text:
Ethics and Spirituality
Personal Explorations in Ethics, Spirituality, & Art
Guide To The Posts
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Joe Kracht and Lavanya Muller (parody)
"She entered into doubt-parlor
Only to be tattooed by ignorance-ink.
He learned the jiu-jitsu of betrayal
Studying at university of no ethics."
For further discussion, see "Paint It Black!"
(If the embedded video doesn't play, watch on DailyMotion here.)
Explaining The Aphorisms
Sometimes aphorisms are like poetry — to get the full meaning we need to examine the language carefully in all its fine shades.
What does it mean to enter into "doubt-parlor"? Suppose you are a spiritual seeker, a person of faith. You have some friends who used to be spiritual seekers, but now their main focus is on doubt and speaking ill. You feel, "Oh, my faith is secure so of course I can mix freely with them and I will not suffer." But doubt is like poison in the spiritual life. Just because you know it's poison doesn't mean you can drink it and not suffer.
You may also think, "Just because I'm not attacking anyone, therefore they won't attack me." But imagine you put your hand inside a snake's cage. You may do so innocently, harmlessly, but still the nature of this snake is to bite.
In the same way, former spiritual seekers who now specialize in doubt instinctively attack the faith of any person who enters their environs. They feel your faith is an impediment to joining their social clique and want to make you faithless like them. So once you agree to go where they congregate, whether it's a physical location or a place on the Internet, half the battle is already lost.
This battle may not take place openly, but may be more like a clandestine encounter with a pickpocket. The pickpocket embraces you warmly, but a few hours later you discover he has stolen all your money!
Never think that ignorance is not a strong force. Even one person's ignorance may overpower your faith. How much more easily you can be overpowered when you are the only person of faith in a place where everyone else has become a black doubter. It is like one person fighting against a whole gang. (This is assuming you even bother to put up a fight. Some people go to a bad place because they secretly want to become bad people.)
So "doubt-parlor" is a place where doubters meet and congregate and advance their clever arguments. ("Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.") Now, what is "ignorance-ink"? If you have a cloth that is pure white, then if you get ink on it, it can never be made the same again. Still, there are different types of ink. Sometimes children are given finger paints which are water-soluble and wash off easily.
Ignorance is like ink because it spoils the pure-white tablet of faith so that it is smudged or dirty. Now what does it mean to be tattooed by ignorance-ink? The ink used in tattooing is extremely permanent and is etched into the skin. This comedy skit suggests that people get tattoos when they're drunk and are then stuck with the results, unless they want to opt for laser surgery:
So to be tattooed by ignorance-ink means that ignorance puts its permanent mark on you and calls you its own, so that you are no longer fit for a spiritual purpose.
To take the meaning of the aphorism as a whole: You are invited to join in the festivities at a place where doubters congregate. You think, "Alright, I will go but I will maintain my faith." However, once you enter into their parlor, then like others you become drunk with doubt and are tattooed by ignorance so that you cannot get rid of it. The stain is permanent, or you do not possess the means to wash it out. Will a simple spot remover remove a tattoo? No, because the ink is in too deep. That is the favor some so-called friends are doing you.
To come to the second aphorism, what is the connection between "jiu-jitsu" and "betrayal"? Here, jiu-jitsu signifies any type of tricky move or maneuver which must be learned. The heart and soul by their nature want to remain true, but the tricky mind and vital want to find a way to throw off the spiritual commitment and live a life based on ego, desire and ambition.
It is rare for a person of faith who loses their faith to simply admit "I have fallen. I have lost what I had previously attained." First comes disobedience, then self-justification, then a guilty conscience comes. Finally, in order to escape their own guilty conscience the person will throw all the blame on their former spiritual teacher or path. For some people this develops into a kind of complex, so that even though they left their spiritual teacher 10, 20, even 35 years ago, they are still obsessed with trying to discredit him, in order to assuage their deep-down guilty conscience.
Some people even openly admit to this without truly understanding it. They say, "Oh, I have found a wonderful new way of getting rid of guilt. I joined a support group for former spiritual seekers where we spend most days and nights publicly attacking our old teacher. Hate is a wonderful antidote to guilt."
The only problem is that this is actually a symptom of the complex. It does not truly get rid of guilt, but only masks it temporarily. Those suffering from this complex tend to need bigger and bigger fixes of hate to mask their guilt, so they end up vilifying their former teacher to a mind-boggling extent, making up the wildest stories in order to keep the hate jag going. There is no true healing in this approach because it's all based on lies and self-justification, not honest insight.
So "the jiu-jitsu of betrayal" is any tricky method someone learns as a way to throw off their soul's deep spiritual commitment and betray the teacher who first gave them illumination, out of sheer compassion.
Modern science is ethically neutral. It is often not concerned with net effects on people, but only whether something is do-able. If making a bomb, can they make a bigger bomb? If making a biological weapon, can they produce a more deadly strain? That is how some destructive people think. Doubt is usually "slow poison," but some people actually become connoisseurs of doubt. They try to refine it and make it more potent, more concentrated. Modern doubters have produced more virulent strains of doubt which are quick-acting.
When people develop an ugly and impure mind or vital, they can conjure up an ugly picture of things — things which are inherently beautiful in themselves. The impure imagination becomes a kind of demonic laboratory from which new, more virulent strains of doubt are culled. One should protect one's aspiration by not visiting places where such people congregate — whether in real life, or on the Internet.
Some psychologists are dead set against the spiritual life, so they've developed powerful techniques or psyops for combating faith — comprehensive, systematized methods of injecting doubt and pressuring seekers to abandon their faith. This is known as deprogramming or exit counseling, but like tattooing or ear-piercing it's practiced by amateurs as well as professionals. (See "Sock Puppet Theatre – A Tribute to Samuel Bradshaw.")
Some anti-cult groups morph or change their tactics over time, renaming themselves and eventually coming to use a soft-sell rather than hard-sell approach. See Part 2 and Part 3 of my series on "The ACLU and Religious Freedom," as well as "Doubt, Faith, and the Ethics of Apostasy." People don't know the history of these groups and don't recognize the techniques being used to rob them of their faith — professional deprogramming techniques like employing apostates to circulate false "testimonials" vilifying the spiritual teacher or path.
If you look carefully, you'll see that such euphemistically named "support groups" often have hard-core members who've undergone formal deprogramming, exit counseling, or anti-cult therapy, e.g. Samuel Bradshaw, Anne Carlton, et al. These people are then encouraged to practice the same techniques on others, sometimes in an informal setting where they conceal or deny their affiliation with anti-cult groups.
How does the soft-sell differ from the hard-sell? The hard-sell is all poison, poison, poison. The soft-sell is: "People are not drinking the poison because it is too bitter. Let us set up a fake spiritual site, something to do with yoga, with spiritual quotes and artwork. Then, once we sucker people in, let us give them just enough poison to kill them. Initially they won't know that we are all apostates, so they will stupidly drink the poison if we sweeten it a little."
Look to the methods, not the labels. Some sites may put up a spiritual veneer, but are actually ex-members groups where the main thrust is to get people to read highly negative material, and respond by abandoning their faith.
Like wife-beaters, some people are deeply troubled in their nature. They may claim they love their former spiritual master, but they torture him regularly. Stop the torture and I will believe that you love him. Otherwise, I will say you are a sick individual.
Each person is different. It may happen that a spiritual master advises a student: "Stay close to the spiritual community. Don't go for a law degree or it will totally ruin your spiritual life." The student disobeys, and lo and behold! Now that he's a lawyer, instead of showing devotion to the spiritual master, he only wants to subject the master (now long-dead) to mock show trials on the Internet! Such displays of vigilantism are worthy of disbarment. Still:
Joe Kracht Lawton Law Firm Parody 1
Continuing on with my analysis, what is "university of no ethics"? To learn a systematized method of doing something, you go to a school which teaches that very thing. Universities originally emerged from a monastic tradition in which faith and ethics played a most significant role. Gradually over centuries, a "great divorce" occurred between religion, science, and the humanities. Today, it's possible to receive a university degree without knowing anything about spirituality or ethics. Some former spiritual seekers will even go to the length of getting a degree in psychology which they then use to attack spirituality. (Of course, spirituality and psychology can get along well together. Here I'm only referring to a fringe group of psychologists who actively oppose spiritual practice, just as there's a fringe group of psychologists who participate in military torture.)
As I discuss in "Paint It Black!" apostates often trash-talk their former friends, colleagues and mentors in a shameful and two-faced manner. They may learn such behavior through participation in institutions which impart secular knowledge divorced from ethics and spirituality. They have been processed by a college or university, or by the military, or by a school which emphasizes physical conditioning and self-defense, but teaches next to nothing about loyalty or ethics. This conspicuous spiritual vacuum makes it easy for people to engage in wanton acts of betrayal. They may be experts in their limited fields, but in the field of life they are nowhere because they've sacrificed the core values which imbue life with spiritual meaning. This is what it means to learn "the jiu-jitsu of betrayal/ studying at university of no ethics."
Such faithless persons of no ethics often end up coaching others in the ways of betrayal, helping them achieve the "full Judas position" — a position of utter treachery. Sadly, such coaches may fail to provide the requisite thirty pieces of silver, or the noose to hang oneself when conscience dawns.
Attorney Joe Kracht drilling a new deprogrammee (artist's conception)
The views expressed are my own, and do not represent any other person or organization.
Items which may interest you:
Sarama — The Hound of Intuition
Self-Interest, Self-Giving, Low Ethics, and High Ethics
By dawntreader72014 • Posted in Spirituality	• Tagged Abode of Yoga, apostasy, Ethics, jiu-jitsu, Joe Kracht, Joseph C. Kracht, Lavanya Ghose, Lavanya Muller, parody, Sri Chinmoy disciple experience, testimonials, university, video, Yogaloy
Paint It Black!
The Poetry of Sri Chinmoy… and Mick Jagger? Plus other topics.
My Krishna is not black,
He is pure gold.
He Himself is woven
Into the universal Beauty, Light and Splendour.
He looks dark
Because I have spilled the ink
Of my mind on Him.
Otherwise, my Beloved is All-Light.
He created Light and Darkness,
He is within and without the Cosmos Vast.
With this knowledge,
I will have a new acquaintance
With the world at large.
— Sri Chinmoy, from My Flute, Aum Classics, 1998 (1972)
I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors any more, I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by, dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes
I see a line of cars and they're all painted black
With flowers and my love both never to come back
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Like a newborn baby, it just happens every day
I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my red door I must have it painted black
Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts
It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black
No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not foresee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes
No colors anymore I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I want to see it painted, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I want to see the sun blotted out from the sky
I want to see it painted, painted, painted, painted black, yeah
— Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, from Aftermath, Decca Records, 1966
The shared element in these two poems is not seeing things as they are, but according to one's inner predilection. A thing is bright and golden, but we spill "the ink of our mind" on it, so subjectively it looks all black. Or a thing has bright colours like red and green, but we want to blot out those colours due to our depressed or fallen state.
In the physical universe, some things can be quantified precisely and objectively, but when it is a question of the spiritual meaning of life, this is something we always interpret subjectively. Militant atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are merely reporting on the condition of their own minds. Brilliant thinkers, they nonetheless lack basic spiritual intelligence.
What is spiritual intelligence? This would be the subject for a whole other article. Simply put, spiritual intelligence is intelligence which is aware of the existence of God or of higher spiritual Truth. This higher awareness brings insight and understanding (or gnosis), so that we begin to see the universe as it truly is, not according to our limited mental constructs. Spiritual intelligence is intelligence which has received some illumination from higher light and wisdom, so that it no longer lives alone in a dark room, seeing only its own self-produced shadows. Spiritual intelligence is intelligence from which the "ink of the mind" has been dispelled in whole or in part, so that the universe may be seen in all its true, glowing colours.
There is, of course, the negative approach epitomized in modern times by the song "Nothing," written by Tuli Kupferberg of the Fugs, and perhaps representing the path of the ascetic wanderer who finds meaning by denying everything. But this path is difficult to follow, and there is no guarantee that it leads to enlightenment. Indeed, having denied meaning in anything, the nihilist may simply stew in his own negativity, now desiring to paint everything black to match his own philosophy, his own self-produced experience of nothingness: "Monday, nothing / Tuesday, nothing / Wednesday and Thursday nothing / Friday, for a change / a little more nothing / Saturday once more nothing." (The Fugs song is actually based on an old Yiddish song about a steady diet of potatoes!)
There is a kind of nihilism which recognizes the relative meaninglessness of the things the world tries to persuade us to take with utter seriousness. But this nihilism is not a complete philosophy or path. In rejecting that which is (relatively speaking) meaningless, we also need to look to that absolute reality which gave birth to our limited world-reality. Here are two poems by Sri Chinmoy which help illustrate how these two concepts fit together:
O bird of my heart,
Fly on, fly on.
Look not behind.
Whatever the world gives
Is meaningless, useless
And utterly false.
O beautiful One, O blissful One,
Do enter into my heart's cry,
Do enter into my thought-life,
Do enter into my purity-dawn,
Do enter into my sublimity-eve.
With new form's light,
Do constantly enter into my heart.
I do not combine these two poems haphazardly. They are songs composed by Sri Chinmoy, often sung by him or performed on the flute, esraj and other instruments. He often performed these two songs together as a medley, or in the form 1-2-1, as if to underscore their connectedness:
Taken together, they point to a complete philosophy in which the meaninglessness of the world is balanced by a burgeoning awareness of the "blissful One" who exists beyond our limited world-reality, yet also within in it (though unseen).
In another poem, Sri Chinmoy contrasts "a dry, sterile, intellectual breeze" with "the weaving visions of the emerald Beyond." Here's the poem (which also spawned a Mahavishnu Orchestra album title), plus explication by Dr. Vidagdha Meredith Bennett:
Visions of the Emerald Beyond
No more am I the foolish customer
Of a dry, sterile, intellectual breeze.
I shall buy only
The weaving visions of the emerald Beyond.
My heart-tapestry
Shall capture the Himalayan Smiles
Of my Pilot Supreme.
In the burial of my sunken mind
Is the revival of my climbing heart.
In the burial of my deceased mind
Is the festival of my all-embracing life.
— Sri Chinmoy, from The Dance Of Life, Part 1, Agni Press, 1973
Dr. Bennett writes:
This poem mirrors the more traditional experience-into-cognition arrangement in which a fictive, personal situation is transformed into a general concept and we come to see it as an instance of a universal truth. In "Visions of the Emerald Beyond," the poet begins in a confessional mode. He portrays his dissatisfaction with the life of the mind and asserts his unwillingness to remain any longer a "customer" of its barren harvest. We seem to savour something of T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" in the dryness and flatness of this picture, the "sterile, intellectual breeze" corresponding to their ineffectual voices:
"We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass…"
We recognise the same pervading numbness at the core of a purely mental existence. It is an option the poet no longer chooses:
This line explodes with colour, life, movement and depth — all that is in direct opposition to the preceding portrait. In contrast to the shifting and colourless "intellectual breeze," Sri Chinmoy presents the rich enamelled colour of vision. Emerald. The incandescent green of creation itself, woven into wholeness by the heart, Sri Chinmoy's preferred nexus of action. And in that fulness of heart, he hopes to win God's "Smile" of satisfaction.
From this new recourse of action, the poet condenses a set of principles that are appended to the poem in the manner of a coda. In them he sets down the conditions upon which his new life of the heart shall be founded. They revolve around the "burial" of his mind which, he intimates, is already long since lifeless. From this burial shall rise the dancing, abundant life of the heart.
— Vidagdha Meredith Bennett, from Simplicity and Power: The Poetry of Sri Chinmoy 1971-1981 (Doctoral Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1981. Published by Aum Publications, New York, 1991.)
I plan to use this discussion of subjective perceptions of reality as a building block toward understanding other phenomena, such as apostasy. To preview the argument: The apostate can no longer see the spiritual reality, and therefore publicly professes that his/her past spiritual experiences were all false, or that he/she was "fooled" into believing in a spiritual reality which he/she now thoroughly rejects. This rejection of the spiritual may be accompanied by a foolish preoccupation with things extolled in pop culture, like romance and dating, tattoos, and ballroom dancing. 😉
The struggle between faith and doubt, between spirituality and secular materialism, is one of the enduring struggles of the last two centuries. People stumping for secular materialism often collate the so-called "testimonials" of apostates as if these prove that there is no God, and that spiritual claims are pure bunkum. Yet, such testimonials merely reflect the unillumined or benighted state of those writing them, those who have spilled "the ink of the mind" on what remains a vivid and true spiritual reality. Like Eliot's hollow men, in the cosmic scheme of things such testimonial writers are thoroughly stuffed.
Nandita Pollisar on the ink of the mind
Just as there exist apostate testimonials attempting to undermine virtually every faith (even faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster or "FSM"), some people also write testimonials reaffirming their faith. Nandita Polissar writes:
Safe – free from harm, injury or risk. "Safe" comes from the Latin word "salvus" meaning whole or healthy.
Sri Chinmoy's path encompasses all of these meanings for women or men. It is an environment free of harm, harassment or risk. It is a whole and healthy environment.
I became a student of Sri Chinmoy over 30 years ago. Having had positive experiences with other spiritual paths (Catholicism, Judaism, Transcendental Meditation and Theravada Buddhism), my first reaction was that Sri Chinmoy did not "need" anything from me. He did not need me to add to his numbers of followers. He did not need my admiration or my flattery. He did not need my money. This impression has remained and has been reinforced in a million ways. Here was not an ego that required feeding in any way. I felt trust and faith — and to add the word used in your query: "safe." I have never seen that trust, faith and safety compromised in any way by this pure, innocent and loving consciousness that I gratefully call my spiritual teacher. Nor have I ever seen it broken with others. The Sri Chinmoy Centre has been a uniquely safe place for me as a woman, for my husband and for my children.
I have seen others break faith with their own spirituality. I have seen others veer in other directions. I have seen others drift away. I have seen others "take a break" for a while and return. I have seen others find something that worked better for them. But, I have never seen Sri Chinmoy break trust with anyone whether they were his student or not. There is real spirituality in this world, and Sri Chinmoy is one of its representatives. Yes, people throw the "ink of their mind" on it, but that does not diminish it in any way.
As for the many ways that Sri Chinmoy has encouraged and "empowered" women, my sisters have replied much more eloquently. I am grateful for your query.
— Nandita Polissar from "Question For The Women" (discussion thread)
Hateful stereotypes of Indian gurus
When Swami Vivekananda first graced America's shores in 1893, attending the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, he received a warm welcome and was heralded in the press as a great orator and a genuine representative of a noble tradition. Yet, with the establishment of Vedanta societies in America and an increase in Indian immigration, there was soon a nativist backlash. In 1911, the Boston Herald published a particularly blistering attack on Indian yoga as something heathen, superstitious, and profane.
Over a hundred years later, as more and more Americans practice one form of yoga or another, the level of invective has died down. Yet, hateful stereotypes which originated at the turn of the twentieth century may still be recycled in the twenty-first. There are tabloid media which pander to ignorant views of Indian gurus in order to attract a low information audience, drawing them like flies to a road apple. (See this article discussing PIX11 News.)
Apostates are often a fertile source for such ignorant views, since they tend to turn every circle counter-clockwise in an effort to establish that they're no longer minority religionists, but rather average citizens who now share the same prejudices as the worst of their fellows. By portraying their former faith group hatefully, apostates hope to prove their newfound loyalty to mainstream secular values and thus avoid being targeted themselves — something like victims of bullying who join with the bullies as a craven coping strategy, or in order to become popular.
Since the world has little sympathy for failed spiritual seekers, such folk often pretend to be victims who wandered into the wrong conference room by accident. Suddenly a big brainwashing machine came down on their heads, and they spent the next 20 years praying and meditating. It was all a big misunderstanding! 😉
Due to extreme secularization in Western society, spiritual seekers are often said to have acquired a "spoiled identity." Because they're doing something different from the mainstream (perhaps less materialistic), they may be subject to shaming and harassment. In order to compensate, the apostate ratifies his/her affiliation with a new secular peer group through exaggerated criticism of the spiritual group left behind. This may take the form of a "confession" to friends, family, or an Internet audience that the speaker was once a "cult victim" who experienced horrible abuses, but has now seen the light of critical thinking and become a true believer in baseball, apple pie, and motherhood. This then symbolically purges the former "cult" member's reputation in the secular world.
Such public purgative activities involving confessions or anti-cult testimonials are known collectively to scholars as rituals of denunciation. The accounts produced are not viewed as highly credible owing to the underlying pressures.
Among formally or informally constituted anti-cult groups, the approved method for performing a radical guru-ectomy is to go on the Internet and post a "testimonial" recanting one's faith in the most dramatic of terms. But only a handful of (very foolish) former spiritual seekers engage in such cheap theatrics, which tend to be detrimental to one's mental balance and personal integrity. As I discuss in "The ACLU and Religious Freedom, Part 2":
When someone studies with a spiritual teacher, the teacher becomes an important part of her life. Even if she ends her studies, her former teacher will usually be someone with whom she needs to live on comfortable terms. A healthy narrative truth emerging in therapy is one which doesn't attempt to demonize the former teacher or alienate the former student. When therapists violate these principles, this may be seen as abusive, just as inducing Parental Alienation Syndrome is considered a form of parental abuse.
One of the universally recognized symptoms of PAS is lack of ambivalence. Quite simply, the parent from whom the child has been alienated is seen as completely bad and evil. Lack of ambivalence is unnatural behaviour in human beings. Rarely can someone of basic intelligence, maturity and emotional stability support the notion that one person is completely bad.
Yet, when people receive anti-cult counseling or participate in ex-cult support groups, they tend to undergo a pathological inversion of views. They are systematically alienated from their former spiritual teacher, to the point where they depict him/her as thoroughly bad and inhumanly evil. This may be described as Guru Alienation Syndrome, or GAS.
The reason such systematic alienation should be considered a form of abuse is that it effectively robs the former student of all the benefits of having a spiritual teacher, including the ability to interact positively with that teacher, and to enjoy loving memories of that teacher. Unambivalent hatred of the spiritual teacher doesn't just harm the hated teacher, but also the former student.
While not everyone seeks out a spiritual teacher, for those who do — and who have studied for 5, 10 or 20 years with that teacher — there is an existing relationship which typically has many positive aspects and serves an important purpose in the student's life. The loss of that relationship is a grievous loss. A wise and compassionate therapist, counselor, or friend will therefore not attempt to destroy that relationship by circulating hate material vilifying the teacher.
In simple spiritual terms, if the human in you comes to hate that which your soul loves, then naturally you will feel at war with yourself and everything will seem to go wrong. Deep down you may feel guilty, but in order to mask that guilt you may demonize the person towards whom you feel guilty, leading to a kind of complex. This is the apostate version of "paint it black."
An unexpected drawback for those who fall into the Judas trap is this: The world may claim that it will love you if only you will recant your faith. But actually, the people most worth knowing (and the people who might want to hire you or enter into a relationship with you) tend to value loyalty, constancy, and consistency. So going on the Internet and trash-talking your former friends and colleagues actually results in your identity being twice spoiled: You were once disliked because you were a spiritual seeker. You are now disliked because you're a two-faced sh-t. Better to be disliked for a noble reason than a shameful one.
Attorney Joe Kracht burning his spiritual name to try and prove how "normal" he's become. Paradoxically, it proves just the opposite. Normal people don't go on the Internet and burn spiritual icons. Something troubling is happening here…
To summarize: In an acquisitive society obsessed with production, consumption and procreation, spiritual intelligence is not valued, and indeed may be ridiculed or disdained. But spiritual intelligence will sustain us in this life, the next life, and future lives. Spiritual intelligence tells us that to be true is more important than to be popular, and that for a person of refined sensibilities, what is normal is to lead a spiritual life filled with meaning, not a statistically average life followed by a statistically average death.
Spiritual intelligence tells us that life does not end with our earthly sojourn. In the same family, it may happen that the mother is very spiritual but the daughter is less so. As long as the mother stays on earth, the daughter feels that there are some things she simply will not do because it would hurt and disgrace her mother deeply. But once her mother dies, then the daughter feels, "Out of sight, out of mind. Now I can act in any way I want!" But spiritual intelligence tells us that the mother is still looking down from Heaven, trying to inspire and guide her daughter. If the daughter acts badly, the mother will suffer.
Sri Chinmoy's education
One apostate has erroneously referred to Sri Chinmoy as a "self-educated man from a third-world country." In truth, Sri Chinmoy was educated at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram School in Pondicherry, where he studied Bengali literature, English literature, philosophy, and was also a champion sprinter. Pondicherry is a cosmopolitan city which was still a French colony for the first eleven years that Sri Chinmoy resided there and retains its international flavour to this day.
Sri Chinmoy was extremely fluent in English, having read, written, spoken, and studied that language since his ashram days (1943-1964). In his mid-twenties, he became secretary to noted savant Nolini Kanta Gupta, and translated many of the latter's articles from Bengali to English, as well as publishing articles of his own. Sri Chinmoy's longest play, The Descent of the Blue, recounts important incidents in the life of Sri Aurobindo, and was first published serially in Mother India: A Monthly Review of Culture between 1958 and 1962. According to Anurag Banerjee of the Overman Foundation, "The editor, K.D. Sethna, wrote in a review: 'Chinmoy succeeds time and again in transmuting his facts into revealing truths with the help of an alert imagination.'"
After coming to America in 1964, Sri Chinmoy soon embarked upon a vigorous schedule of writing, teaching, and lecturing. His 1969 Harvard lecture on "The Vedanta Philosophy" was later published by the Philosophical Society of England in its journal, The Philosopher, Vol. 21.
His poems won awards in American literary journals, and in 1995 he received the University of Washington's World Peace Literature Award. In 2001 he was invited to participate in "Dialogue Through Poetry," a consortium of poets, writers, organizers, and UN officials committed to building a culture of peace through poetry, culminating in a reading at UN headquarters which also featured Joyce Carol Oates and James Ragan. The libraries of Harvard Divinity School and Brown University house collections of Sri Chinmoy's early writings, as does the Graduate Theological Union Library/Media Center of the Pacific School of Religion.
Consistent with the concept of spiritual intelligence, Sri Chinmoy's works embody not just knowledge, but insight. See, for example, this talk on "Appreciation of Emily Dickinson" which he gave at the United Nations in December 1975, marking the 145th anniversary of Miss Dickinson's birth.
So where we see a bored, neurotic housewife (flanked by male sycophants) go on the Internet and claim that Sri Chinmoy was a "self-educated man from a third-world country," we need to both recognize the dog whistle (which appeals to shopworn stereotypes), and realize that the speaker is talking out her backside.
Lavanya Muller, whose present-day ignorance is dwarfed only by that of Joe Kracht
An amusing incident from the 1970s relays the depth of Sri Chinmoy's knowledge and wit, and the surprise shown by some American disciples at his studied familiarity with Western literature. After reading the following story by Sri Chinmoy published in 1974, one Western disciple remarked: "How does Guru know about Shylock and Portia?"
The telephone blesses the Master
There was once a very great spiritual Master who had many disciples of all ages. Unfortunately, all of the disciples had problems, and the Master used to spend a lot of time talking on the telephone. This Master did not sleep very much. In the small hours of the morning, when his disciples were all home in bed, he used to meditate on them and on the Earth consciousness.
At midnight one night, the Master's telephone rang. He picked up the phone and heard an elderly lady saying, "Mary, Mary, how many times did I tell you not to marry that guy?" Then she hung up.
The Master knew it was a wrong number, but he felt sorry that this woman's daughter had made a bad marriage. So the spiritual Master prayed, "O Mother of the Saviour, do take care of Your namesake and protect Your sacred name."
At three o'clock that morning the Master's telephone rang again. This time the caller was a middle-aged man. "Why don't you die at this very moment so that I can have my children back?" he shouted at the Master. "Why don't you have children of your own and play with them? Why do you have to play with my children?" Then he hung up.
The Master used his occult power to find out who the man was, and the next day he told the man's children to go back to their father.
The children said to the Master, "Master, we shall go back to our parents, although we have done nothing wrong to you. It is our parents who have insulted you. But since you have asked us to go back to them, we shall go. And we shall forgive your injustice. But we shall not forget the love and compassion which you have shown us on so many occasions."
That night, the Master got a phone call at four o'clock. A young girl said to him, "Did God tell you that you have realised Him, or is it your own imagination that says so?"
The Master said to the girl, "God didn't tell me of His own accord, but I forced Him to say that I have realised Him and that it is not my imagination. It is my declaration through God's lips that I have realised God."
At five o'clock in the morning the telephone rang again. A young man's voice said, "Why do you think of yourself as God? What is wrong with you?"
The Master used his occult power and saw that the youth was a hippie and a drug addict. Then he answered, "Nothing is wrong with me. I don't consider myself God; I consider myself God's lion and God's dog. When I stand before a person like you, I feel that I am God's roaring lion. When I stand in front of my devoted disciples, I feel that I am God's faithful dog."
At six o'clock the Master got another call. This time it was from a young, arrogant disciple of his, who said to the Master, "What right have you to talk about marriage? My wife and I got married long before we came to your path. You have no right to break up a happy marriage."
The Master replied, "True, I have no right to break up a happy marriage, but I have every right to break up your loveless, heartless, baleful and baneful marriage. For that is what your souls want, and that is what God wants." Then he hung up on the disciple.
The telephone disturbed him again at seven o'clock. A young girl disciple said to him, "Master, please do me a favour. I really want to marry Roger. I desperately need him. Please tell him to marry me."
The Master said, "Have you asked Roger whether he needs you desperately, as well?"
"I asked him," the young girl replied, "but he said that the one he needs desperately is you, and not me. What am I going to do?"
"My child, please be just," the Master said. "Since he needs me desperately, and I also need him, please allow me to have him. Since we want each other, we deserve to get each other. And if you want to please him, then try to please me. For that will please him most."
At eight o'clock the telephone rang again. An elderly lady said to the Master, "How dare you ask my daughter to marry a Jew! We are all staunch Catholics. You are simply throwing my daughter to the dogs! It is like asking me to give a pound of flesh right from my chest! You are the Shylock of the twentieth century!"
The Master replied, "True, I am the Shylock of the twentieth century, but where is the Portia of the twentieth century to save you?"
At nine o'clock the Master got another call. An elderly man said, "You unthinkable, incredible impostor! How dare you ask my son to marry a Christian girl? I tell you, even your Jesus Christ would not approve of this match. For my sake, for Christ's sake, stop this marriage! If you don't, you will definitely go to hell!"
The Master said, "I am so happy to hear that you are ready to send me to hell. I wish to go there immediately, for the place I am living in now is infinitely worse than hell!"
At ten o'clock the telephone rang again. This time the Master did not answer it. When it stopped ringing, he immediately called the telephone company and asked them to remove the telephone from his house.
— Sri Chinmoy, from The Ascent and the Descent of the Disciples, Agni Press, 1974
Like the characters in Sri Chinmoy's story, people who post apostate testimonials on the Internet may strike us as ignorant, petty, and self-obsessed — unable to see beyond their own narrow interests. Those who abandoned their spiritual practice 15 or 20 years ago can easily descend into a condition of knownothingness, while those like the scholars quoted here, who devote their lives to spiritual study, continue to cultivate spiritual intelligence and are able to explicate spiritual texts.
As I discuss in "Doubt, Faith, and the Ethics of Apostasy," it's important to ride the ups and downs of life and not allow your nature to turn hostile toward the spiritual teacher and spiritual path. Otherwise, you can quickly lose or negate all the good karma you had built up through spiritual effort. Your life can easily degenerate into something mean and small.
In your fallen state, you may want to see everything painted "black as night, black as coal," and "want to see the sun blotted out from the sky." But these things will never happen. Only, like the blind man you will not be able to enjoy the light and colours which are all around you, which others are enjoying due to their soulful acceptance of the spiritual reality.
In the inevitable movement of society toward higher consciousness, apostate testimonials which deny the spiritual reality are like mere footnotes to God's voluminous autobiography, which He writes on the tablet of human history. See also You by Sri Chinmoy, a series of guided meditations which uncover the hidden relationship between the individual soul and the Universal Soul.
The truth of life is not black, but golden. With this knowledge, we can have a new acquaintance with the world at large. By appreciating the spiritual reality, we join in the festival of an all-embracing life. We enjoy the rich enamelled colour of vision, the dancing abundant life of the heart.
The views expressed are my own, and do not represent any other person or organization. Texts/media are quoted for purposes of education and criticism in keeping with principles of fair use in creating a transformative work.
As always, quoted material does not imply agreement by the quoted sources with this article or with anything else found on my blog.
This post is a work of independent research by the author, reflecting the author's personal beliefs and opinions. No third party sources were personally consulted prior to publication. For further information, see "Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Scholarly Research in Communication."
Book Cover Project
Here are the book covers for this post, mostly from SriChinmoyLibrary.com:
By dawntreader72014 • Posted in Spirituality	• Tagged Abode of Yoga, apostasy, Joe Kracht, Lavanya Muller, My Krishna is not black, O Bird of My Heart, Paint It Black, spiritual intelligence, spiritual poetry, Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy disciple experience, Sri Chinmoy's teachings, testimonials, Visions of the Emerald Beyond
Tribute to Sarama Minoli
Sarama was one of Sri Chinmoy's earliest disciples. She joined Sri Chinmoy Centre (then called AUM Centre) in 1967, and chronicled the early years of Sri Chinmoy's mission with her peerless photographic skills. Here's one of her photos which was later used for the book Brother Jesus, published in 1975:
Sarama describes coming to Sri Chinmoy's path in her own words this way:
Considering that I entered this world as a fourth generation atheist, who would have predicted a future in the spiritual life for me? I certainly wasn't given any training in spirituality as a child. But the concept of infinity always fascinated me as it eluded me. I spent summers at my grandmother's house in the New Jersey countryside, where I slept on a porch that was all windows on three sides. I would lie there looking up at the night sky, where the Milky Way and millions of stars were visible (you could see all of that clearly when I was a kid!), and I would imagine more space behind the stars and the Milky Way, and more space behind that space, and more space behind that space, and more space – and more space – until, my head spinning, I fell asleep.
As a young adult, I came across the writings of Edgar Casey, Yogi Ramacharaka, and that wonderful classic, Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. My fascination with yoga, vegetarianism and spirituality was growing. After a two-week vacation at a yoga camp, my fate was sealed. On my return home, Yoga of Westchester, my yoga studio, was born.
One day during the following summer, I had a visit from an old friend whom I hadn't seen in a number of years: a violinist named Sol Montlack. We were having a chat when I recalled that he had been with a spiritual group. Nearly a year of involvement with yoga had intensified my new interest in spirituality. I asked him about the group, and his answer was that he was no longer with that group or any of the many others he had tried.
He said, "I have found a Guru who is everything I have been looking for." I asked the Guru's name, and Sol said, "Chinmoy." For clarity, he pronounced it as if it were two words. "Chin Moy?" I said. "That sounds Chinese," while the thought ran through my mind quickly that I would meet his Guru and that he would be my Guru as well.
Read more of Sarama's story on the Sri Chinmoy Centre site here.
Sarama went on to become one of Sri Chinmoy's closest disciples — with him for forty years during his lifetime, and continuing her journey with Sri Chinmoy Centre until 2013, when she finally departed this world. July 2016 marks the three-year anniversary of her passing.
She was known for her deep spirituality and her adamantine belief in the life of the soul. In the book His Compassion Is Everything To Us, Sri Chinmoy recounts one particularly striking incident concerning Sarama:
This time I meditated only on compassion, bringing down compassion. Here quite a few disciples — about twenty — have received abundant compassion. Somebody has received the most, although she is not here physically, and that is Sarama.
At one point I was looking just at the front of the room, where the disciples are not supposed to sit, and Sarama's soul was there. I said to Sarama, "What are you doing? Why are you sitting in the 'forbidden area'?" In a joking manner I said it.
She said, "I am not the body; I am the soul."
I said to her, "Where is the difference, good girl, between the body and the soul? For me there is no difference between the body and the soul, the substance and the essence."
Sometimes when I see the body, inside the body I immediately see the soul's entire divinity; and sometimes when I see the soul, I see inside the soul the qualities and capacities of the body. There is no difference between the body and the soul.
This was Sarama's message: "I have come here to swim in the heart-sea of your compassion."
I said, "Swim as long as you want to; swim to your heart's content. I will let you swim inside the heart-sea of my compassion."
This was Sarama's soul.
Nineteen other disciples have received compassion in profuse measure, but her soul has definitely received more than anybody else. When we meditate, the soul of somebody who is not physically present can come and receive. It happens; it has happened many, many times. I am very grateful and very proud of Sarama's achievement.
Read more about this incident on Sri Chinmoy Library here.
To worldly people, the life of the soul is sheer imagination if not hallucination. For them, life is measured only in earthly years and the physical body. Then it is "out of sight, out of mind." But Sarama was known for her intuition, which came from a higher plane. Intuition is deeply connected with spiritual intelligence, but that is the subject for another article!
Still, to those who have cultivated spiritual intelligence it's not surprising that the essence of all a person was and is continues after death. If the person was a spiritual soul, then they look down from Heaven to see what their loved ones are doing, and try to inspire them to lead a higher life. We may no longer see them with our human eyes, but we may experience them powerfully in dreams, where they come to us to give us the inner message on how we can make progress.
A little-known fact you won't find elsewhere on the Internet is that for a time Sarama ran a thrift shop called I Need This Store. (This was in addition to her yoga studio.)
By dawntreader72014 • Posted in Spirituality	• Tagged Abode of Yoga, compassion, intuition, life of the soul, photography, Sarama Minoli, spiritual intelligence, Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy disciple experience, the soul, yoga
Alice in the Snow I
A Christmas in July video gift to my readers
There's beauty all around us, but we sometimes need to be in the right place at the right time to see it!
Then, as aspiring artists, we try and find a way to share what we've seen so that the edited view communicates strongly.
It took me a surprisingly long time to get this short video of the Alice in Wonderland Statue in a snowstorm just the way I wanted. I hope you find as I do that it communicates peace, beauty, and an unseen world that seems to have its own life when no one's looking.
The best haiku writers are said to gently eavesdrop on their subjects, so that the impression you're left with is of the thing itself. When filming, I longed to merge with the winter scene so that there was no me anymore, and what was left was simply nature unfolding of itself, for itself.
An ambitious (and pretentious) longing — one that can only be hinted at in this short video. I actually have lots of footage of sculptures in the snow, so much so that the thought of editing it all is daunting. I once did a roughish edit (to VHS tape) that expressed some of what I would like. I remember a particular day when I spent from morning till evening filming in the snow, and Nature made such a strong impression on me that later that evening I felt as though the snow were still falling in my mind.
Time seems to expand in a really good snowstorm, and it's wonderful to surrender to that sense of monumentality — the feeling that it has always been snowing and will always be snowing; that the amount of snow which could fall is infinite; that it might easily bury the Empire State Building or even all of civilization, leaving only whiteness.
melting snow
an old woman in black
feeds red-tailed squirrels
By dawntreader72014 • Posted in Spirituality	• Tagged Alice in the Snow, Alice in Wonderland Statue, Central Park, Christmas in July, haiku, José de Creeft, meditation, nature videos, photography, poetry, snowscapes, snowstorms, videography, winter scenes
DailyMotion's New API - Bad For Bloggers!
Donald Trump vs. Ferris Fremont
The Gospel Truth About Congress
'Twas The Night Before Brexit
Trump's America: Teachers With Guns
Happy 87th Birthday, Sri Chinmoy!
Sudha Seetharaman - Portrait #2
Art and Hermeneutics Part 1 (with Fun Video Clips)
Lev Parnas Slideshow FUNNY!
Trump administration: The quality of thuggishness is not strained
Pompeo is here! (animated GIF)
O Little Town of Shandaken
The search for truth in politics…
Even The Snowman Voted Tory
UK Elections – Such a Sad Result! Part 1
Boris Johnson Funny #3
Donald Trump – A date which will live in infamy!
The Speech That Got Boris Johnson Elected
Ask Dr Johnson!
Boris Johnson: Too Clever By Half
Sri Chinmoy: 1931-2007 (photo collage HD)
Brexit: Further Discussion of Leavers' Motives
Brexit, Strange Loops, Star Trek and the New Johnson Plan
Brexit Analysis: Real World Effects of Proroguing Parliament
Sri Chinmoy Birthday Music Mix, August 2019
UK Politics Update #1
The Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race 2019
Boris Johnson's Tom Bombadil Problem
Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker: Last Tango The Video
European Parliament Elections – Free For All
Good Energy at the Change UK Presser on April 23
Happy 55th Anniversary, Sri Chinmoy!
Coming Attractions: Last Tango In Strasbourg
The Brexit Unicorn – Doctor Who vs. Boris Johnson
A humourous look at latest Brexit developments
Brexit: Irish Backstop For Dummies (video)
International Women's Day: Temple-Song-Hearts music group and more
Serious Talk About Brexit – Part 2
EU's Juncker hasn't read his George Lakoff
'Twas The Night Before Brexit – GROUP READING! (YouTube)
'Twas The Night Before Brexit
Bad, BAD Federal Reserve Chairman (according to Trump)
Shutdown over border wall – Would you believe…
Brexit and the Bells of Rhymney
Matt Whitaker: Where have I seen this guy before?
Brexit Drama, Brexit Humour
Turkey Day Mystery Science Theater 3000 Offering
Trumpy Bear
Vote For Number 6
Operation Faithful Patriot – Genesis of a Name
The Greatest One-Star Restaurant in the Whole Quadrant
Joan Baez – All My Trials – Tree of Life
Sri Chinmoy: Casual Pics – Boat Rides
Sudha Seetharaman – Portrait #2
Sri Chinmoy: 1931-2007
Justice Kavanaugh: Private Swearing-In Ceremony
Brett Kavanaugh and the Calendar of Evil
Brett Kavanaugh: Through A Shotglass Darkly 2
Brett Kavanaugh: Through A Shotglass Darkly
Scotland The Brave vs. Jamaica The Hot
Beeb vs. Boob: Sean Spicer Watch
Queen Elizabeth Plans for Trump Visit
Scott Pruitt Epitaph
Cool Concepts


This area is boomed off with 24 hour roaming security. Close to Morning Glen, Morningside and Woodmead Shopping centres. Churches, Mosques and Synagogues are close by. Wendywood primary and Wendywood High schools are in walking distance in the area. There are a number of crèches and play schools in the suburb. It has a park near the Wendywood shopping centre.


Ever wonder what NBAers are interested in away from the court? Before a recent Pacers-Thunder game, Courtney Seymour invaded Indiana's locker room to learn more about what some of the players are into, including tattoos, dogs, and, uh, naked swims through the ocean. Enjoy Q+As with Danny Granger, Paul George, George Hill and Lou Amundson in the video above.


Masteri Thao Dien Apartments - Cool, modern and coziest space for your family.
Masteri Thao Dien Apartments – Cool, modern and coziest space for your family.
This apartment has the largest city and river view, and it is designed with many windows from the bedrooms to the living room. With the yellow light of the city at night and the peaceful lifestyle of this apartment, it will create the coziest space for your family.
03 bedrooms are designed with reasonable space. Get white as the base color in your bedroom. Bathrooms are integrated in the bedroom to bring convenience to life.
Masteri Thao Dien devotes more than 60% of the area to the green park of nearly 6,000 m2 and regulating lake area of nearly 3,500 m2, creating a green space and completely separate. Living here, residents can enjoy the full nature and still enjoy the amenities of modern urban. Vincom Mega Mall Thao Dien shopping center invested by Vingroup, will be put into operation at the same time with residential areas. This will be a shopping mall with the scale of the largest and most modern commercial center in the city.
It is a complete utility system of more than 90 indispensable living utilities in the home and outdoors to meet the full needs of all family members including: green park, swimming pool, children's play area , BBQ, gym … for the needs, relaxation and entertainment.
Last but not least, Choosing Masteri Thao Dien For Rent is the ticket to enjoy " your life without comparing it with that of others". Hence, a combination between convenient pace and naturally green life for you and your family.
Masteri Thao Dien Apartment – Ggorgeous Decor, Bring luxury for you.


Thread: Wrightsville / Hellam / Columbia range/clubs?
Hi -- looking for somewhere close to 'the river' to shoot outdoor pistol, rifle; any referrals/recommendations? Relatively new to the area, tired of driving up 83 and then west to the public range.
Re: Wrightsville / Hellam / Columbia range/clubs?
I shoot at Jefferson sportsman club, but that might be a bit farther than you want to drive.
Jefferson Sportsmen If you wish to check it out.
Anyone else in Columbia County?
Why Won't Obama Talk About Columbia?


text:
« Bruce Springsteen, Lift Me Up, I'm On Fire, Johnny Cash | Main | Bruce Springsteen, Cinco de Mayo, Spanish Eyes, Spanish Harlem, Because The Night »
Bruce Springsteen, Johnny 99, Johnny Cash
Today's Friday Bruce Fix was inspired by yesterday's announcement that Chrysler would be seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States. It seemed to me that the only reasonable reaction here in Bruce Fix Land (it's really nothing much like Disney Land, in case you're wondering), would be to play a song that Bruce Springsteen was likely inspired to write by the closing of a Ford plant in Mahwah, New Jersey in 1980.
One of the goals of the Friday Bruce Fix is to celebrate Friday, the end of the week, the impending weekend, and to generally provide an uplifting experience. So, I decided to feature a song that Wikipedia describes as being "about unemployment, poverty, robbery, murder and possibly execution" and "about complete despair". That should give you plenty of momentum going into the weekend.
'Johnny 99' was released in 1982 on Bruce's first acoustic album 'Nebraska'. In keeping with the sparse instrumentation on that album, he recorded it with just guitar, harmonica and vocal. Today's first clip is fairly faithful to the original, and was recorded in Paris in 1985 on the 'Born In The USA' tour.
Fast forward to just a few weeks ago, on April 10th in Denver, with a much more uplifting arrangement and performance. This clip covers just the last half or so of the song, featuring some blazing guitar work from Little Steven. Whoo! Whoo!
In case you liked that, here's a full version of the song, 5 nights later in LA, shot by an audience member from the pit down in front of the stage. The audio is pretty lousy, but it does give you a feel for what it's like to be down there, and the performance is great. Here are Bruce and the E Street Band reveling in the joy and total exhilaration of poverty, robbery, murder, execution and complete despair! Whoo! Whoo!
And what the hell, why not have a listen to Johnny Cash covering 'Johnny 99'?
Happy Friday. Whoo! Whoo!
Posted at 09:44 AM in 1976 - 1982 Proving it All Night, 1983 - 1988 Mega Bruce, 2009 - ? Anything is Possible, Live, Music, Originals, Weblogs | Permalink
Tags: Blog, Bruce Springsteen, Chapter 11, Chrysler, Ford, Johnny 99, Johnny Cash, Little Steven, Mahwah, Music, Nebraska, Rock and Roll, Video, Weblog

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Having a valid and up to date Will ensures that your assets are dealt with in the way that you want when you pass away. However, it is not always the end of the story.
Without the right advice you could inadvertently place a financial burden on your beneficiaries, rather than simply pass on the benefit of your assets.
Originally Estate planning was undertaken primarily to minimise the impact of death and Estate duties. Death duties were abolished in Queensland in 1976 and Federal Estate duties were abolished in 1979.
Taxation issues are one of the key reasons for Estate planning. The person that you appoint as your personal representative will be liable for your tax obligations in the period after your death and any tax on income arising as a consequence of the administration of your Estate.
One of the most important things to bear in mind in planning your Estate is any property which will be subject to capital gains tax. Assets that attract capital gains tax include land or buildings, shares, units in a unit trust, collectables and personal use assets.
Capital gains tax is not payable until the property is sold and it is important to avoid the need for assets which attract capital gains tax being sold unnecessarily. Capital gains tax is calculated differently depending on whether the property was acquired before or after 19 September 1985.
Ensuring that both yours and your beneficiary's assets are protected is also a key strategy in an effective Estate plan. Different strategies such as testamentary trusts can be considered to protect your assets.
If you have complicated family relationships, such as children from multiple marriages.
The most obvious way of distributing your Estate is to leave your assets through your Will.
However this is not the only option. Estate planning can allow you flexibility as to how you pass on your assets and interests.
You may want to limit the duration of an interest in property. For example if you want to ensure that certain assets will pass to your children after your spouse's death. You may also want to attach conditions to a gift, for example by specifying that it be used for a certain purpose.
There are a number of different options for achieving these aims through your will or by having a family or testamentary trust.
We will talk through these considerations with you to ensure you have the best fit for your circumstances.
Proper advice can minimise the risk of disputes arising over your Estate after death. Even if you have a valid Will it can be subject to challenge which is known as a Family Provision Claim.
The Succession Act 1981 allows a spouse, child or dependant (as defined by the legislation) to challenge a Will if they can show that adequate provision has not been made for their maintenance and support.
This is a complicated area of law and there are a number of factors a court will take into account when determining whether adequate provision has been made. This is why proper Estate planning is so important. There is also certain property to which a family provision order may not apply to.
The correct legal advice can help minimise the risk of a family provision claim and also minimise the strain of potential litigation on your loved ones.
Contact our Wills & Estates team today to discuss your Wills & Estate Planning needs.


Lovely apartment in St John's Wood.
Beautifully refurbished three bedroom apartment, with wooden floors throughout and excellent kitchen with German appliances located on the ground floor of this prestigious gated development. The property is located close to St John's Wood High Street and Swiss Cottage tube station.
£895 per week Available Lovely apartment in St John's Wood.


text:
Butterfly Care Centre: A Home of Excellence for Teens with Autism
Monday, December 26, 2022 at 3:42 PM by Masolo Mabonga
Butterfly Care Centre Africa was established in 2016 to attend to the needs of mentally and physically challenged teenagers
The institution is situated approximately 14km from Ruai shopping centre and has over 40 teenagers
Some of these teenagers have bank accounts and are moving towards becoming self-reliant
Domitila Matheka, the executive director, appealed to well-wishers to support the institution's course to transform more lives
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As the car pulled up outside Butterfly Care Centre Africa in Ruai, the environment and weather around this place felt slightly different from what we had experienced when we took the right turn off Kagundo road.
Butterfly Care Centre Africa Executive Director Domitila Matheka with mentally and physically challenged teenagers. Photo: Bebeto Ogutu.
Source: Original
The path leading to this centre was fairly small, bumpy, dusty and nearly featureless. We cruised through and over the humps, bumps and trenches, and finally made it to our destination, situated approximately 14km from Ruai shopping center.
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The land here is generally dry with sandstone outcrops and jutting stone ledges standing by the roadside. It was akin to a desert, but nothing close to the Sahara-like desert of sand dunes.
Here, there are some sporadic tufts of trees and patches of on-and-off grasses and shrubs. They resembled the scattered meadows of the Savannah, but these were the tufts of Manyatta.
It was generally a hot day. The sun and clouds played hide and seek in equal turns, but the scorching rays of the former were unbearable and uninviting.
Inside Butterfly Care Centre things were different. The place was generally cool and full of life, synergy and enthusiasm.
Tens of teenagers brought here from different places for care and mentorship were in high spirits. This was their last day before they break for December holiday, and it meant a lot to them; playing, partying, dancing and relishing every moment of fun is all they wanted.
"There is something special about this place apart from being a home for special needs teenagers" a colleague whispered to me as we took our seats under a shade."
We are here to meet madam Domitila Matheka and her and team, and give our donations as TUKO.co.ke family.
Domitila is the executive director of Butterfly Care Centre, an institution she co-foundered with other well-wishers in 2016 after retiring as a special needs teacher.
She chose a path least travelled by civil servants who hang up their boots to enjoy the fruits of their sweat after decades of toiling.
Of all the options she had in her hands, Domitila, a soft-spoken and ease-going woman who espouses kindness and humility, chose to dedicate her remaining years to serving the mentally and physically challenged teenagers from disadvantaged families.
She has become the face and pillar of this institution that stands distinctly tall at the heart of this vast parched land that is hit with a myriad of challenges, ranging from acute water shortage to severe famine.
A photo with a section of mentally and physically challenged teenagers at Butterfly Care Centre in Ruai. Photo: Bebeto Ogutu.
Teenagers with bank accounts
But amidst these enormous challenges, Domilita and her team have sacrificed their hard-earned resources and lifetime savings to provide shelter, food, and special education to over 40 mentally and physically challenged teenagers.
They have turned the lives of these young souls from the streams of impossibilities and mountains of insecurities to rangeland of hope and joy.
"Mother Teresa once said that you may not be able to feed a thousand people or touch a thousand people, but you can feed and dress one life, and that's enough," she said.
Out of the 40 teenagers that have been admitted here, 28 are borders while 12 are day scholars.
The institution has five trainers who impart practical skills to these young learners to help them be self-reliant and competitive in the job market.
They have also started offering computer classes after receiving a donation of desktops and other gadgets from Safaricom foundation.
"After my 27 years of experience as a special needs teacher, I realised that this category of learners has nowhere to go after primary education. There are little opportunities for them in institutions of higher learning. So we decided to come up with this institution to bridge that gap," said Domitila when asked about the idea behind the opening of Butterfly Care Centre.
"We also want to solve the problem of unemployment which has become a global crisis. Imagine if normal, sane Kenyans who have gone to school have no jobs, how about the physically challenged? It can be worse for them that's why we are here offering this training. We want them to be self-reliant," she added.
The executive director disclosed that at least five of the teenagers have started earning from the sale of their tailor-made materials and other artifacts.
"They have bank accounts at Equity and they are very happy because if they want to go home like today, they won't bother their parents or guardians. We will just retrieve what is enough for transport and give them," said the caregiver.
Some of the items designed and produced by these gifted teenagers include door mats, Maasai necklaces, bracelets, shoes, and shukas among others.
"If we can have one person touching one life in every village then the world will be a good place to live in," said the administrator.
Love and compassion
Domitila has a special affinity with intellectually challenged teenagers. She understands their language, their challenges, and the desires of their hearts, and bonds with them naturally without feigning.
She radiates love and compassion, and her gentle nature is a beacon of comfort and security to these teenagers. She exudes a sense of calm and comfort, and the little ones feel at ease in her presence. To them, she is like a warm hug on a cold day.
She is a natural caregiver, and she exudes a maternal energy that fills everyone with a sense of belonging and peace.
"If you see any special needs teenager out there don't give them handouts but instead try and identify a talent or something they can do and bring them to us. We might not have enough facilities to accommodate them but we can find a space for them elsewhere," assured the administrator.
She noted the institution is currently grappling with serious financial challenges adding that directors are often forced to sacrifice their savings to provide for the teenagers.
"Food is very expensive and we can't do without it, we must provide for them every day. Secondly, the cost of paying trainers is also very high and that is why we can't hire enough, some have even resigned over delayed payments," explained Domitila.
Little Shiro
In one of the rooms we visited to interact with the teenagers, there was a cocktail of emotions. At first, it was pure love, jubilation, and ululation.
One little girl raced around the room with her arms outstretched and her heart overflowing with love, she threw herself at the feet of one of the guests who had accompanied us, Sharon Obara, Miss World Kenya 2021.
Overwhelmed with this priceless love, she lifted the little angel in her arms and embraced her. Their faces suddenly beamed with radiant rays of love and smiles. They became one.
It was a classic case of love at first sight. And it turned out the little girl's name was Shiro, and her new idol in the room is Sharon. Such is life!
But this love story did not last for long before it was rudely disrupted by a loud scream. One of the teenagers had been pissed off by something we didn't know, and we had no idea how to comfort her.
As we stared at each, the noise in the room persisted and it suddenly became chaotic. One girl crying in one corner, another one dancing, others clapping frantically at the heart of the room, while others posing for photos as another group sing and 'speak in tongues'. It was spontaneous.
But the mood changed instantly when Domitila walked in. They were suddenly happy and ready to listen, apart from Shiro who was still staring at her new friend in rapt wonder.
"It's time for lunch and music," the caregiver broke the biggest news of the day and the whole room went wild.
Donations and gifts
The day was moving so fast and we had to wrap up our visit with donations and gifts.
TUKO.co.ke through the head of Public Relations Ruby Orimba donated over 100kg of assorted foodstuff, books, playing balls, and cash to support the institution.
In June 2022, the leading digital company donated KSh 63,200 to help the management of Butterfly Care Centre meet the needs of these teenagers.
The funds were raised through subscriptions to TUKO Patreon and TUKO YouTube Membership TUKO's mission is to better the lives of Kenyans not only by sharing bold African stories but also through the company's CSR projects.
"We had the plan to lay out cabro blocks to make the surface smooth but unfortunately things didn't work out today, but we will come back to start and complete that project," said Ruby.
As we prepared to leave, the teenagers picked the new balls and engaged us in wild games, chasing and tumbling on the ground but still retaining the smiles.
They darted and dashed between swings and slides, squealing with delight and happiness as the day died out. It was a beautiful sight to behold.
They bid us goodbye with songs and praises, their eyes sparkling with joy and smiles wide and bright. The day was full of love, pleasure and pure bliss.
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Even though most folk think that a few kind of executive is critical, till lately it was once basically an assumption that had by no means been analyzed from an fiscal viewpoint. This replaced within the Nineteen Seventies while economists on the heart for the examine of Public selection engaged in a scientific exploration of the problem. This stimulating assortment, the 1st book-length remedy at the public selection idea of presidency, keeps and extends the examine software started greater than 3 a long time in the past.
Neo-liberalism is without doubt one of the such a lot influential ideologies because the moment global battle, but little study has been dedicated to the flow of principles that represent its major physique of proposal. This booklet fills the void, supplying an unique account of neo-liberalism's highbrow foundations, improvement, and conceptual configuration as an ideology.
Denmark is likely one of the such a lot revolutionary international locations by way of kin help guidelines. This booklet, even though, finds a backdrop of decreased rights, inequalities and relatives violence within the lives of susceptible lone moms. if that is so in Denmark, what's the scenario in different nations, together with america, the united kingdom and different european member states?
No idea is extra passionately and greatly outlined, or decried, than is liberalism in modern Anglo-American philosophy. yet what is that this idea, on which loads ink is spilled? This selection of unique essays through best experts in political philosophy, criminal conception, and economics deals solutions to that query, through exploring the theoretical commitments of liberals and a few of the sensible implications in their view.
The classics of Western tradition are out, no longer being taught, changed by way of second-rate and 3rd international texts. White men are a victimized minority on campuses around the kingdom, because of affirmative motion. Speech codes have silenced an individual who won't toe the liberal line. Feminists, wielding their model of sexual correctness, have taken over.
In order for this trade to be possible, the weak man must feel confident that if he produces something above and beyond his normal payments to the strong man, the strong man will not simply seize it. Thus the strong man would, if he were sensible, have a fairly regular schedule of predation, but would be willing to make trades on things above and beyond that regular schedule. The reason is the discipline of continuous dealings. If the strong man regularly seizes three coconuts from the weak man, but on one occasion when the weak man happens to have a papaya and offers to trade it for some of the strong man's products, the strong man seizes it, then the strong man can feel confident that never again will the weak man, if he happens to have some additional papaya, offer to make the trade.
It would also, we should note, be possible that the state of nature would change. It might be that certain people with relatively little wealth or income in the state of nature as it was originally set up would gain greatly by the transfer to the new system, while some individuals who had done very well under the previous system would find their income going down very sharply. In essence, we are not getting away from the state of nature; we are simply changing the technological characteristics of individual power.
If either X1* or X2* is below survival level, should the dominating person let the other person starve to death or enslave him? (In Tullock's [9, Ch. ) Only by introducing time preference into the individual's utility function can the problem be adequately treated. In the present model, the individual will be starved to death. In other words, the marginal rate of substitution of error for income is greater than the ability coefficient at Ei = 0. For an excellent discussion of the relevance of numbers for the choice that individuals will make regarding alternative rules see Buchanan .


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Radiotherapy improves breast cancer survival
Cancer patients who have radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery have a lower risk of recurrence and a better chance of survival, according to a new study.
Dec. 16, 2005, 12:22 AM UTC / Source: Reuters
Cancer patients who have radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery have a lower risk of recurrence and a better chance of beating the illness, according to a new study.
An overview of 78 trials into the benefits of radiotherapy, which kills cancer cells left in the breast after the tumor has been removed, showed the five-year risk of the cancer returning dropped from 26 percent to seven percent in women receiving the treatment.
The odds of dying from the disease 15 years after diagnosis fell from 36 to 31 percent.
"It has been known that radiotherapy is beneficial in stopping the cancer growing again locally but it has not previously been seen that after breast-conserving surgery, radiotherapy improved survival from breast cancer mortality or from overall mortality," said Dr. Sarah Darby.
"That's a new finding," the professor of medical statistics at the University of Oxford in England added in an interview.
Mastectomy patients
Radiotherapy also brought an overall improvement in survival in patients who had had a mastectomy — removal of the breast — and whose cancer had spread to the lymph nodes in the armpit.
But the researchers, who reported their findings in The Lancet medical journal, said the treatment was not appropriate for mastectomy patients whose cancer had not spread beyond the breast.
"This study provides the first really definite evidence that, for women who've had breast-conserving surgery and for women whose cancer has spread to the armpit, radiotherapy reduces the long-term risk of dying from the disease," said Dr. Richard Peto, a co-author of the report.
"The improvement is small but definite and it adds to the improvement in long-term survival produced by chemotherapy and hormone therapy," he added in a statement.
Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women. More than a million cases occur worldwide each year, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France.
Although most cases of the disease develop in women over 50 years old, a small percentage are in women in the 30s or younger. Pop singer Kylie Minogue was diagnosed with the disease earlier this year at the age of 36.
Breast cancer is treated with surgery and radiotherapy, chemotherapy and hormone treatment, or a combination of them, depending on the cancer and stage of the illness.
Factors which can increase a woman's risk of the breast cancer include having a mother or close relative with the disease, inherited mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, an early puberty, late menopause and not having any children.