to his on the road diary but so much guff thrown at you (as usual) and so much signing up nonsense (as usual) that I just drop it before I even find out if he has anything interesting to say or there is some kind of reflection of the experience he has on tour ..
Anyway .. did it again and this time was easy using the FB sign in thing .. annoying in a way that they all want a piece of the action .. so the cleverest one wins, as usual .. which so often these days is FB .. I see they have just bought Instagram for a billion dollars (!) ..
One great new thing about Blogger is that I can copy and paste my stuff straight out of the new Word without having to change all the font sizes and so on .. wether that is the new Blogger or the new Word or both I don't know .. but .. keeping up with the new certainly helps in this techy digiworld.
Realization is but the opposite of ignorance. To take the world as real and one's self as unreal is ignorance, the cause of sorrow. To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also see yourself as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The same mirror that shows you the world as it is, will also show you your own face. The thought "I am" is the polishing cloth. Use it.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
11:27:Hrs;I try to go to the stuff I was doing yesterday but it all sounds pretty hopeless .. the fact that the violin makes that crazy scraping noise just palls me into a state of hopelessness fearing that it may be due to the CPU and if not .. how long will I spend trying to sort that one out ?
The piano playing varies and the idea of singing when I may be overheard puts me off .. (especially knowing that my voice hardly works for speaking now .. it gets so little use as I never see anyone) ..
I’m loathe to try and do it all again .. & have nearly lost all interest ..my last and only hope is to do stuff as I used to .. but I’ve forgotten what I did then ..all that messing around with clips and cutting bits up as they do in other DAWs ..
Bah ! I’ll have a little play around maybe .. but I despair of producing anything worthwhile listenable to or now .. even interesting .. the expenditure and the rigours of technology have spoiled it for me ..
Turn on the program again and .. no midi signal as is so often the way .. I just can’t be bothered with it .. I have lost interest and have to accept that I wasted my money ..
don’t know wether I want to change this keyboard before the month is up .. I’m completely fed up with it all now .. have to make up my mind when that pain is not screwing into the heart and the head and the humiliation ..
13:50:Hrs;
O.K. .. I’ve done something new in Live 8 .. thrown up loads of things of course as usual .. however .. not to be too negative ..
1) I managed to make a reasonable drum pattern.
2) I managed to make a reasonable organ clip.
3) I managed to make a reasonable guitar audio clip.
4) I whacked out some words and sang/spoke them.
5) I mixed it all and found fairly suitable effects
6) I sussed out the returns thing.
7) I did the transposing in both the note view and the audio view for the guitar and organ.
There are obviously many many anomolies and rough edges but .. as a rough first draft that is a great improvement on some of the other crazy experiments .. by which I mean I have a small measure of control and a better understanding of the software ..
All your going and coming, seeking pleasure, loving and hating - all this shows that you struggle against limitations, self-imposed or accepted. In your ignorance, you make mistakes and cause pain to yourself and others, but the urge is there and shall not be denied. The same urge that seeks birth, happiness and death, shall seek understanding and liberation. It is like a spark of fire in a cargo of cotton. You may not know about it, but sooner or later the ship will burst in flames. Liberation is a natural process and, in the long run, inevitable. But it is within your power to bring it into the now.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
I could put that on my blog ? .. generally true no ?
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