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In May 2018 I was invited as artist on board on Kleronia, a 18 mt. cutter, in team with a video maker, a writer and a few skippers, to support the “Cognition in the wind” research project directed by Roberto Casati (Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS ENS EHESS, Paris). We navigate between Rome, the Pontine Islands and Gaeta. Watch a video here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TpY-AeXRNk
If you're in the area please try to join us for some wine and cheese to celebrate the closing of my smashingly successful first Exhibit in San Francisco!
Artist Statement: 'Do What Thou Wilt' is the title of this show because that's what we Humans do: whatever we will. Humanity evolved its cognition, self-awareness, language, innovation, etc. because it allowed us to survive the harshness of the relentless onslaught of nature and the universe. It allowed us to have a minute amount of control of our surroundings so we could exist for yet another generation. After awhile, after our basic needs were met, our will carried us in many different, more contemplative directions. Yet the more we learned and thought we achieved, the more we realized the full breadth of nature, the sheer precipitous sovereignty of the universe, and the infinitesimal part we play in it. Like ants trying to hold up their hill colony in the inescapable and seemingly obstinate wind and rain. In the end, everything washes into the sea; no matter if that sea is the deep blue waters of the ocean or the dust floating in blackness of interstellar space. Although during that flow, we swim in that river of time, doing what we will. As a consequence, at times we think that we are odds with nature and the universe, that we must rampage against it, control it and tame it, or be another victim of its ceaseless entropy. Of course, and quite paradoxically, nature and the universe are doing the same thing we are: bestowing its will. Nevertheless, the fundamental difference is that we are aware of our will, we have volition.
These photographs attempt to explore these themes of humanity and nature exerting their wills upon and abreast of each other and the beautiful patterns of potentiality that can occur as this happens.
When some children are randomly selected and their teacher is told they are likely to bloom intellectually over the next few months, they do.
This is the self-fulfilling fulfilling prophecy.
(It happens probably because the teacher expects the child to learn faster so gives it more challenging tasks)
(Rosenthal, 1985)
CC image courtesy of: www.flickr.com/photos/doug88888/3010737565/
HD AVCHD MP4 video of our nearly tame magpies squawking in the mop tree at the front door...
Some sounds of Canberra... and Triple 6, 666 in the background..
220Mb file! Less than 3 minutes in length.
and ringing the bells in the mop tree, with 666 in the background! Oops!
They have brains...
www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2017/11/b...
shared here.. www.facebook.com/groups/BirdsinBackyards/?fref=nf
Bird song evolved 90 million years ago in Australia...
www.abc.net.au/radio-australia/programs/conversations/gis...
Many assumptions about the nature of birds and their behaviour are completely wrong when applied to Australian birds.
Gisela Kaplan was a professor of sociology when a magpie nestling she was hand-raising bonded closely with her, followed her about and learned to speak.
Her curiosity about birds became so strong she switched careers to become a field biologist and animal behaviourist.
Based in Armidale NSW, Gisela has conducted extensive research into avian behaviour. Her second PhD was a study of the songs of Australian magpies.
Gisela's many books on Australian native birds have changed the way these creatures are understood.
Along with her teaching, writing and research in ornithology, Gisela has been a wildlife carer for 25 years, raising countless birds of all ages.\
Further information
Original broadcast November 2019
Bird Bonds: sex, mate-choice and cognition in Australian native birds is published by Macmillan
Gisela's earlier books include Bird Minds, Tawny Frogmouth, and Australian Magpie
Gisela is Emeritus Professor of animal behaviour at the University of New England
People are more confident of winning a bet after they have put their money
down although the odds remain constant.
(Knox & Inkster, 1968)
JURY DISTINCTION FOR CATEGORY 3. LOCATIONS AND INSTRUMENTS
Copyright CC-BY-NC-ND: Francesca Angiolani-Larrea
Lizards can prove very useful in helping us better understand which factors influence learning, an adaptive ability ubiquitous across the animal kingdom. Our team at the Division of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Bern is studying how sociality and ecology influence different cognitive abilities. This includes the role of gravity in the spatial learning of Tokay geckos, an arboreal and nocturnal lizard native to Asia with excellent night vision, colour vision similar to humans and the ability to perceive UV.
In our experiment, a gecko has to learn the location of food in a maze placed either vertically or horizontally. We are also studying whether females, males and juveniles learn differently under these conditions. This image shows a lizard in a single open maze positioned vertically.
Comment of the jury │ The very effective symmetric framing reveals at once what is going on while adeptly leading our gaze onto the main subject of the experiment and the story about to unfold. One cannot but wonder which decision the animal is about to take – and with what consequence.
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Les lézards sont très utiles pour nous aider à mieux comprendre les facteurs qui influencent l’apprentissage, une capacité d’adaptation omniprésente dans le règne animal. Notre groupe de la Division d’écologie comportementale de l’Université de Berne étudie comment la socialité et l’écologie influencent différentes capacités cognitives. Nous analysons notamment comment la gravité intervient dans l’apprentissage spatial des geckos Tokay, un lézard arboricole et nocturne originaire d’Asie.
Dans notre expérience, un gecko doit apprendre l’emplacement de la nourriture dans un labyrinthe placé verticalement ou horizontalement. Nous étudions également si les femelles, les mâles et les juvéniles apprennent différemment dans ces conditions. Dans cette image, un lézard se trouve dans un labyrinthe ouvert placé verticalement.
Commentaire du jury │ Le cadrage symétrique est efficace pour expliciter la situation tout en conduisant habilement notre regard sur le sujet principal de l’expérience. L’image nous plonge instantanément au cœur de l’histoire sur le point de se dérouler: quelle décision l’animal va-t-il prendre, et avec quelle conséquence?
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Eidechsen sind sehr nützlich, wenn wir verstehen wollen, welche Faktoren das Lernen beeinflussen – eine im Tierreich allgegenwärtige Anpassungsfähigkeit. Unsere Gruppe an der Abteilung für Verhaltensökologie der Universität Bern untersucht, wie Sozialität und Ökologie verschiedene kognitive Fähigkeiten beeinflussen. Wir analysieren unter anderem, welche Rolle die Schwerkraft beim räumlichen Lernen eines Tokeh-Geckos spielt, einer in Asien beheimateten baumbewohnenden Echse.
In unserem Experiment muss ein Gecko in einem vertikal oder horizontal platzierten Labyrinth lernen, wo sich das Futter befindet. Wir untersuchen auch, ob Weibchen, Männchen und Jungtiere unter diesen Bedingungen unterschiedlich lernen. In diesem Bild befindet sich eine Eidechse in einem vertikal angelegten offenen Labyrinth.
Kommentar der Jury │ Mit dem symmetrischen Bildausschnitt gelingt es effektiv, die Situation zu erklären und gleichzeitig den Blick geschickt auf das Hauptobjekt des Experiments zu lenken. Wir stehen sofort mitten im Geschehen: Welche Entscheidung wird das Tier treffen und mit welchen Folgen?
ADHD medication with a composition intended to avoid rapid onset and termination of action. Also used as a cognition enhancer.
PROCRUSTES IN SITU
PROCRUSTES
A full view both of PROCRUSTES and of the four panels behind. Below is a transcription of the full text of the Blue Triangle"
"We live in an age of miracles...August 6th, 1945. Born in a searing flash of light, god himself signed his magnificent demise with the most enormous phallic plume the world had ever seen. Terminus.... Fifty years have passed since the death of god...fifty years of the most miraculous discoveries, inventions and accomplishments—and fifty years of denial and deceit. We live in an age of miracles and refuse to accept the authorship of, hence responsibility for, the miracles themselves. We persist in denying our resplendency and responsibilities within the concept of a new age—a new age with a new concept of time, finite and creative. An Age of Miracles. Thousands upon thousands of men, women and children were consumed in this cataclysmic change of metaphors. God, like an ancient ruler incarnate, adorned his death with innocents, and their blood colors this new age. How old he was! As old as human fear. And though fear still holds us enthralled, we are no longer free to worship it. God is dead and, with him, men in His image. Patriarchy's grave lies in the blood and rubble of Hiroshima, beneath a poisoned cock of smoke. Is it possible that human evolution is gender actuated? Though all genders participate in linear development, environmental and in-species conditions select one gender innately qualified to compete successfully for survival. Meaning that the circumstances of exterior actuality create the internal reality for human evolution and communication—. (It is interesting that the word "gender" refers mainly to language and its syntactic relationships: masculine, feminine, neuter.) One gender has always dominated and, for reasons of mutual survival, the correlative genders, in symbiotic relationship, have supported and reflected the sense of reality, sustaining its primacy. Reality is that state which functions best and if actual conditions alter so, too, must comprehensive reality. Until August 6th, 1945, the actual conditions of environment demanded a masculine gendered reality. This is no longer so.... In a searing flash of light with its accompanying phallic signature, the cognitional symbiosis was altered completely: In a split-second shattering of the Actual, gendered reality shifted the masculine Alpha to Omega. "Mankind" became the human experiment's first gendered epoch. Delivered and signed, He presented the human corporation His final solution—total annihilation...magnificent simplicity. Humanity has been in a crisis of reality for fifty years—and a gendered struggle for dominance. Our cognizance has been presented two alternatives: the inevitable conclusion of masculine dominance within the concept of infinite time or the deposition of masculine reality and the acceptance of Time Finite within the reality construct of an alternate gender. Meaning...if humankind does not shift its metaphorical identity from masculine entelechy it will destroy itself. By his apotheosis will His prophecies be fulfilled. Armageddon. Life-everlasting—with no one to prove Him wrong. There is no real purpose in deconstruction. Mankind's epoch ended on the 6th of August 1945. We are engaged in defining a new age, an age free of the metaphors of dominance and fear—killing and hate. An age without god no matter what guise his bearded face. There is no need to correct the dead. All genders participated in symbiotic relationship. It is over. The hierarchy must change.... A new symbiosis must prevail. The gendered tribal role of provider and protector is without grace. It can no longer provoke obeisance and obsecration by virtue of birthright. We live in a new epoch of ungendered creativity—an Age of Miracles from which will be engendered a new entelechy. From time immemorial, reality has evolved in a constantly threatening environment relying totally on the masculine's ability to compete and provide within the actualities for survival: Man against elements, man against animal and man against man. From one against one to group against group to nation against nation and finally, on 8/6/45, man against life itself. Within the geometric inevitability of his evolving entelechy, mankind will conclude itself. Generation upon generation, century upon century, millennium upon millennium, this gendered primacy for survival has established a density of reality nearly impenetrable in its compaction of metaphor and myth. In a flash of light, humanity was plunged into a hiatus of astonishment, depression and exhilaration. In the face of universal suicide through the symbiotic reality of masculine entelechy, humanity has been forced to question the continuation of gendered supremacy. This fifty-year hiatus has been defined by a choice between revolutionary chaos or an ordered planetary annihilation through gendered apotheosis. Survival has stimulated cognition and revolution: that which would destroy us must be deposed—. The revolution is gendered, the outcome unknown. The symbiotic relationship between masculine, neuter and feminine genders has undergone a violent wrenching of cognitional reality. The past is undergoing a process of deconstruction with history rewritten to include rather than suppress feminine accomplishments and contributions. The neuter genders have positioned themselves viably within the hierarchy of revolutionary change. Under attack, the masculine has become schizophrenic and paranoiac in the realization that the only way to regain control is to subvert the appearance of evolutionary reality. We live in a time of chaos with the masculine and feminine obsessed with re-creating and reprising the past and the gendered neuter demanding viability within the symbiotic Now. We are at war with the god of our fathers. If the human experiment is to continue, He must be eliminated from the symbiotic equation, the past defined and this new epoch created in gender parity. Let the masculine have the past with its gods and redundant birthrights—. For this he must forsake intellectual apotheosis and enter into cognizant reality in full and equal partnership within the gendered Whole. The triarchy of masculine gendered reality continues to dominate this fifty year hiatus. Though humanity knows there has occurred vital and essential change at the very core of cognizance, war, religion and commerce continue patriarchal control of cognitional entelechy. This triarchy, with its fabric of mores and metaphors, has maintained symbiotic absolutism throughout epochal time with entrenchment so profound as to seem insuperable. Radical feminism, however, has made deep fissures and the traditional symbiosis has begun to break down. An inversion has also begun to alter the triumvirate itself. An epochal change has occurred. A new reality is being born. Since 8/6/45, humanity has existed within the solipsistic freedom of the suicide's choice to live or die. In Time-Finite, a new symbiosis is being formed, man-kind displaced, the death of gods. Humanity is on the edge. Either a new entelechy will be provoked or the Experiment will end. As we struggle to shed our epochal skin, split the protective and procrustean chrysalis, jettison the propulsive force whose prolonged embrace would destroy us, it is incumbent to look out over the broad landscape of masculine gendered reality. Feminine infusion within these past fifty years gives some perspective to those areas within masculine orientation willing to adjust to symbiotic evolution—and—those areas which have hardened and opacified their omnific control. Religion is, of course, the most obdurate and lies at the core of masculine entelechy. When man created God in order to reify himself in His image, he perverted the natural evolution of his gendered potential. By establishing this symbiotic inversion between himself and his idea of himself, a schism occurred within gendered masculine entelechy...a stunting and stultification. Of the three genders, the masculine seems pre-fixed and immutable—redundant and preponderant.... A blind actor on an unlighted stage. Isolated and solipsistic. Age-old deceits and perversions are increasingly apparent within the triarchy: war and commerce prosper without benignancy in mechanical expectation while religion utilizes both in its increasingly malignant hypocrisy of divisiveness and hate. This triarchy, once the viable center of gendered symbiosis, has become the Procrustes of myth foretold. Art and science, once engaged in symbiotic union within masculine entelechy, now exist as separate identities outside the masculine sphere of domination—and, because they lie outside, are suspect and threatening: Art no longer serves as meretricious pimp of patriarchal supremacy, nor science directed toward apotheosis. August 6th, 1945, shattered the ancient symbiosis finally and forever by actualizing choice: life or death—nascency or apotheosis. Masculine entelechy, as manifest reality, is disintegrating leaving only its hardcore triarchy to command obeisance: religious, military and commercial fundamentalism. Dominance is sustained by fear, threat and purchase. This final procrustean embrace must be broken. By universal recognition of 8/6/45 as the Omega and Alpha in symbiotic gendered evolution, how magnificent would be our release from redundancy. The actual truths of science and the real truths of art would once again be engaged in symbiotic viability rather than as threats and chattels of a dying entelechy. Science and art—neuters in gendered cognition—are its linchpins. Neither masculine nor feminine, they are the purveyors of truth. Throughout the epoch of Masculine entelechy, the triarchy achieved magnificence during its peaks of symbiotic benignancy: masculine, feminine and neuter in functioning cognitional harmony. Under masculine solipsistic dominance these high points have been minimal, fragile and transcendent. Procrustes slumbered. Like a railroad track, Art and Science in binary relativity have given testimony to gendered evolution; by their evidence do we see the successes and failures of the human experiment. Humanity at its most syntonic evolves in gendered parallelism without distortion or hegemony. As masculine entelechy is personified by the triarchy of Religion, War and Commerce, the feminine, through symbiotic allegiance, has been identified as distaff, mother and chattel. Species survival has, until 8/6/45, flourished within this symbiosis and, through the birth and death, birth and death patterned repeat of masculine gendered entelechy, Time seemed infinite. As long as the binary parallelism existing between masculine and feminine continued in solipsistic linearity, masculine dominance would prevail. This blind assumption did not reckon with neuter volatility within the symbiotic mix. As male and female neutrality lies between male and female sexuality so, too, does the neutrality of Science and Art lie between masculine and feminine genders. As Art and Science reflect and mimic each other's achievements with prophetic results, so, too, do the gendered entelechies of masculine and feminine reflect and mimic each other within a meliorating evolution through linear time. As Art foretold the eventuation of Science, so has the feminine reflected and defined the masculine. His death was in his birth. By actualizing feminine entelechy, the masculine evolved a solipsistic syntax for control within the gendered symbiosis while developing the mechanics and methods for survival in a hostile environment. By force and mimicry, the masculine established dominance: Feminine Spirit was actualized into dogmatic religion which has served to constrain feminine power and establish a perverted masculine surrogacy over birth and creation. Since 8/6/45 there has been a struggle to re-create and reconstitute human entelechy in an environment no longer threatening from without but rather from within. In an aversion to masculine apotheosis, the feminine is asserting itself to continue species evolution through finite time. Born in fear and controlled by fear, the landscape of human consciousness continues to be constricted by masculine solipsistry: chronic religious wars and conflicts, territorial greed, pretentious contact sports, incessant and unremitting advertising...the triarchy persists in postured exaggeration. As the struggle evolves and a new epoch is born, the neuter has attained unaccustomed freedom. Employed by the masculine for his evolving entelechy, the aborted apotheosis and abrupt shift in concepts of time from infinite to finite has unleashed a force no longer indentured. Art, being by nature prophetic, has existed within a kind of free-floating state for twice the time of Science. (It is interesting, however, that since 8/6/45 the triarchal head of Commerce has, with some success, managed to retain its servitude.) It is the Science of technology that has created this Age of Miracles. It is as though by denying (or postponing) Science its role as executioner of apotheosis it has, through technological apology, created an explosion of dazzling brilliance. Unacknowledged by a dead religion still searching for Lazarus and chronically threatened by neutered truth, the miracles of technology also challenge War's egocentricity and gender aggrandizement. War has increasingly become neuter-oriented much in the same vein as commerce—through feminine transfusion. From the Korean War, which occurred at the beginning of finite time, to the Persian Gulf War, which took place forty years later, War was transformed from a reaffirmation of masculine values and authenticity to an exposition of technological astonishments: neutered and ascendant. Denied apotheosis, Masculine entelechy is being absorbed into a neutered symbiosis of parellelism. The end of history? The question smacks of masculine solipsistry. We are within the nascency of a new age, a new concept of time, a new symbiotic entelechy. We must ask new questions—. A meliorating evolution is in process and humanity is in hiatal crisis between life and death and life. Masculine egocentrism has prescripted an afterlife; Symbiotic Parallelism envisions a life after mankind. The first requires the death of Life; the second the death of Procrustes. Two alternatives: the first very actual and the second very real. As long as the means for universal Suicide exists, Life evolves in hiatus through finite time. Humanity has become totally responsible for the miracle of Life in its continuance. In the face of this, god withers...and in a very real sense apotheosis has occurred. Mankind is free to enjoin itself in a new symbiotic entelechy—parallel and syntonic. The date 8/6/45 should be enshrined in human cognizance as the death of Mankind and the beginning of Humanity...a new epoch. It is 1995. Five years until the Christian millennium and fifty years since the annihilation of Hiroshima. The condition of humanity is toxic, poisoned by an entelechy redundant and untransmuted...corrupting and corrupt. Mankind, unremitting and unregenerate, has become an inversion of procrustean intent: the triarchy is destroying itself. In a protracted hiatus of apotheosis postponed, commerce is consuming the pretensions and personae of religion and war leaving a Janus of hypocrisy, Procrustean trafficker in fear and greed. As this perception becomes ever more cognitional, its actuality manifest, masculine solipsistry denied, its prophetic eventuation becomes ever more caricatured—morbific and mordant, aberrant and anachronistic, invasive and pervasive. Pre-millennialism is rampant, still promising rapture and damnation. The politics of reversal and denial are in ascendancy.... Blinded by fear and suffocating in angst, we refuse to establish the one signpost which could save us all: Hiroshima 8/6/45. Dies Irae and Deus ex machina. The triarchy must be forced to confess its suicide. A new epoch has begun. And what of Art? Over-shadowed by technology and constrained by commerce, it seems vestigial and mimetic in this age of miracles, serving as distaff to science in gendered neutrality. And what of Feminine gendered entelechy? What then of Humanity's evolving Spirit? What then of Art? As Science expands actual truth through the means and miracles of technology, Art seems unable to command its true equivalency. As Hubble looks out toward the very beginnings of the universe, Art must look deep into Feminine entelechy for its own essentiality within the concepts of finite time. If, as it seems, a meliorating evolution is progressing, then a feminine primus interpares is nascent; and with the death of procrustean religionism, Feminine Spirituality is released. Is it, perhaps, Art's purpose to define and configure the mysteries of this repressed and muted essence, to give persona and presence to this buried truth? Heretofore this essence, this spirit, this truth has been revealed in moments of ecstasy—profound religious or aesthetic experiences wherein an opacity suddenly becomes transparent and revelation occurs: a cosmic orgasm...a miracle. Art, from its earliest manifestations through its most opaque servitude in masculine entelechy to contemporary autotelism can be judged authentic only in terms of its capacity for transparency. Historicity means nothing. Originality means nothing. Authorship or ownership mean nothing—only its capacity for transparency. Throughout the ages and isms of linear time, Art's personae have reflected the shifting tastes and tableaux of their coeval existence. These surface perceptions often have great historical and anthropological information; however, the denser the first plane of perception, the more opaque and difficult the transmutation from object to experience. Even the most, supposedly, autotelic works are burdened by the opacities of technique and culture hype, procrustean in motive and intent. And most works are only surface manifestations with little or no capacity for transparency and transcendence. These works simply are until they aren't, leaving a few, oh so few, windows to Feminine ethos: to reality and truth. Suppressed, patronized and feared, this ethos—this ethic—this sublime clarity has been carried, protected and hidden within works of Art. Undiluted and volatile, it is Creation itself, exhilarating and liberating and awesome in its revelation. The more authentic the work of art, the more imbued with Feminine entelechy...the more astute and articulate the artist, the more transparent the access and profound the experience. The Feminine, whether actualized as Female or realized transcendentally, has been protected and exploited throughout evolutionary time, treated primarily as vassal and vessel within masculine solipsism; the miracle of birth, subservient to the sacredness of sperm...the subjective experience subverted by objective worth. This relationship between masculine and Feminine evolved virtually intact until this century and then shifted drastically on 8/6/45. Though parity has not been achieved, self-recognition is progressing at an astonishing pace (this is also true of the gendered neuter) and the diagonal hegemony of masculine control is moving toward symbiotic parallelism. This creates a climate both curious and problematic: As Feminine entelechy actualizes, what then of Art? Will it devolve into a kind of usage—propaganda for an increasingly fragmented and divergent society? A merging with technology into a single-gendered neutrality functioning with pragmatic opacity in the satisfying of evolving sensuous need? As this fifty year hiatus progresses through finite time, there is increasing evidence that as masculine superiority is challenged and feminization occurs, Science (technology) becomes ever more miraculous and neutralizing: Feminine entelechy will soon share the once unique power of reproduction with the entelechy of Science. Gender identities are in flux—no longer absolute within the human equation. As the Feminine neutralizes Masculine hegemony, Science is neutralizing the Feminine. What then of Art? If the miracle of Creation is being regendered and actualized into the miracles of Science, what becomes of the liberating ecstasies of Art? What of transparencies and transcendence? What of the Spirit? Has precognitional apotheosis precluded Art's purpose—its raison d'être? As Symbiotic parallelism evolves, will Art become merely the vehicle for an opaque communication? If the epicenter of Feminine entelechy can be produced in a test-tube, does this serve to destroy the entire entelechy or, as the death of Masculine procrustean triarchy has served, to integrate Masculine entelechy into Symbiotic Parallelism? I believe that Art, authentic in its entelechy of transparency and transcendence, will flourish throughout Time Finite as it has flourished throughout infinite time. And that as Hubble seeks out the beginnings of Time, the artist—if he indeed be an artist—will continue to probe cognizance for the miracle of Creation. We are an evolving mystery—a braided circlet of parallel threads twisted and tied into a Gordian knot of perplexing simplicity. On the Sixth of August Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Five in a Japanese city named Hiroshima, the solution of Alexander was proffered in penultimate predation. Thus far humankind has rejected this solution and for the past fifty years has involved itself in an intensified struggle to untie or at least record the knotted threads. Even the most orthodox and fundamental of religionists seem not quite ready for Rapture and apotheosis. We live in hiatus knowing that everything has changed, but not knowing what. It is a time of exaggeration. The Christian millennium fervor verges on hysteria with fundamentalists trying to revert, convert and invert with procrustean zest. Science, not employed as the sword for the ultimate severing solution, has become the wellspring for an astonishing shower of technological miracles, obliterating all but the most fundamental differences between the sexes allowing for a new and liberating parallelism devoid of hegemonic masculine supremacy. Art, struggling to retain viability in a hyper-actualized climate, has hardened its fundamental identities of precious chattel and valued propagandist. Both poses are redundant and hypocritical. On the verge of a new century, a new millennium, a new epoch, I cannot imagine a more thrilling and challenging time to be an artist. The entire human experiment is in flux. As the Holocene epoch ends, humankind has conquered its planet and is now in absolute control of its destiny. It can exist or not exist. No more "God's Will"—no more excuses. No more dogma or "God's word." The prophecies have been fulfilled. Mankind has delivered the future to parallelism. Art entelechies must be equal, including the entelechy of the planet itself. By its own law of survival, Darwinism is being replaced by a new Law of Connectedness, and professions that promote and advance masculine hegemony recissioned: War surrogate Sports, militant religionism...all manifestations of Procrustes, recissioned. As parallelism evolves, so, too, will new myths and metaphors evolve within a new construct of essentiality. We mourn the loss of war because we mourn the loss of patriarchy because we mourn the loss of god, the death of god and all his metaphors. We live in an age of miracles; a renaissance of human entelechy wherein courage wears a different face. Our new heroes will not be killing each other in the names of god and country, building an ever-increasing density of separation and hate. Rather, they will be destroying the masks and songs of Procrustes: Nasrin, Faulkner, Meinhold, Dunning, Hill—New heroes for a new age...a new epoch of syntonic evolution. As the heroes and martyrs of hiatal time gradually shift cognizance from the masculine actual to the Feminine real, the evolving persona of art seems unfocused: its gendering unclear.... Feminine entelechy, liberated by the Masculine apotheosis of 8/6/45, must now define self as an entity within an evolving symbiotic Parallelism. As Feminine entelechy resolves into definition, so, too, will the Face of Art."
PROCRUSTES IN SITU is the first part of THE PROCRUSTES TRILOGY and consists of the elements in the above photograph as well as a large Study with its Predella.
As Robert Cremean wrote:
PROCRUSTES IN SITU attempts to illustrate the obvious and redundant visages of Procrustes. He is omnipresent within the human condition: cutting, trimming and stretching each individual to fit the beds of conformity. During this phase of the Trilogy, I came to see how essential he is to everything that we are. Without Procrustes, there is no coherence. Procrustes is the antithesis of chaos. He is also the enemy of Art.
Procrustes thrives on repeat, stasis, and order. His sole purpose is to determine and control. Anything that threatens his authority and the dimensions of his beds is trimmed away or stretched beyond its viable scope of importance. The enforced illusions of Procrustes are in constant conflict with the Artist’s desire for truth, no matter what the cost.
In PROCRUSTES IN SITU, the connection between Procrustes and nature, sexuality and reproduction is considered. The linear extension of the species gives Procrustes great authority within the strictures of society. This is acknowledged in the beds of the mother, the father, the young woman, the young man, the child, and fear. Procrustes controls these beds through instinct. We are born into them. By these he controls us all. Chaos is not a threat to Procrustes in his natural form but rather to the illusions that that form has itself constructed. It is this illusion of identity that centers the drama of Procrustes: Theseus versus Procrustes, Art versus culture, chaos versus illusion.
Collection:
Fresno Art Museum
Fresno, California
(Pen on paper) (BEST VIEWED LARGE?)
(HORROR VACUI:
"The entheogen-inspired visionary art of certain indigenous peoples, such as the Huichol yarn paintings and the ayahuasca-inspired art of Pablo Amaringo, often exhibits this style, as does the psychedelic art movement of the 1960s counterculture. Sometimes the patterned art in clothing of indigenous peoples of Middle and South America exhibits horror vacui. For example the geometric molas of Kuna people and the traditional clothing on Shipibo-Conibo people."
---Wikipedia
[Indeed, on my walls are reproductions of Huichol art, reproductions of the work of Pablo Amaringo, reproductions of 1960s psychedelic art, an original mola cloth, and an original Shipibo cloth.])
A randomly-edited selection of approximately 700 of my pictures may be viewed by clicking on the link below:
www.flickr.com/groups/psychedelicart/pool/43237970@N00/
Please click here to read my "autobiography":
thewordsofjdyf333.blogspot.com/
And my Flicker "profile" page may be viewed by clicking on this link:
www.flickr.com/people/jdyf333/
My telephone number is: 510-260-9695
A Haiku Note:
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Some Buddhism books
check Amazon for reviews
then the library
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Buddhism has no creator god and gives a central role to the doctrine of karma. The ‘four noble truths’ of Buddhism state that all existence is suffering, that the cause of suffering is desire, that freedom from suffering is nirvana, and that this is attained through the ‘eightfold’ path of ethical conduct, wisdom, and mental discipline (including meditation). There are two major traditions, Theravada and Mahayana.
(Apple Dictionary App)
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The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana. The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps, instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.
1. Right View
Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truths. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.
2. Right Intention
While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.
3. Right Speech
Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.
4. Right Action
The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.
5. Right Livelihood
Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.
6. Right Effort
Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.
7. Right Mindfulness
Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualise sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression. The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualisation in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.
8. Right Concentration
The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration. Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels of concentration also in everyday situations.
Satellite Events are here again for 2011, a series of events throughout the year, in London, Europe and internationally. Making the Battle of Ideas Festival much more than just a weekend, Battle Satellites run through October and November: turning an intellectual feast into a Roman banquet. Click here to view other events available.
We have always had a complex relationship with technology. There are perennial claims that it may come to dominate us, or in some way undermine human values. In the 5th century BC, Plato’s dialogue the Phaedrus contained an early critique of the technology of writing at the time of its widespread adoption: Socrates voices concerns that writing will undermine human knowledge and authority and will ultimately be destructive to the Athenian polis. We find echoes of this in some of the responses to contemporary media technologies from Wikipedia to Google to Facebook. Some suggest our dependence on a range of digital ‘cognitive extension technologies’, are dumbing down culture, or even changing the nature of human consciousness.
Neuroscientist Susan Greenfield has argued Facebook and related technologies are in danger of undermining children´s abilities to relate to each in a basic face-to-face manner, though these claims have been fiercely contested. Professor Sherry Turkle, author of the influential book Alone Together has suggested our ‘pathological’ addiction to social media is making us ‘less human’. Others, such as Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows and novelist Zadie Smith argue it’s ‘flattening us out’, turning us into two-dimensional, dumbed-down, emotionally illiterate consumers.
Yet others believe human intelligence - rather being the simple outcome of evolution on a Pleistocene savannah - is always wrapped up with our use of technology. Our minds are not in the normal sense natural, or fixed. We may indeed think differently from our ancestors before telephones, aeroplanes, pharmacology; everything from the wheel to the locomotive has undoubtedly influenced our social relations and indeed our idea of ourselves as humans. So if human intelligence has always been forged in a relation to technology, is there really anything so special about the new technologies from a cognitive standpoint? Or, do our fears about the cognitive implications of the Web 2.0 say more about today’s cultural climate of determinism and pessimism about the future and a loss of faith in humanity? What has caused so many to view the internet and mobile technology so pessimistically?
Recommended reading
The new overlords
Man and technology are evolving together in radical new ways
Economist, 12 March 2011 www.economist.com/node/18329616
Speakers
Jamie Bartlett
Jamie heads the Violence and Extremism Programme at Demos. Jamie has recently completed a major ESRC/Public Safety Canada funded project on the relationship between non-violent and violent extremism entitled The Edge of Violence based on two years of in-depth field research across Europe and Canada which compares terrorists and non-terrorists. He is also currently working on projects related to mosque governance, surveying the populist right, conspiracy theories and North African migration.
He advises a number of international government agencies and related groups in relation to terrorism and extremism.
He is the author of Under The Influence : what we know about binge-drinking
Phil Booth
Phil led NO2ID, the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against the database state, from 2004 to 2011 – stepping down after the comprehensive defeat and dismantling of the Home Office ID scheme, including the repeal of the Identity Cards Act 2006. Phil’s new venture, TRUTH2POWER, provides “ruthlessly practical” strategic advice and skills training to campaigners and campaigning organisations. He sits on the advisory boards of Privacy International and the Foundation for Information Policy Research, and is an honorary research associate of the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham.
Variously a teenage Z80 machine coder, public sculptor and lecturer, Phil set up his first digital media company in 1994. After several years assisting international clients to adapt to the web, he joined BBC Digital Media Education in 1997 where he helped build Schools Online. In the early 2000s he worked with children’s charity, the Who Cares? Trust to build Carezone – a secure online space to help looked-after children manage their online information and ‘make sense of’ the care system.
Beyond his campaigning and advocacy interests, Phil builds tools and organisations to create systems that embody certain ‘digital fundamentals’ in an attempt to ensure that the information society comes to reflect the best of human nature, not its worst.
Robert Clowes
Rob Clowes is a founder member and the chairman of the Brighton Salon: a serious but fun discussion forum based in Brighton. The Brighton Salon, modelled on the Salons of the 18th Century, has been organising cultural activities, especially its monthly meetings in Brighton since the summer 2006. He is currently setting up the Lisbon Salon along similar lines. He also performs with and is on the management committee of Lisbon´s English Language Theatre Company: The Lisbon Players.
In his professional life Rob is a researcher and lecturer working on core issues in the philosophy of cognitive science.
Having held positions at the University of Sussex for the last ten years where he is still a Visiting Research Fellow mainly at the Centre for Research in Cognitive Science (COGS) he recently accepted a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at the New University of Lisbon. He works especially on the material basis of consciousness, the role of language in mind and most recently he has been working on the relationship between cognition and technology through a number or prisms but with special regard to internet technologies. His latest project looks at virtuality as a model for representation.
Nick Pickles
Nick is the Director of civil liberties group Big Brother Watch. Established in 2009, Big Brother Watch fights injustice and campaigns to protect our civil liberties and personal freedoms.
Nick joined the organisation in September 2011, and his career has included working with innovative SMEs and large corporates.
He took on Yvette Cooper at the General Election, achieving a 12.5% swing to the Conservatives and sits on the executive of the Conservative Technology Forum.
He is also an internationally published music photographer.
Chair
Patrick Hayes
Patrick Hayes, a reporter for spiked, says: “In heeding the calls of parents and teachers alike to engage in a practical citizenship class against The Man, these kids are actually far closer to being obedient little robots, internalising the ideas of their parents’ generation.”
Patrick Hayes is a reporter for online current affairs magazine spiked www.spiked-online.com and writes on a wide range of current affairs issues, with a particular focus on protests, social media and civil liberties issues. He is also head of press and promotions at the Institute of Ideas (IoI), and has been a producer of the annual Battle of Ideas festival www.battleofideas.org.uk since its inception in 2005. He is also the co-founder of the IoI’s monthly Current Affairs Forum www.currentaffairs.org.uk, which takes place in central London.
Formerly working as a researcher for the Times Educational Supplement, Patrick’s writing has appeared in a range of local, national and online publications. He regularly speaks on local and national radio, including BBC Radio 5 and has also produced films on location in India and Nepal – alongside others - for alternative online news channel WORLDbytes.
Tuesday, 1 November 2011 - 7:30pm to 9:00pm
The Friends' Meeting House Ship Street Brighton
the eye of the dragon🔥o olho do dragão (ou o que a sua imaginação sugerir) #semiotica #semiotics #cognition #cognição #semioticstudies #fire #everett #washington #usa #cellphonephotography #fotodecelular #streetphotography #fotografiaderua #rua #pnw #aluguelnaodorme #pacificnorthwest #northwestrules #northwest #tudipretoebranco #blackandwhitephotography #fotografosdobrasil #dragao #dragon
Breathing requires coordinated movements of the diaphragm and intercostal muscles. When these muscles contract, air is drawn into the lungs, where hundreds of millions of tiny alveoli provide a surface where oxygen can diffuse into the blood and carbon dioxide can diffuse out. With each exhalation, these muscles relax, and air is forced back out.
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Read more in Knowable Magazine
The vital crosstalk between breath and brain
The rhythm of respiration influences a wide range of behaviors, as well as cognition and emotion. Neuroscientists are piecing together how it all works.
knowablemagazine.org/article/mind/2022/vital-crosstalk-be...
Take a deeper dive: Selected scholarly reviews
Breathing Rhythm and Pattern and Their Influence on Emotion, Annual Review of Neuroscience
The breathing rhythm influences the body and brain in many ways. Recent research has linked breathing to rhythmic activity in brain regions involved in cognition and emotion.
www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-neuro-090121-01...
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Ten Lessons the Arts Teach
By Elliot Eisner
The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.
Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it
is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution
and that questions can have more than one answer.
The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.
One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.
The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving
purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.
The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor number exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.
The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects.
The arts traffic in subtleties.
The arts teach students to think through and within a material.
All art forms employ some means through which images become real.
The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said.
When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.
The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source
and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.
The arts’ position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young
what adults believe is important.
This was probably our favorite store in the town!
Here I could find many answers to my insatiable curiosity . . .
but still, NO books on Brattleboro! So I'm in the process of creating one!
And behind/within these windows lie a bit of the oxymoronic feelings I was inhaling the entire weekend . . . a "peaceful, idyllic" scene of a cow grazing in a green pasture in rural Vermont, with a contrasting poster on controversial issues . . . (see bumper stickers below for more protests) . . . hmmmmm . . . a great dichotomy, don't you think? maybe that's what I was sensing? Time will tell . . . just first impressions . . . .
“We really need to change that historic dichotomy of cognition on the one hand, emotions on the other hand, and realize that our emotions are the fuel that gives rise to social behavior but also to different levels of intelligence.” ~ Stanley Greenspan ~
And what of the Eightfold Path?
======================================================
The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana. The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps, instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.
1. Right View
Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truths. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.
2. Right Intention
While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.
3. Right Speech
Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.
4. Right Action
The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.
5. Right Livelihood
Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.
6. Right Effort
Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.
7. Right Mindfulness
Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualise sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression. The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualisation in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.
8. Right Concentration
The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration. Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels of concentration also in everyday situations.
Guanyin is an East Asian spiritual figure of mercy, and a bodhisattva associated with compassion as venerated by Mahayana Buddhists. The name Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin, which means "Perceiving the Sounds (or Cries) of the World". She is also sometimes referred to as Guanyin Bodhisattva (Chinese: 觀音菩薩). (Wikipedia)
The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana. The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps, instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.
1. Right View
Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truths. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.
2. Right Intention
While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.
3. Right Speech
Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.
4. Right Action
The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.
5. Right Livelihood
Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.
6. Right Effort
Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.
7. Right Mindfulness
Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualise sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression. The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualisation in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.
8. Right Concentration
The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration. Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels of concentration also in everyday situations.
Experience: Culture, Cognition, and the Common Sense.
Edited by Caroline A. Jones, David Mather and Rebecca Uchill
Photo by Mariam Dembele
www.flickr.com/photos/buddhadog/3506691796/
========================================================
The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana. The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps, instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.
1. Right View
Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truths. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.
2. Right Intention
While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.
3. Right Speech
Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.
4. Right Action
The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.
5. Right Livelihood
Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.
6. Right Effort
Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.
7. Right Mindfulness
Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualise sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression. The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualisation in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.
8. Right Concentration
The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration. Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels of concentration also in everyday situations.
The first fascinating speaker in the bowels of the Bio-X building (at the Imitating Life Symposium this morning) was John Donoghue, Professor of Neuroscience at Brown University on the topic of "Turning Thoughts into Action: Neural Interfaces to Restore Movement in Humans with Paralysis"
Here is opens with an interesting image in the bottom left corner – the first cardiac pacemaker (a full push cart of equipment). Neurotech is in an early phase of development, although he notes that 50K people already have deep drain stimulation implants.
“Many diseases impair sensory input but leave cognition intact (spinal cord injury, ALS, stroke, limb loss…)”
He inserts a 4 sq. mm array of 100 neural probes into the M1 arm knob of the cortex. With a random sample of neural signaling from that region of the brain, and some Kalman filtering, patients can instantly control the cursor on screen (unlike biofeedback or sensory remapping which require training). They can deduce motor intent from a sample of an average of 24 neurons.
When connected to a robot hand for the first time, and asked to “make a fist” the patient exclaimed “holy sh*t” as it worked the first time.
Prior to the experiments, open questions included: Do the neurons stay active (other work indicates that the motor cortex reorganizes within minutes of decoupled sensory input)? Can thinking still activate the motor neurons? The test patients had been in sensory deprivation for 2-9 years prior. Will there be scarring and degradation over time? One patient is three years in. What are the neural plasticity effects?
Here is a video overview… just a pop, flip and hump to The Matrix. Wait a minute… John bears an uncanny resemblance to The Architect (below)…
Experience: Culture, Cognition, and the Common Sense.
Edited by Caroline A. Jones, David Mather and Rebecca Uchill
Photo by Mariam Dembele
Students believe their peers are more comfortable with heavy drinking than they are in reality, leading to higher levels of drinking to be the group norm.
(Prentice & Miller, 1993)
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
I was just reading the latest New Scientist on Neanderthal thinking, and was reminded of the latest revelation from my family’s genotyping. My Mom looks to be quite the beast. =)
You probably saw the news last year that “Any human whose ancestral group developed outside Africa has a little Neanderthal in them – between 1 and 4 per cent of their genome. In other words, humans and Neanderthals had sex and had hybrid offspring. A small amount of that genetic mingling survives in "non-Africans" today: Neanderthals didn't live in Africa, which is why sub-Saharan African populations have no trace of Neanderthal DNA. It's impossible to know how often humans invited Neanderthals back to their cave (and vice versa), but the genome data offers some intriguing details. It must have been at least 45,000 years ago… suggesting that interbreeding occurred before those populations split. The timing makes the Middle East the likeliest place where humans leaving Africa and resident Neanderthals did the deed.” (New Scientist)
And a different IBM analysis of my paternal line shows my ancestors were in the second major wave out of Africa, settling in the Middle East at that very time. And presumably getting friendly with the locals.
More recently, palaeoanthropologists have learned a great deal about how Neanderthals think, and that was tonight’s reading:
“We know Neanderthal brains were a bit larger than ours and were shaped a bit differently. And we know where they lived, what they ate and how they got it.
Looking closely at the choices Neanderthals made when they manufactured and used tools shows that they organised their technical activities much as artisans... Like blacksmiths, they relied on "expert" cognition, a form of observational learning and practice acquired through apprenticeship that relies heavily on long-term procedural memory.
The only obvious difference between Neanderthal technical thinking and ours lay in innovation. Although Neanderthals invented the practice of hafting stone points onto spears, this was one of very few innovations over several hundred thousand years. Active invention relies on thinking by analogy and a good amount of working memory, implying they may have had a reduced capacity in these respects.
But while Neanderthals would have had a variety of personality types, just as we do, their way of life would have selected for an average profile quite different from ours. Jo or Joe Neanderthal were neophobic, dogmatic and xenophobic.
So we could have recognised and interacted with Neanderthals, but we would have noticed these significant cognitive differences. They would have been better at well-learned, expert cognition than modern humans, but not as good at the development of novel solutions. They were adept at intimate, small-scale social cognition, but lacked the cognitive tools to interact with acquaintances and strangers, including the extensive use of symbols.
In the final count, when Neanderthals and modern humans found themselves competing across the European landscape 30,000 years ago, those cognitive differences may well have been decisive in seeing off the Neanderthals.” (New Scientist, Jan 14, 2012)
Here’s a paper on the Neanderthal analysis by 23andMe.
iss073e0505925 (Aug. 15, 2025) --- NASA astronaut and Expedition 73 Flight Engineer Zena Cardman operates the robotics workstation in the International Space Station’s Destiny laboratory module during a computerized test tracking space-related effects on her brain function. Part of the CIPHER suite of 14 human research investigations, the cognition study could lead to advanced tools like brain scans and task simulations for future long-duration missions.
Writing a book here: open.spotify.com/show/3mMrq70ofFvPputOjQIiGU?si=kwclM6f8Q...
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Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), the gharial and false gharial (family Gavialidae) among other extinct taxa.
Although they appear similar, crocodiles, alligators and the gharial belong to separate biological families. The gharial, with its narrow snout, is easier to distinguish, while morphological differences are more difficult to spot in crocodiles and alligators. The most obvious external differences are visible in the head, with crocodiles having narrower and longer heads, with a more V-shaped than a U-shaped snout compared to alligators and caimans. Another obvious trait is that the upper and lower jaws of the crocodiles are the same width, and the teeth in the lower jaw fall along the edge or outside the upper jaw when the mouth is closed; therefore, all teeth are visible, unlike an alligator, which possesses in the upper jaw small depressions into which the lower teeth fit. Also, when the crocodile's mouth is closed, the large fourth tooth in the lower jaw fits into a constriction in the upper jaw. For hard-to-distinguish specimens, the protruding tooth is the most reliable feature to define the species' family. Crocodiles have more webbing on the toes of the hind feet and can better tolerate saltwater due to specialized salt glands for filtering out salt, which are present, but non-functioning, in alligators. Another trait that separates crocodiles from other crocodilians is their much higher levels of aggression.
Crocodile size, morphology, behaviour and ecology differ somewhat among species. However, they have many similarities in these areas as well. All crocodiles are semiaquatic and tend to congregate in freshwater habitats such as rivers, lakes, wetlands and sometimes in brackish water and saltwater. They are carnivorous animals, feeding mostly on vertebrates such as fish, reptiles, birds and mammals, and sometimes on invertebrates such as molluscs and crustaceans, depending on species and age. All crocodiles are tropical species that, unlike alligators, are very sensitive to cold. They separated from other crocodilians during the Eocene epoch, about 55 million years ago. Many species are at the risk of extinction, some being classified as critically endangered.
Etymology
The word crocodile comes from the Ancient Greek krokódilos (κροκόδιλος) meaning 'lizard', used in the phrase ho krokódilos tou potamoú, "the lizard of the (Nile) river". There are several variant Greek forms of the word attested, including the later form krokódeilos (κροκόδειλος) found cited in many English reference works. In the Koine Greek of Roman times, krokodilos and krokodeilos would have been pronounced identically, and either or both may be the source of the Latinized form crocodīlus used by the ancient Romans. It has been suggested, but it is not certain that the word crocodilos or crocodeilos is a compound of krokè ('pebbles'), and drilos/dreilos ('worm'), although drilos is only attested as a colloquial term for 'penis'. It is ascribed to Herodotus, and supposedly describes the basking habits of the Egyptian crocodile.
The form crocodrillus is attested in Medieval Latin. It is not clear whether this is a medieval corruption or derives from alternative Greco-Latin forms (late Greek corcodrillos and corcodrillion are attested). A (further) corrupted form cocodrille is found in Old French and was borrowed into Middle English as cocodril(le). The Modern English form crocodile was adapted directly from the Classical Latin crocodīlus in the 16th century, replacing the earlier form. The use of -y- in the scientific name Crocodylus (and forms derived from it) is a corruption introduced by Laurenti (1768).
Species
Species nameImageDistributionDescription/Comments
American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus)Throughout the Caribbean Basin, including many of the Caribbean islands and South Florida.A larger sized species, with a greyish colour and a prominent V-shaped snout. Prefers brackish water, but also inhabits lower stretches of rivers and true marine environments. This is one of the rare species that exhibits regular sea-going behaviour, which explains the great distribution throughout the Caribbean. It is also found in hypersaline lakes such as Lago Enriquillo, in the Dominican Republic, which has one of the largest populations of this species. Diet consists mostly of aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates. Classified as Vulnerable, but certain local populations under greater threat.
Hall's New Guinea crocodile (Crocodylus halli)The island of New Guinea, south of the New Guinea HighlandsA smaller species that closely resembles and was long classified under the New Guinea crocodile, which it is now considered to be genetically distinct from. It lives south of the mountain barrier that divides the two species' ranges. It can be physically distinguished from the New Guinea crocodile by its shorter maxilla and enlarged postcranial elements. Cranial elements can still widely vary within the species, with populations from Lake Murray having much wider heads than those from the Aramia River.
Orinoco crocodile (Crocodylus intermedius)Colombia and VenezuelaThis is a large species with a relatively elongated snout and a pale tan coloration with scattered dark brown markings. Lives primarily in the Orinoco Basin. Despite having a rather narrow snout, preys on a wide variety of vertebrates, including large mammals. It is a Critically Endangered species.
Freshwater crocodile (Crocodylus johnstoni)Northern AustraliaA smaller species with a narrow and elongated snout. It has light brown coloration with darker bands on body and tail. Lives in rivers with considerable distance from the sea, to avoid confrontations with saltwater crocodiles. Feeds mostly on fish and other small vertebrates.
Philippine crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis)Endemic to the PhilippinesThis is a relatively small species with a rather broader snout. It has heavy dorsal armour and a golden-brown colour that darkens as the animal matures. Prefers freshwater habitats and feeds on a variety of small to medium sized vertebrates. This species is Critically Endangered and the most severely threatened species of crocodile.
Morelet's crocodile (Crocodylus moreletii)Atlantic regions of Mexico, Belize and GuatemalaA small to medium sized crocodile with a rather broad snout. It has a dark greyish-brown colour and is found in mostly various freshwater habitats. Feeds on mammals, birds and reptiles. It is listed as Least Concern.
Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)Sub-saharan AfricaA large and aggressive species with a broad snout, especially in older animals. It has a dark bronze coloration and darkens as the animal matures. Lives in a variety of freshwater habitats but is also found in brackish water. It is an apex predator that is capable of taking a wide array of African vertebrates, including large ungulates and other predators. This species is listed as Least Concern.
New Guinea crocodile (Crocodylus novaeguineae)The island of New Guinea, north of the New Guinea HighlandsA smaller species of crocodile with a grey-brown colour and dark brown to black markings on the tail. The young have a narrower V-shaped snout that becomes wider as the animal matures. Prefers freshwater habitats, even though is tolerant to salt water, in order to avoid competition and predation by the saltwater crocodile. This species feeds on small to mid-sized vertebrates.
Mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris)The Indian subcontinent and surrounding countriesThis is a modest sized crocodile with a very broad snout and an alligator-like appearance. It has dark-grey to brown coloration. Enlarged scutes around the neck make it a heavily armoured species. Prefers slow moving rivers, swamps and lakes. It can also be found in coastal swamps but avoids areas populated by saltwater crocodiles. Feeds on a wide array of vertebrates.
Saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus)Throughout Southeast Asia, Northern Australia and surrounding watersThe largest living reptile and most aggressive of all crocodiles. It is a big-headed species and has a relatively broad snout, especially when older. The coloration is pale yellow with black stripes when young but dark greenish-drab coloured as adults. Lives in brackish and marine environments as well as lower stretches of rivers. This species has the greatest distribution of all crocodiles. Tagged specimens showed long-distance marine travelling behaviour. It is the apex predator throughout its range and preys on virtually any animal within its reach. It is classified as Least Concern with several populations under greater risk.
Borneo crocodile (Crocodylus raninus)Island of Borneo in Southeast AsiaA freshwater species of crocodile that has been considered a synonym of the saltwater crocodile.
Cuban crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer)Found only in the Zapata Swamp and Isle of Youth of CubaIt is a small but extremely aggressive species of crocodile that prefers freshwater swamps. The coloration is vibrant even as adults and the scales have a "pebbled" appearance. It is a relatively terrestrial species with agile locomotion on land, and sometimes displays terrestrial hunting. The snout is broad with a thick upper-jaw and large teeth. The unique characteristics and fossil record indicates a rather specialized diet in the past, preying on megafauna such as the giant sloth. This species sometimes displays pack-hunting behaviour, which might have been the key to hunting large species in the past, despite its small size.[ Today most prey are small to medium sized vertebrates. It is Critically Endangered, and the remaining wild population is under threat of hybridization.
Siamese crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis)Indonesia, Brunei, East Malaysia and southern IndochinaA fairly small crocodile that prefers freshwater habitats. It has a relatively broad snout and olive-green to dark green coloration. It feeds on a variety of small to mid-sized vertebrates. Listed as Critically Endangered, but might be already extinct in the wild; status is unknown.
West African crocodile (Crocodylus suchus)Western and Central AfricaRecent studies revealed that this is distinct species from the larger Nile crocodile. It has a slightly narrower snout and is much smaller compared to its larger cousin.
Osborn’s dwarf crocodile (Osteolaemus osborni)Western AfricaIt is the smallest of all living crocodiles. It is a heavily armoured species with uniform black coloration in adults, while juveniles have a lighter brown banding. Lives in the tropical forests of Western Africa. Feeds on small vertebrates and large aquatic invertebrates. It is a fairly terrestrial species and exhibits terrestrial hunting, especially at night.
Dwarf crocodile (Osteolaemus tetraspis)Western AfricaIt is the smallest of all living crocodiles. It belongs to its own monotypic genus; however, new studies indicate there might be two or even three distinct species. It is a heavily armoured species with uniform black coloration in adults, while juveniles have a lighter brown banding. Lives in the tropical forests of Western Africa. Feeds on small vertebrates and large aquatic invertebrates. It is a fairly terrestrial species and exhibits terrestrial hunting, especially at night. This species is classified as Vulnerable.
West African slender-snouted crocodile (Mecistops cataphractus)Western AfricaA medium sized species with a narrow and elongated snout. Lives in freshwater habitats within tropical forests of the continent. Feeds mostly on fish but also other small to medium sized vertebrates. It is a Critically Endangered species.
Central African slender-snouted crocodile (Mecistops leptorhynchus)Central AfricaA medium sized species found in watery areas in dense rainforest. Feeds largely on fish. Insufficient conservation data, but was classified as Critically Endangered when lumped with M. cataphractus, although M. leptorhynchus is doing better in its home range.
For information on Tomistoma or false gharial, that is recently not considered as a true crocodile, see False gharial.
Characteristics
A crocodile's physical traits allow it to be a successful predator. Its external morphology is a sign of its aquatic and predatory lifestyle. Its streamlined body enables it to swim swiftly; it also tucks its feet to the side while swimming, making it faster by decreasing water resistance. Crocodiles have webbed feet which, though not used to propel them through the water, allow them to make fast turns and sudden moves in the water or initiate swimming. Webbed feet are an advantage in shallow water, where the animals sometimes move around by walking. Crocodiles have a palatal flap, a rigid tissue at the back of the mouth that blocks the entry of water. The palate has a special path from the nostril to the glottis that bypasses the mouth. The nostrils are closed during submergence.
Like other archosaurs, crocodilians are diapsid, although their post-temporal fenestrae are reduced. The walls of the braincase are bony but lack supratemporal and postfrontal bones. Their tongues are not free, but held in place by a membrane that limits movement; as a result, crocodiles are unable to stick out their tongues. Crocodiles have smooth skin on their bellies and sides, while their dorsal surfaces are armoured with large osteoderms. The armoured skin has scales and is thick and rugged, providing some protection. They are still able to absorb heat through this armour, as a network of small capillaries allows blood through the scales to absorb heat. The osteoderms are highly vascularised and aid in calcium balance, both to neutralize acids while the animal cannot breathe underwater and to provide calcium for eggshell formation. Crocodilian tegument have pores believed to be sensory in function, analogous to the lateral line in fishes. They are particularly seen on their upper and lower jaws. Another possibility is that they are secretory, as they produce an oily substance which appears to flush mud off.
Size
Size greatly varies among species, from the dwarf crocodile to the saltwater crocodile. Species of the dwarf crocodile Osteolaemus grow to an adult size of just 1.5 to 1.9 m (4.9 to 6.2 ft), whereas the saltwater crocodile can grow to sizes over 6 m (20 ft) and weigh over 1,000 kg (2,200 lb). Several other large species can reach over 5.2 m (17 ft) long and weigh over 900 kg (2,000 lb). Crocodilians show pronounced sexual dimorphism, with males growing much larger and more rapidly than females. Despite their large adult sizes, crocodiles start their lives at around 20 cm (7.9 in) long. The largest species of crocodile is the saltwater crocodile, found in eastern India, northern Australia, throughout South-east Asia, and in the surrounding waters.
The brain volume of two adult crocodiles was 5.6 cm3 for a spectacled caiman and 8.5 cm3 for a larger Nile crocodile.
The largest crocodile ever held in captivity is a saltwater–Siamese hybrid named Yai (Thai: ใหญ่, meaning big; born 10 June 1972) at the Samutprakarn Crocodile Farm and Zoo, Thailand. This animal measures 6 m (20 ft) in length and weighs 1,200 kg (2,600 lb).
The longest crocodile captured alive was Lolong, a saltwater crocodile which was measured at 6.17 m (20.2 ft) and weighed at 1,075 kg (2,370 lb) by a National Geographic team in Agusan del Sur Province, Philippines.
Teeth
Crocodiles are polyphyodonts; they are able to replace each of their 80 teeth up to 50 times in their 35- to 75-year lifespan. Next to each full-grown tooth, there is a small replacement tooth and an odontogenic stem cell in the dental lamina in standby that can be activated if required.
Biology and behaviour
Crocodilians are more closely related to birds and dinosaurs than to most animals classified as reptiles, the three families being included in the group Archosauria ('ruling reptiles'). Despite their prehistoric look, crocodiles are among the more biologically complex reptiles. Unlike other reptiles, a crocodile has a cerebral cortex and a four-chambered heart. Crocodilians also have the functional equivalent of a diaphragm by incorporating muscles used for aquatic locomotion into respiration. Salt glands are present in the tongues of crocodiles and they have a pore opening on the surface of the tongue, a trait that separates them from alligators. Salt glands are dysfunctional in Alligatoridae. Their function appears to be similar to that of salt glands in marine turtles. Crocodiles do not have sweat glands and release heat through their mouths. They often sleep with their mouths open and may pant like a dog. Four species of freshwater crocodile climb trees to bask in areas lacking a shoreline.
Senses
Crocodiles have acute senses, an evolutionary advantage that makes them successful predators. The eyes, ears and nostrils are located on top of the head, allowing the crocodile to lie low in the water, almost totally submerged and hidden from prey.
Vision
Crocodiles have very good night vision, and are mostly nocturnal hunters. They use the disadvantage of most prey animals' poor nocturnal vision to their advantage. The light receptors in crocodilians' eyes include cones and numerous rods, so it is assumed all crocodilians can see colours. Crocodiles have vertical-slit shaped pupils, similar to those of domestic cats. One explanation for the evolution of slit pupils is that they exclude light more effectively than a circular pupil, helping to protect the eyes during daylight. On the rear wall of the eye is a tapetum lucidum, which reflects incoming light back onto the retina, thus utilizing the small amount of light available at night to best advantage. In addition to the protection of the upper and lower eyelids, crocodiles have a nictitating membrane (sometimes called a "third eye-lid") that can be drawn over the eye from the inner corner while the lids are open. The eyeball surface is thus protected under the water while a certain degree of vision is still possible.
Olfaction
Crocodilian sense of smell is also very well developed, aiding them to detect prey or animal carcasses that are either on land or in water, from far away. It is possible that crocodiles use olfaction in the egg prior to hatching.
Chemoreception in crocodiles is especially interesting because they hunt in both terrestrial and aquatic surroundings. Crocodiles have only one olfactory chamber and the vomeronasal organ is absent in the adults indicating all olfactory perception is limited to the olfactory system. Behavioural and olfactometer experiments indicate that crocodiles detect both air-borne and water-soluble chemicals and use their olfactory system for hunting. When above water, crocodiles enhance their ability to detect volatile odorants by gular pumping, a rhythmic movement of the floor of the pharynx. Crocodiles close their nostrils when submerged, so olfaction underwater is unlikely. Underwater food detection is presumably gustatory and tactile.
Hearing
Crocodiles can hear well; their tympanic membranes are concealed by flat flaps that may be raised or lowered by muscles.
Touch
The touch sensors, concentrated in crocodile skin, can be thicker than those in human fingerprints. Crocodiles can feel the touch on their skin.
Cranial: The upper and lower jaws are covered with sensory pits, visible as small, black speckles on the skin, the crocodilian version of the lateral line organs seen in fish and many amphibians, though arising from a completely different origin. These pigmented nodules encase bundles of nerve fibers innervated beneath by branches of the trigeminal nerve. They respond to the slightest disturbance in surface water, detecting vibrations and small pressure changes as small as a single drop. This makes it possible for crocodiles to detect prey, danger and intruders, even in total darkness. These sense organs are known as domed pressure receptors (DPRs).
Post-Cranial: While alligators and caimans have DPRs only on their jaws, crocodiles have similar organs on almost every scale on their bodies. The function of the DPRs on the jaws is clear; to catch prey, but it is still not clear what the function is of the organs on the rest of the body. The receptors flatten when exposed to increased osmotic pressure, such as that experienced when swimming in sea water hyperosmotic to the body fluids. When contact between the integument and the surrounding sea water solution is blocked, crocodiles are found to lose their ability to discriminate salinities. It has been proposed that the flattening of the sensory organ in hyperosmotic sea water is sensed by the animal as "touch", but interpreted as chemical information about its surroundings. This might be why in alligators they are absent on the rest of the body.
Hunting and diet
Crocodiles are ambush predators, waiting for fish or land animals to come close, then rushing out to attack. Crocodiles mostly eat fish, amphibians, crustaceans, molluscs, birds, reptiles, and mammals, and they occasionally cannibalize smaller crocodiles. What a crocodile eats varies greatly with species, size and age. From the mostly fish-eating species, like the slender-snouted and freshwater crocodiles, to the larger species like the Nile crocodile and the saltwater crocodile that prey on large mammals, such as buffalo, deer and wild boar, diet shows great diversity. Diet is also greatly affected by the size and age of the individual within the same species. All young crocodiles hunt mostly invertebrates and small fish, gradually moving on to larger prey. Being ectothermic (cold-blooded) predators, they have a very slow metabolism, so they can survive long periods without food. Despite their appearance of being slow, crocodiles have a very fast strike and are top predators in their environment, and various species have been observed attacking and killing other predators such as sharks and big cats. Crocodiles are also known to be aggressive scavengers who feed upon carrion and steal from other predators. Evidence suggests that crocodiles also feed upon fruits, based on the discovery of seeds in stools and stomachs from many subjects as well as accounts of them feeding.
Crocodiles have the most acidic stomach of any vertebrate. They can easily digest bones, hooves and horns. The BBC TV reported that a Nile crocodile that has lurked a long time underwater to catch prey builds up a large oxygen debt. When it has caught and eaten that prey, it closes its right aortic arch and uses its left aortic arch to flush blood loaded with carbon dioxide from its muscles directly to its stomach; the resulting excess acidity in its blood supply makes it much easier for the stomach lining to secrete more stomach acid to quickly dissolve bulks of swallowed prey flesh and bone. Many large crocodilians swallow stones (called gastroliths or stomach stones), which may act as ballast to balance their bodies or assist in crushing food, similar to grit ingested by birds. Herodotus claimed that Nile crocodiles had a symbiotic relationship with certain birds, such as the Egyptian plover, which enter the crocodile's mouth and pick leeches feeding on the crocodile's blood; with no evidence of this interaction actually occurring in any crocodile species, it is most likely mythical or allegorical fiction.
Bite
Since they feed by grabbing and holding onto their prey, they have evolved sharp teeth for piercing and holding onto flesh, and powerful muscles to close the jaws and hold them shut. The teeth are not well-suited to tearing flesh off of large prey items as are the dentition and claws of many mammalian carnivores, the hooked bills and talons of raptorial birds, or the serrated teeth of sharks. However, this is an advantage rather than a disadvantage to the crocodile since the properties of the teeth allow it to hold onto prey with the least possibility of the prey animal escaping. Cutting teeth, combined with the exceptionally high bite force, would pass through flesh easily enough to leave an escape opportunity for prey. The jaws can bite down with immense force, by far the strongest bite of any animal. The force of a large crocodile's bite is more than 5,000 lbf (22,000 N), which was measured in a 5.5 m (18 ft) Nile crocodile, in the field; comparing to 335 lbf (1,490 N) for a Rottweiler, 800 lbf (3,600 N) for a hyena, 2,200 lbf (9,800 N) for an American alligator, and 4,095 lbf (18,220 N) for the largest confirmed great white shark.
A 5.2 m (17 ft) long saltwater crocodile has been confirmed as having the strongest bite force ever recorded for an animal in a laboratory setting. It was able to apply a bite force value of 3,700 lbf (16,000 N), and thus surpassed the previous record of 2,125 lbf (9,450 N) made by a 3.9 m (13 ft) long American alligator. Taking the measurements of several 5.2 m (17 ft) crocodiles as reference, the bite forces of 6-m individuals were estimated at 7,700 lbf (34,000 N). The study, led by Dr. Gregory M. Erickson, also shed light on the larger, extinct species of crocodilians. Since crocodile anatomy has changed only slightly over the last 80 million years, current data on modern crocodilians can be used to estimate the bite force of extinct species. An 11-to-12-metre (36–39 ft) Deinosuchus would apply a force of 23,100 lbf (103,000 N), nearly twice that of the latest, higher bite force estimations of Tyrannosaurus (12,814 lbf (57,000 N)). The extraordinary bite of crocodilians is a result of their anatomy. The space for the jaw muscle in the skull is very large, which is easily visible from the outside as a bulge at each side. The muscle is so stiff, it is almost as hard as bone to touch, as if it were the continuum of the skull. Another trait is that most of the muscle in a crocodile's jaw is arranged for clamping down. Despite the strong muscles to close the jaw, crocodiles have extremely small and weak muscles to open the jaw. Crocodiles can thus be subdued for study or transport by taping their jaws or holding their jaws shut with large rubber bands cut from automobile inner tubes.
Locomotion
Crocodiles can move quickly over short distances, even out of water. The land speed record for a crocodile is 17 km/h (11 mph) measured in a galloping Australian freshwater crocodile. Maximum speed varies between species. Some species can gallop, including Cuban crocodiles, Johnston's crocodiles, New Guinea crocodiles, African dwarf crocodiles, and even small Nile crocodiles. The fastest means by which most species can move is a "belly run", in which the body moves in a snake-like (sinusoidal) fashion, limbs splayed out to either side paddling away frantically while the tail whips to and fro. Crocodiles can reach speeds of 10–11 km/h (6–7 mph) when they "belly run", and often faster if slipping down muddy riverbanks. When a crocodile walks quickly, it holds its legs in a straighter and more upright position under its body, which is called the "high walk". This walk allows a speed of up to 5 km/h.
Crocodiles may possess a homing instinct. In northern Australia, three rogue saltwater crocodiles were relocated 400 km (249 mi) by helicopter, but returned to their original locations within three weeks, based on data obtained from tracking devices attached to them.
Longevity
Measuring crocodile age is unreliable, although several techniques are used to derive a reasonable guess. The most common method is to measure lamellar growth rings in bones and teeth—each ring corresponds to a change in growth rate which typically occurs once a year between dry and wet seasons. Bearing these inaccuracies in mind, it can be safely said that all crocodile species have an average lifespan of at least 30–40 years, and in the case of larger species an average of 60–70 years. The oldest crocodiles appear to be the largest species. C. porosus is estimated to live around 70 years on average, with limited evidence of some individuals exceeding 100 years.
In captivity, some individuals are claimed to have lived for over a century. A male crocodile lived to an estimated age of 110–115 years in a Russian zoo in Yekaterinburg. Named Kolya, he joined the zoo around 1913 to 1915, fully grown, after touring in an animal show, and lived until 1995.[70] A male freshwater crocodile lived to an estimated age of 120–140 years at the Australia Zoo. Known affectionately as "Mr. Freshie", he was rescued around 1970 by Bob Irwin and Steve Irwin, after being shot twice by hunters and losing an eye as a result, and lived until 2010. Crocworld Conservation Centre, in Scottburgh, South Africa, claims to have a male Nile crocodile that was born in 1900. Named Henry, the crocodile is said to have lived in Botswana along the Okavango River, according to centre director Martin Rodrigues.
Social behaviour and vocalization
Crocodiles are the most social of reptiles. Even though they do not form social groups, many species congregate in certain sections of rivers, tolerating each other at times of feeding and basking. Most species are not highly territorial, with the exception of the saltwater crocodile, which is a highly territorial and aggressive species: a mature, male saltwater crocodile will not tolerate any other males at any time of the year, but most other species are more flexible. There is a certain form of hierarchy in crocodiles: the largest and heaviest males are at the top, having access to the best basking site, while females are priority during a group feeding of a big kill or carcass. A good example of the hierarchy in crocodiles would be the case of the Nile crocodile. This species clearly displays all of these behaviours. Studies in this area are not thorough, however, and many species are yet to be studied in greater detail. Mugger crocodiles are also known to show toleration in group feedings and tend to congregate in certain areas. However, males of all species are aggressive towards each other during mating season, to gain access to females.
Crocodiles are also the most vocal of all reptiles, producing a wide variety of sounds during various situations and conditions, depending on species, age, size and sex. Depending on the context, some species can communicate over 20 different messages through vocalizations alone. Some of these vocalizations are made during social communication, especially during territorial displays towards the same sex and courtship with the opposite sex; the common concern being reproduction. Therefore most conspecific vocalization is made during the breeding season, with the exception being year-round territorial behaviour in some species and quarrels during feeding. Crocodiles also produce different distress calls and in aggressive displays to their own kind and other animals; notably other predators during interspecific predatory confrontations over carcasses and terrestrial kills.
Specific vocalisations include —
Chirp: When about to hatch, the young make a "peeping" noise, which encourages the female to excavate the nest. The female then gathers the hatchlings in her mouth and transports them to the water, where they remain in a group for several months, protected by the female[76]
Distress call: A high-pitched call used mostly by younger animals to alert other crocodiles to imminent danger or an animal being attacked.
Threat call: A hissing sound that has also been described as a coughing noise.
Hatching call: Emitted by a female when breeding to alert other crocodiles that she has laid eggs in her nest.
Bellowing: Male crocodiles are especially vociferous. Bellowing choruses occur most often in the spring when breeding groups congregate, but can occur at any time of year. To bellow, males noticeably inflate as they raise the tail and head out of water, slowly waving the tail back and forth. They then puff out the throat and with a closed mouth, begin to vibrate air. Just before bellowing, males project an infrasonic signal at about 10 Hz through the water, which vibrates the ground and nearby objects. These low-frequency vibrations travel great distances through both air and water to advertise the male's presence and are so powerful they result in the water's appearing to "dance".
Reproduction
Crocodiles lay eggs, which are laid in either holes or mound nests, depending on species. A hole nest is usually excavated in sand and a mound nest is usually constructed out of vegetation. Nesting periods range from a few weeks up to six months. Courtship takes place in a series of behavioural interactions that include a variety of snout rubbing and submissive display that can take a long time. Mating always takes place in water, where the pair can be observed mating several times. Females can build or dig several trial nests which appear incomplete and abandoned later. Egg-laying usually takes place at night and about 30–40 minutes. Females are highly protective of their nests and young. The eggs are hard shelled, but translucent at the time of egg-laying. Depending on the species of crocodile, 7 to 95 eggs are laid. Crocodile embryos do not have sex chromosomes, and unlike humans, sex is not determined genetically. Sex is determined by temperature, where at 30 °C (86 °F) or less most hatchlings are females and at 31 °C (88 °F), offspring are of both sexes. A temperature of 32 to 33 °C (90 to 91 °F) gives mostly males whereas above 33 °C (91 °F) in some species continues to give males, but in other species resulting in females, which are sometimes called high-temperature females. Temperature also affects growth and survival rate of the young, which may explain the sexual dimorphism in crocodiles. The average incubation period is around 80 days, and also is dependent on temperature and species that usually ranges from 65 to 95 days. The eggshell structure is very conservative through evolution but there are enough changes to tell different species apart by their eggshell microstructure. Scutes may play a role in calcium storage for eggshell formation.
At the time of hatching, the young start calling within the eggs. They have an egg-tooth at the tip of their snouts, which is developed from the skin, and that helps them pierce out of the shell. Hearing the calls, the female usually excavates the nest and sometimes takes the unhatched eggs in her mouth, slowly rolling the eggs to help the process. The young is usually carried to the water in the mouth. She would then introduce her hatchlings to the water and even feed them. The mother would then take care of her young for over a year before the next mating season. In the absence of the mother crocodile, the father would act in her place to take care of the young. However, even with a sophisticated parental nurturing, young crocodiles have a very high mortality rate due to their vulnerability to predation. A group of hatchlings is called a pod or crèche and may be protected for months.
Cognition
Crocodiles possess some advanced cognitive abilities. They can observe and use patterns of prey behaviour, such as when prey come to the river to drink at the same time each day. Vladimir Dinets of the University of Tennessee, observed that crocodiles use twigs as bait for birds looking for nesting material. They place sticks on their snouts and partly submerge themselves. When the birds swooped in to get the sticks, the crocodiles then catch the birds. Crocodiles only do this in spring nesting seasons of the birds, when there is high demand for sticks to be used for building nests. Vladimir also discovered other similar observations from various scientists, some dating back to the 19th century. Aside from using sticks, crocodiles are also capable of cooperative hunting. Large numbers of crocodiles swim in circles to trap fish and take turns snatching them. In hunting larger prey, crocodiles swarm in, with one holding the prey down as the others rip it apart.
According to a 2015 study, crocodiles engage in all three main types of play behaviour recorded in animals: locomotor play, play with objects and social play. Play with objects is reported most often, but locomotor play such as repeatedly sliding down slopes, and social play such as riding on the backs of other crocodiles is also reported. This behaviour was exhibited with conspecifics and mammals and is apparently not uncommon, though has been difficult to observe and interpret in the past due to obvious dangers of interacting with large carnivores.
Taxonomy and phylogeny
See also: List of crocodilians
Crocodylidae is cladistically defined as a crown group composed of the last common ancestor of the Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus), the Dwarf crocodile (Osteolaemus tetraspis), and all of its descendants. It contains two subfamilies: Crocodylinae and Osteolaeminae. Crocodylinae contains 13-14 living species, as well as 6 extinct species. Osteolaeminae was named by Christopher Brochu in 2003 as a subfamily of Crocodylidae separate from Crocodylinae and contains the two extant genera Osteolaemus and Mecistops, along with several extinct genera. The number of extant species within Osteolaeminae is currently in question.
Subfamily Crocodylinae
Genus Crocodylus
Crocodylus acutus, American crocodile
Crocodylus halli, Hall's New Guinea crocodile found South of the New Guinea Highlands
Crocodylus intermedius, Orinoco crocodile
Crocodylus johnsoni, freshwater crocodile, or Johnstone's crocodile
Crocodylus mindorensis, Philippine crocodile
Crocodylus moreletii, Morelet's crocodile or Mexican crocodile
Crocodylus niloticus, Nile crocodile or African crocodile (the subspecies found in Madagascar is sometimes called the black crocodile)
Crocodylus novaeguineae, New Guinea crocodile found North of the New Guinea Highlands
Crocodylus palustris, mugger, marsh or Indian crocodile
Crocodylus porosus, saltwater crocodile or estuarine crocodile
Crocodylus raninus, the Borneo crocodile, is currently considered to be a synonym of Crocodylus porosus; whether or not it is a distinct species remains unclear.
Crocodylus rhombifer, Cuban crocodile
Crocodylus siamensis, Siamese crocodile (may be extinct in the wild)
Crocodylus suchus, West African crocodile, desert or sacred crocodile
Crocodylus anthropophagus†
Crocodylus checchiai†
Crocodylus falconensis†
Crocodylus palaeindicus†
Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni†
Genus Voay†
Voay robustus† (formerly Crocodylus robustus)
Subfamily Osteolaeminae
Genus Osteolaemus
Osteolaemus tetraspis, dwarf crocodile (There has been controversy as to whether or not this is actually two species; recent (2010) DNA analysis indicate three distinct species: O. tetraspis, O. osborni and a third, currently unnamed.)
Genus Mecistops
Mecistops cataphractus West African slender-snouted crocodile
Mecistops leptorhynchus Central African slender-snouted crocodile
Genus Brochuchus†
Brochuchus pigotti† (formerly Crocodylus pigotti)
Brochuchus parvidens†
Genus Euthecodon†
Euthecodon nitriae†
Euthecodon brumpti†
Euthecodon arambourgi†
Genus Rimasuchus†
Rimasuchus lloydi† (formerly Crocodylus lloydi)
Phylogeny
Recent molecular studies using DNA sequencing have shown crocodiles to be more closely related to the gavialids rather than to alligators, contrary to prior theories based on morphological studies alone.
Crocodilia
Alligatoridae
Caimaninae
Caiman
Melanosuchus
Paleosuchus
Alligatorinae
Alligator
Longirostres
Crocodylidae
Crocodylus
Mecistops
Osteolaemus
Gavialidae
Gavialis
Tomistoma
Mecistops cataphractus West African slender-snouted crocodile
Euthecodon†
Brochuchus†
Rimasuchus†
Osteolaemus osborni Osborn’s dwarf crocodile
Osteolaemus tetraspis Dwarf crocodile
Crocodylinae
Voay†
Crocodylus
Crocodylus anthropophagus†
Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni†
Crocodylus palaeindicus†
Crocodylus Tirari Desert†
Crocodylus johnstoni Freshwater crocodile
Crocodylus novaeguineae New Guinea crocodile
Crocodylus mindorensis Philippine crocodile
Crocodylus porosus Saltwater crocodile
Crocodylus siamensis Siamese crocodile
Crocodylus palustris Mugger crocodile
Crocodylus checchiai†
Crocodylus falconensis†
Crocodylus suchus West African crocodile
Crocodylus niloticus Nile crocodile
Crocodylus moreletii Morelet's crocodile
Crocodylus rhombifer Cuban crocodile
Crocodylus intermedius Orinoco crocodile
Crocodylus acutus American crocodile
(crown group)
Crocodylidae
Osteolaeminae
Rimasuchus lloydi†
Voay robustus†
Osteolaemus osborni Osborn’s dwarf crocodile
Osteolaemus tetraspis Dwarf crocodile
"Crocodylus" gariepensis†
Brochuchus parvidens†
Brochuchus pigotti†
Euthecodon arambourgi†
Euthecodon brumpti†
Crocodylinae
Mecistops cataphractus West African slender-snouted crocodile
Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni†
Crocodylus anthropophagus†
Crocodylus niloticus Nile crocodile
Crocodylus checchiai†
Crocodylus moreletii Morelet's crocodile
Crocodylus intermedius Orinoco crocodile
Crocodylus acutus American crocodile
Crocodylus rhombifer Cuban crocodile
Crocodylus palaeindicus†
Crocodylus palustris Mugger crocodile
Crocodylus ossifragus†
Crocodylus siamensis Siamese crocodile
Crocodylus mindorensis Philippine crocodile
Crocodylus johnstoni Freshwater crocodile
Crocodylus porosus Saltwater crocodile
Crocodylus raninus Borneo crocodile
Crocodylus novaeguineae New Guinea crocodile
Paleoafrican CrocodylusNeotropical CrocodylusIndo-Pacific Crocodylus
Relationship with humans
Danger to humans
Main article: Crocodile attacks
The larger species of crocodiles are very dangerous to humans, mainly because of their ability to strike before the person can react. The saltwater crocodile and Nile crocodile are the most dangerous, killing hundreds of people each year in parts of Southeast Asia and Africa. The mugger crocodile and American crocodile are also dangerous to humans.
Crocodile products
Further information: Crocodile farm and Crocodile skin
Crocodiles are protected in many parts of the world, but are also farmed commercially. Their hides are tanned and used to make leather goods such as shoes and handbags; crocodile meat is also considered a delicacy. The most commonly farmed species are the saltwater and Nile crocodiles, while a hybrid of the saltwater and the rare Siamese crocodile is also bred in Asian farms. Farming has resulted in an increase in the saltwater crocodile population in Australia, as eggs are usually harvested from the wild, so landowners have an incentive to conserve their habitat. Crocodile leather can be made into goods such as wallets, briefcases, purses, handbags, belts, hats, and shoes. Crocodile oil has been used for various purposes. Crocodiles were eaten by Vietnamese while they were taboo and off limits for Chinese. Vietnamese women who married Chinese men adopted the Chinese taboo.
Crocodile meat is consumed in some countries, such as Australia, Ethiopia, Thailand, South Africa, China, and Cuba (in pickled form). It is also occasionally eaten as an "exotic" delicacy in the western world. Cuts of meat include backstrap and tail fillet.
Due to high demand for crocodile products, TRAFFIC states that 1,418,487 Nile Crocodile skins were exported from Africa between 2006 and 2015.
Crocodile hunting and conservation
Aboriginal Australians harvested eggs and hunted crocodiles in a sustainable way for many thousands of years. The Brinkin people (aka Marrithiyal) of the Daly River in the Northern Territory (NT) used harpoons and bamboo, and even their own hands to capture crocodiles for food. After settlement of northern Australia, in the late-19th and early 20th centuries, non-Indigenous people killed individual crocodiles, mostly by locals to protect the population, or novelty-seeking visitors, or just opportunistically, so numbers were not noticeably reduced. From the 1930s, commercial hunting began, with Aboriginal people often employed to kill the crocodiles using traditional methods. From the 1940s to the 1960s, hunting began on a larger scale using .303 rifles. They were hunted for leather, with the skins shipped to plants in capital cities. Western Australia banned hunting freshwater crocodiles in 1962 and saltwater crocodiles in 1970, while NT bans were brought in 1964 and 1971; Queensland did not pass such legislation. The federal government later banned the export of crocodile skins, which brought commercial hunting to an end in Queensland. They have been a protected species since the 1970s, when numbers were down to approximately 3,000 in the NT at the lowest estimate. In 2021, after several attacks on humans by the "salties" and an estimated population of around 200,000 had been reached, Queensland politician Bob Katter called for the reintroduction of hunting.
In religion and mythology
Further information: Crocodilia § Cultural_depictions
Crocodiles have appeared in various forms in religions across the world. Ancient Egypt had Sobek, the crocodile-headed god, with his cult-city Crocodilopolis, as well as Taweret, the goddess of childbirth and fertility, with the back and tail of a crocodile. The Jukun shrine in the Wukari Federation, Nigeria is dedicated to crocodiles in thanks for their aid during migration. In Madagascar various peoples such as the Sakalava and Antandroy see crocodiles as ancestor spirits and under local fady often offer them food; in the case of the latter at least a crocodile features prominently as an ancestor deity.
Crocodiles appear in different forms in Hinduism. Varuna, a Vedic and Hindu god, rides a part-crocodile makara; his consort Varuni rides a crocodile.[88] Similarly the goddess personifications of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers are often depicted as riding crocodiles. Also in India, in Goa, crocodile worship is practised, including the annual Mannge Thapnee ceremony.
Sikh warriors known as nihang also have connections with crocodiles. Nihang may come from the Persian word for a mythical sea creature (Persian: نهنگ). The term owes its origin to Mughal historians, who compared the ferocity of the Akali with that of crocodiles. The meaning of Akali in Sikhism however, is the immortal army of Akal (god).
In Latin America, Cipactli was the giant earth crocodile of the Aztec and other Nahua peoples.
Fighting shark and crocodile, the emblem of Surabaya
The name of Surabaya,Indonesia, is locally believed to be derived from the words "suro" (shark) and "boyo" (crocodile), two creatures which, in a local myth, fought each other in order to gain the title of "the strongest and most powerful animal" in the area. It was said that the two powerful animals agreed for a truce and set boundaries; that the shark's domain would be in the sea while the crocodile's domain would be on the land. However one day the shark swam into the river estuary to hunt, this angered the crocodile, who declared it his territory. The Shark argued that the river was a water-realm which meant that it was shark territory, while the crocodile argued that the river flowed deep inland, so it was therefore crocodile territory. A ferocious fight resumed as the two animals bit each other. Finally the shark was badly bitten and fled to the open sea, and the crocodile finally ruled the estuarine area that today is the city. Another source alludes to a Jayabaya prophecy—a 12th-century psychic king of Kediri Kingdom—as he foresaw a fight between a giant white shark and a giant white crocodile taking place in the area, which is sometimes interpreted as a foretelling of the Mongol invasion of Java, a major conflict between the forces of the Kublai Khan, Mongol ruler of China, and those of Raden Wijaya's Majapahit in 1293. The two animals are now used as the city's symbol, with the two facing and circling each other, as depicted in a statue appropriately located near the entrance to the city zoo (see photo on the Surabaya page).[citation needed]
In language and as symbols
Main article: Crocodile tears
The term "crocodile tears" (and equivalents in other languages) refers to a false, insincere display of emotion, such as a hypocrite crying fake tears of grief. It is derived from an ancient anecdote that crocodiles weep in order to lure their prey, or that they cry for the victims they are eating, first told in the Bibliotheca by Photios I of Constantinople. The story is repeated in bestiaries such as De bestiis et aliis rebus. This tale was first spread widely in English in the stories of the Travels of Sir John Mandeville in the 14th century, and appears in several of Shakespeare's plays. In fact, crocodiles can and do generate tears, but they do not actually cry.
In the UK, a row of schoolchildren walking in pairs, or two by two is known as "crocodile".
Fashion logos
The French clothing company Lacoste features a crocodile in its logo. The American shoe company Crocs also uses this imagery in its logo.
Socratic man believes that all virtue is cognition, and that all that is needed to do what is right is to know what is right. This does not hold for Mosaic man who is informed with the profound experience that cognition is never enough, that the deepest part of him must be seized by the teachings, that for realization to take place his elemental totality must submit to the spirit as clay to the potter.
-- Martin Buber
Louvre, Paris
Often used as a representation of the mind or soul, Psyche has been adopted as a symbol of the field of psychology - see the figure in the top left of the British Psychological Society's website at www.bps.org.uk/ for example. So this fabulous statue means more to me as a psychologist than simply a Greek myth, rich though that story may be.
At various times in its relatively brief history psychology has been in danger of becoming irrelevant through its attachment to a dull orthodoxy that had little to do with the greater issues of human life. This happened during the 1940s and 50s when behaviourism and psychoanalysis were the dominant influences, during the 1970s and 80s with cognitive science, and potentially today with the rapidly increasing influence of neuropsychology.
During the 1950s psychology was revived through the influence of humanistic psychology, which brought the whole person back into consideration. More recently, positive psychology animated a field in danger of being stifled through an excess of cognition. Will the recent and rapid rise of interest in mindfulness breathe life into a psychology which seems overly impressed by the reductionism of neuroscience?
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The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana. The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps, instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.
1. Right View
Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truths. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.
2. Right Intention
While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.
3. Right Speech
Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.
4. Right Action
The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.
5. Right Livelihood
Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.
6. Right Effort
Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.
7. Right Mindfulness
Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualise sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression. The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualisation in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.
8. Right Concentration
The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration. Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels of concentration also in everyday situations.
( Featured on front cover of Jain Digest )
There are several pathways to attaining Nirvana. It is the union of Right Knowledge, Right Faith and Right Conduct that eventually leads to Nirvana.
The central multicolored figure represents a neuron; it is the memory bank as well as the source of transmission of full spectrum of knowledge. There are several categories of knowledge. Every human being has intrinsic faculty to harvest them. Each of the knowledge is assigned a specific color. Green-derived from scriptures, blue-subjective cognition, red- super sensory perception, orange- reading the thoughts of others and light yellow-omniscience. Black indicates ignorance or lack of knowledge, which pervades the human kind resulting in the cycles of birth and death.
The light background reflects the aura that surrounds the person having righteous knowledge. One must appropriately apply it to start the process of attaining Nirvana.
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Psychology is an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of mental functions and behaviours. Psychology has the immediate goal of understanding individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases, and by many accounts it ultimately aims to benefit society. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist and can be classified as a social, behavioural, or cognitive scientist. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behaviour, while also exploring the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie certain cognitive functions and behaviours.
Psychologists explore concepts such as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, personality, behaviour, and interpersonal relationships. Psychologists of diverse stripes also consider the unconscious mind. Psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. In addition, or in opposition, to employing empirical and deductive methods, some—especially clinical and counseling psychologists—at times rely upon symbolic interpretation and other inductive techniques. Psychology has been described as a "hub science",[8] with psychological findings linking to research and perspectives from the social sciences, natural sciences, medicine, and the humanities, such as philosophy.
While psychological knowledge is often applied to the assessment and treatment of mental health problems, it is also directed towards understanding and solving problems in many different spheres of human activity. The majority of psychologists are involved in some kind of therapeutic role, practicing in clinical, counseling, or school settings. Many do scientific research on a wide range of topics related to mental processes and behaviour, and typically work in university psychology departments or teach in other academic settings (e.g., medical schools, hospitals). Some are employed in industrial and organizational settings, or in other areas such as human development and ageing, sports, health, and the media, as well as in forensic investigation and other aspects of law.
After a vehicle ran a red light in the 6800 block of Platt Ave in West Hills, it collided with a truck driven by a 79-year-old, Mr. Dennis Platt. Mr Platt was ejected from his truck onto the asphalt with such force, he suffered severe head trauma, countless fractures, and went into cardiac arrest.
At this very moment, LAFD Fire Cadet Leo Kaufman was driving by and witnessed the accident. Leo instinctively pull over and jumped out of his vehicle into a chaotic scene. He quickly evaluated his surroundings and noticed a crowd standing around a patient that was face down, bloody, and severely injured. Bystanders stood by in shock, not knowing what to do. It was clear to Leo that if no action was taken, the patient would not survive.
Fortunately, Leo knew exactly what to do thanks to his LAFD Cadet Program CPR training. He relied on his training and rolled the trauma patient onto his back, initiating life-saving CPR. Despite some vocal people in the crowd second guessing his actions and contradicting his life-saving efforts, Cadet Kaufman worked relentlessly, performing chest compressions and circulating oxygen to the brain and heart of Mr. Platt. He did not know if his actions were going to be effective but he did know it was the only way to give this patient a chance at life.
Meanwhile, your LAFD firefighters were rushing to this scene with lights and sirens. As elite medical professionals they immediately rendered scene-safety, took over medical aid, quickly triaged, treated, and transported the patient to Kaiser hospital where a team of skilled healthcare workers took over.
Mr. Platt sustained very serious injuries which are too gruesome to share in detail but it was clear, his prognosis was not promising. Mr. Platt and his wife were told he should expect to be a quadriplegic, reliant on a wheelchair for the rest of his life. However, he regained full cognition (with mild memory loss) and is able to walk assisted (mechanical and human). His incredible rehabilitation and recovery at Kaiser Hospital is a story for another time.
This incident serves as a powerful example of the importance of Bystander CPR and the Chain of Survival. The "Chain of Survival" is a metaphor used to educate the public about their vital role in helping victims of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA).
The six steps in the chain of events that must occur in rapid succession to maximize the chances of survival from SCA are reliant on bystanders helping. Recognizing SCA, Calling 9-1-1 and Starting CPR are the first three steps and Cadet Kaufman's efforts to ensure all three were implemented gave Mr Platt his chance. The arrival of Your LAFD firefighter/paramedics ensured the remaining steps in the Chain of Survival were expediated, delivering Mr Platt into the skilled hands of the Kaiser Hospital staff.
Cadet Leo Kaufman, a 17-year-old young man, valiantly did what he was trained to do when it mattered most, and he did it extremely well!
Today, Your LAFD Fire Chief Kristen Crowley, with Mr and Mrs Platt, the LAFD crews on scene and Kaiser Hospital members present, was honored to present him with a Certificate of Appreciation which reads as follows:
" Leo J. Kaufman, LAFD Cadet. In recognition of your heroic courage and immediate assistance in saving a man's life during a cardiac arrest emergency on July 26, 2021, in the West Hills Community. The Los Angeles City Fire Department commends your extraordinary life-saving efforts of a citizen of the City of Los Angeles. Presented this 9th Day of August, 2022"
We hope reading about the actions of Cadet Leo Kaufman encourages you to Learn CPR because you could be the difference between life and death for someone needing help as desperately as Mr Platt did that fateful day
Photo Use Permitted via Creative Commons - Credit: LAFD Photo | Cheryl Getuiza
LAFD Event: 080922
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When people are offered a deal with an unattractive detail, most will refuse it. However, if the same unattractive detail is introduced after the deal is made, considerably fewer then refuse it. This is the low-ball effect.
(Cialdini et al., 1978)
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramacharitamanas
Śrī Rāmacaritamānasa (Devanāgarī: श्रीरामचरितमानस) (Avadhi) is an epic poem composed by the 16th-century Indian poet, Goswami Tulsidas (c.1532–1623) (also transliterated as Tulasidasa). An English translation of Rāmacaritamānasa is "The Lake of the Acts of Rama".
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Sri Sita Ram, Laksman and Hanuman
The core of the Rāmacaritamānas is a poetic retelling of the events of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, concerning the exploits of Sri Rama, the crown prince of Ayodhya. The great poem is also called Tulsi-krita Ramayana, or "The Ramayana of Tulsidas".
Tulsidas began writing the scripture in Vikram Samvat 1631 (1574 CE) in Avadhpuri, Ayodhya. The exact date is stated within the poem as being the ninth day of the Chaitra month - which was in fact the birth date of Lord Ram. A large portion of the poem was composed at Varanasi, where the poet spent most of his later life.
Today, it is considered one of the greatest works of Hindu literature. Its composition marks the first time the story of Ramayana was made available to the common man for song and performance. Thus, the text is associated with the beginning of the storied tradition of Ramlila, the dramatic enactment of the text.
It was Tulsidasjis aim to make the story of Ramalila accessible to the masses. Sanskrit was seen as a very complicated language to master, at his time, and so for this reason the Śrī Rāmacaritamānasa was written in Avadhi[1], which belongs to the Eastern Hindi language family.
[edit] Structure
The Rāmacaritamānas consists of seven books, of which the first two, entitled Childhood Episode (Bal Kaand) and Ayodhya Episode (Ayodhya Kaand), make up more than half the work. The later books are Forest Episode (Araanya Kaand), Kishkindha Episode (Kishkindha Kaand),Pleasant Episode(Sunder Kaand), Lanka Episode (Lanka Kaand), followed by an epilogue titled Uttar Kaand. The work is composed in quatrains called chaupais, broken by dohas or couplets, with an occasional sortha and chhand, the latter being a hurried metre of many rhymes and alliterations.[2]
The great saint Pujya Morari Bapu talks about a tree being a metaphor for the Manas. The Bal Kaand is the root of the tree with very deep foundations upon which the rest of the glorious manas depends upon. Tulsidasji has written Bal Kaand with many invocations at the beginning and so it is seen as the source life for the entire poem. Ayodhya Kaand is the tree trunk. Araanya Kaand is represented by the many branches of the tree. This Kaand shows many new situations and incidents arising. Kishkindha Kaand has been expounded as a leaf of the tree while Sunder Kaand is akin to the fragrant flower. Lanka Kaand is represented by the fruit and Uttar Kaand by the sweet juice of the fruit.[3]
[edit] The invocations
Goswami Tuslidas begins every chapter with an invocation of some sort, as he believed that reading and indeed the writing of the story of Lord Ram required the right frame of mind, and also the divine assistance of god. Typically the first three or four verses of each chapter are invocations.
The beginning of Baal Kaand is full of invocations to deities such as Lord Shiva, Parvati, Lord Ganesh and Hanuman. [4]
Ayodhya Kaand begins with the following verse: May He in whose lap shines forth the Daughter of the mountain king, who carries the celestial stream on His head, on whose brow rests the crescent moon, whose throat holds poison and whose breast is support of a huge serpent, and who is adorned by the ashes on His body, may that chief of gods, the Lord of all, the Destroyer of the universe, the omnipresent Shivam the moon-like Sankara, ever protect me [5]
The first Dohavali of Ayodhya Kaand is the famous two line couplet: Cleansing the mirror of my mind with the dust from the lotus feet of the revered Guru, I sing Sri Ram's untarnished glory, that bestows the four rewards of human life. This is the same couplet that begins the great poem of Hanuman, the Hanuman Chalisa.[6] [7]
Aranya Kaand's first Sloka is: I reverence Bhagavan Sankar, the progeny of Brahma, the very root of the tree of piety, the beloved, devotee of King Sri Ram, the full moon that brings joy to the ocean of wisdom, the sun that opens the lotus of dispassion, the wind that disperses the clouds of ignorance, who dispels the thick darkness of sin and eradicates the threefold agony and who wipes off obloquy. [8]
Kishkindha Kaand commences with: Lovely as a jasmine and a blue lotus, of surpassing strength, repositories of wisdom, endowed with natural gracem excellent bowmen, hymned by the vedas, and lovers of the cow and Brahmanas, who appeared in the form of mortal men through their own Maya as the two noble scions of Raghu, the armours of true religion, friendly to all and journeying in quest for Sita, may they both grant us Devotion. [9]
Sundar Kaand begins with: I adore the Lord of the universe bearing the name of Ram, the chief of the Raghu's line and the crest-jewel of kings, the mine of compassion, the dispeller of all sins, appearing in human form through His Maya, the greatest of all gods, knowable through Vedanta, constantly worshipped by Brahma, Sambhu, and Sesa, the bestower of supreme peace in the form of final beatitude, placid, eternal, beyond the ordinary means of cognition, sinless amd all-pervading. [10]
Lanka Kaand begins: I adore Sri Ram, the supreme deity, the object of worship even of Shiva, the Dispeller of the fear of rebirth, the lion to quell the mad elephant in the form of Death, the Master of Yogis, attainable through immediate knowledge the storehouse of good qualities, unconquerable, attributeless immutable, beyond the realm of Maya, the Lord of celestials, intent on killing the evil-doers, the only protector of the Brahmanas, beautiful as a cloud laden with moisture, who has lotus like eyes and appeared in the form of an earthly king. [11]
Finally Uttar Kaand's first Sloka is: I unceasingly extol Sri Ram, the praiseworthy lord of Sita the chief of Raghu's line, possessed of a form greenish blue as the neck of a peacock and adorned with a print of the Brahmana's lotus-foot, which testifies to His being the greatest of all gods-rich in splendour, clad in yellow robes, lotus-eyed, ever-propitious, holding a bow and arrow in His hands, mounted on the aerial car named Puspaka, accompanied by a host of monkeys and waited upon by His own brother Laksman.[12]
Goswami Tulsidas similarly ends every chapter in the same manner.[13]
[edit] Storyline
The poem revisits Ramayana of Valmiki, but is not a mere retelling of the Sanskrit epic. Where Valmiki has condensed the story, Tulsidas has expanded, and, conversely, wherever the elder poet has lingered longest, there his successor has condensed. The Rāmacaritamānas is basically three separate conversations. These being between Lord Shiva and Parvati, Bharadwaja Muni and Sage Yagnavalka and finally Kakbhushundiji to Khagpati Garud. It is also said that there is an underlying personal conversation between Goswami Tulsidas and Lord Ram.[14]
[edit] Bal Kaand
The Child Episode
Prior to starting the actual story, Goswami Tulsidas begins with the invocation of various deities, guru, sadhus and saints. He pays particular homage to Valmiki for bringing the Ramayan to the devotees of Lord Ram. The idea is that the Manas cannot be started without praising such entities. He thereafter begins a dramatis personae of sorts by introducing and praising the various characters of the epic beginning with the birth place (janam bhumi) of Lord Ram, the holy city of Ayodhya. He then greets mother Kausalya, Dasarath and the other Queen mothers. He makes obeisances to the father of Sita, King Janak and his family. Finally he praises Bharata, Laksman, Shatrugna and then sings the glories of Lord Hanuman. He thereafter introduces the bear and monkey kings such as Sugriva and Jambavan and then finally introduces Sitaji and Lord Ram.
The Manas is finally underway. The story begins with the meeting of Muni Bharadvaja and Sant Yajnavalkya. Bharadvaja asks Yajnavalkya to speak in detail, the story of Lord Rama. Yajnavalkya begins with how Lord Shiva came about retelling Ram Katha to his consort Parvati. (The great story of Sati's self-immolation, the destruction of her father Daksha's sacrifice, the rebirth of Sati as Parvati and her marriage to Lord Shiva). Lord Shiva explains as many as five reasons as to why Lord Ram incarnated on earth. Each of these is discussed in detail, with the primary message being that Lord Ram incarnated on earth to protect the saints and His devotees. This is followed by the birth of Ravana and his brothers. After this point the narration passes between Lord Shiva, Yajnavalkya, Kakbhushundiji and Tulsidasji.
The story now moves to the abode of Lord Narayan where Lord Brahma and the other demigods make an appeal for him to do something about the demons that are raging havoc on earth. Lord Narayan shows great compassion to all and declares that he is soon to take birth in the Sun Dynasty. Meanwhile in Ayodhya, Dasarath is very uphappy as he is aging and has no heir to take over his throne. He visits the royal family's Guru, Vasistha and narrates his problem. Vasisthaji comforts Dasarath by telling his that not only will he have a son, but will have four sons. With Dasarath's consent, Guru Vasistha summons Rishi Shringi to perform the Putra-Kam yagna (sacrificial fire for the birth of sons). Tulsidas states that the birth of Lord Ram and his brothers took place on the ninth day of the Chaitra month. It was the fortnight of the moon, known as the shukla period. Despite being the Lord of all creation and Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Ram slept in his mothers lap crying. The demigods looked on in awe as the Lord played out childish exploits through His toddler and childhood.
The story then moves on and Lord Ram and His brothers are now grown boys. The sage Vishvamitra arrives at Dasarath's royal court where the King receives his eminent guest with great honour. Sage Vishvamitra lived in the forest and was performing great sacrifices. However, the demons Marica and Subahu would always desecrate the ceremonies. He knew that Lord Ram had taken birth on earth to protect his devotees and so he decided to visit Dasarath to ask him for favour. The sage asks the king to let his sons roam the forest with him. Reluctantly the king agrees. Lord Ram knew the intention of Vishvamitra and gave his assurances to the sage. The vedic sacrifices were performed and Laksman kills Subahu and Lord Ram dispatches Marica.
Vishvamitra looks as Lord Ram breaks the bow, winning the hand of Sita in marriage.
The story then moves to the deliverance of Ahalya. Lord Ram, Laksman and Vishvamitra venture on a journey and reach the beautiful capital of the Videhas, Mithila. The king of Mithila, Janak, welcomes the great sage and asks him who he is accompanied by. Janak is overcome by great emotions he is able to sense the true nature of the brothers. The brothers then set out to discover the beautiful city and visits Janak's garden. This is an important section of the manas as it is the first meeting of Lord Ram and mother Sita takes place. King Janak has arranged a swayamvar ceremony to select a husband for his daughter Sita. Sitaji has fallen for Lord Ram and prays to Devi Gauri that she helps her attain Lord Ram as her husband. King Janak sends a messenger to invite Lord Ram, Laksman and Sage Vishvamitra to attend the swayamvar. Whomever could lift and tie the great bow of Shiva Shiva Dhanush would be married to Sita. Many princes try and fail to lift the mammoth bow, whereas Lord Ram steps up and effortlessly lifts, strings and breaks the divine bow. Sitaji approaches Lord Ram and places a wreath of victory around his neck. Janak dispatches messengers to Ayodhya from where a marriage procession, consisting of Lord Ram's family, friends and well wishers depart for Mithila. After a great wedding, Lord Ram and Sitaji return to Ayodhya where there is a great celebration and much rejoicing. [15]
[edit] Ayodhya Kaand
The Ayodhya Episode
Ayodhya is described as being like heaven on earth ever since Lord Ram and Sitaji arrived back from Mithila. Being wary of his old age, King Dasarath wanted to install Lord Ram as Prince regent. He has decided that the next day he would begin the ceremony for the installation of Lord Ram. The demigods and mother earth become very concerned that the Lord is becoming very settled in Ayodhya and something has to happen if Lord Ram is to vanquish the world of Ravan. They approach Goddess Saraswati for help.
King Dasarath has three wives. Queen Kausalya is the principle queen and the mother of Lord Ram. Queen Kaikeyi is the mother of Bharat amd Queen Sumitra is the mother of Laksman and Shatrughna. Saraswati decides to alter the mind state of one of Queen Kaikeyi's maid servants named Manthara. Manthara mind becomes twisted and begins to talk to Queen Kaikeyi in harsh terms. She chastises Kaikeyi for being supportive of the king's plan of installing Lord Ram, as Prince Regent when in her mind Bharat would clearly be a greater king. At the time Bharat is in Kekeya country visiting his uncle and so he is unaware of what hsi happening in Ayodhya. Slowly Queen Kaikeyi's mind is poisoned. Manthara reminds Queen Kaikeyi of the two boons that the King had promised her. Kaikeyi enters the sulking chamber in the royal palace and awaits Dasarath. Dasarath is greatly alarmed and concerned that Kaikeyi is sat in the sulking chamber as the entire population of Ayodhya is greatly happy and eagerly anticipating the coronation of Lord Ram. Queen Kaikeyi speaks harshly to Dasarath, which surprises the king. She reminds him of the two boons he promised her and to his bewilderment, asks for him to install her son Bharat as Prince Regent and exile Lord Ram to the forest for 13 years. Queen Kaikeyi is unaffected by Dasarth's lamentations and finally the king emotionally breaks down. The kings court assistant Sumantra sends Lord Ram to His father.
Queen Kaikeyi speaks to Lord Ram and explains the boons that she has asked of His father. Lord Ram is actually Supreme Personality of Godhead incarnated on earth, yet He accepts His step mothers request and decides to leave the kingdom as it serves all purposes of his incarnation. The people of Ayodhya remonstrate against Queen Kaikeyi who firmly believes that she is doing the right thing. Lord Ram attempts to talk Laksman and Sitaji out of joining Him but is unable to. The story becomes very emotional as Lord Ram, Sitaji and Laksman greet their mothers before finally going Dasarath to take leave of him. Dasarath attempts, in vain, to try to talk Sitaji out of joining Lord Ram in the forest.
The residents of Ayodhya can't spare the thought of being away from Lord Ram and decide to join him in the forest. Lord Ram, Sitaji, Laksman and Sumantra separate and escape from the citizens during the deep night and venture further into the forest towards Srngaverapur after which they meet Guha, the Nishada king. They arrive at Prayag, the holy city where the Rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati meet. Lord Ram meets with the Sage Bharadwaj at his ashram. Lord Ram is overwhelmed with the reception and love shown by the people inhabiting the banks of the Yamuna. Lord Ram then meets Sage Valmiki, the author of the Ramayan at Chitrakuta dham. Valmiki recognises the true opulence of Lord Ram and sings His praises. At this point Tulsidas takes great care to describe the beauty of the land of Chitrakuta with some inspiring poetry.
Lord Ram meeting Sage Bharadwaj at his ashram in Prayag.
Lord Ram asks Sumantra to return to Ayodhya which sorely saddens Sumantra. He not only wants to stay with Lord Ram, he is also afraid of how the citizens will treat him after arriving back to Ayodhya without Lord Ram. On returning to Ayodhya, Dasarath asks Sumantra of the whereabouts of Lord Ram. The pain of separation from Lord Ram is too much for Dasarath who passes away crying Lord Ram's name.
Sage Vasistha knows that Lord Ram will not return back to the kingdom and so immediately sends an envoy to call Bharat and Shatrugna back to Ayodhya. Bharat learns of all that has happened and chastises his mother, Queen Kaikeyi. He is greatly pained and blames himself for Lord Ram leaving Ayodhya. He accuses her of bringing ruin to the family. Shatragna comes across Manthara and beats her in rage. They approach Queen Kausalya and see her sorry state. Bharat begs her forgiveness and loudly laments while the Queen attempts to pacify him. She asks him to carry out his duty and rule Ayodhya, but he cannot bear the thought of sitting on the throne with his father dead and his brothers in exile in the forest. The cremation of King Dasarath takes place. Bharat and Shatrugna decide to go into the forest and ask Lord Ram to return to Ayodhya and take the throne. Many citizens as well as the royal family, who have been grieving ever since Lord Ram had left them, decide to join the brothers.
The Nishadas see the approaching royal party and become suspicious. Guha approaches Bharat to understand his motive for bringing such a large party to the forest. He assumes that Bharat has some sinister motive. Bharat shows his love for Lord Ram. The royal procession the moves forward to Chitrakuta. Laksman sees the huge army of people with Bharat and immediately begins to chastise Bharat. Lord Ram counters this by praising the greatness of Bharat, leaving Laksman feeling sorry for his harsh words. Bharat finally arrives at Chtrakuta where the brothers are all reunited once again. They collectively mourn the passing of their father and perform his Shradha (obsequies) along with Sage Vasistha leading the ceremony.
Despite all of Bharat's convincing, Lord Ram is true to the word of his father and step mother Kaikeyi, as vows that he will fulfill her wish. Bharat says that he simply cannot sit on the throne while Lord Ram wonders the forest. He asks Lord Ram of his sandals, which he would place at the throne and would serve personally. With much sorrow and hurt, Bharat leaves Lord Ram and returns towards Ayodhya. He decides that he would not live in the kingdom while Lord Ram is in exile and so lives like a hermit in a nearby town called Nandigram. [16]
[edit] Araanya Kaand
The Forest Episode
Lord Ram, Sita and Laksman wonder the forest and come across the hermitage of Atri. Atri sees them approaching and is overcome with great joy. Sita is embraced by Atri's wife, Anasuya and then talks to Sita at length about the duties of a devoted wife.
Lord Ram, Sita and Laksman venture deeper into the Dandaka forest.
Lord Ram, Sita and Laksman venture further into the forest and encounter Viradha. Viradha attempts to capture Sita Lord Ram kills him by burying him in a ditch. They then visit the ashram of Sage Sarabhanga. Lord Ram asks him of where he should go for shelter in the forest. He is advised to visit the sage Sutiksna. As Lord Ram approaches Sutiksna, the later awakes from meditation. He tells Lord Ram, that he had been awaiting his arrival, and had even turned down the offer of entering the heavenly planets.
Continuing on their journey through the forest, they meet with Sage Agastya where Lord Ram pays his respect to the sage. Agastya gifts divine weapons to Lord Ram and advises him to venture further into the forest and into the region of Dandaka. Lord Ram meets with the eagle, Jatayu. Lord Ram, Sita and Laksman take up abode at Panchavati and build a beautiful ashram, at the earlier advice of Agastya. Laksman becomes nostalgic on the past and begins to talk harshly about Kaikeyi. Lord Ram pacifies him and explains that it is sinful to speak of his mother in such a way.
The story takes a change in direction as Lord Ram, Sita and Laksman are approached by the sister of the demon Ravana, called Surpanakha. She immediately takes a liking to Lord Ram and falls in love with him. She disguises herself and talks to Lord Ram in sweet tones. Lord Ram rejects her advances and explains that he is already married. Surpanakha takes great shame in being rejected and attempts to hurt Sita. Laksman takes hold of his sword and lops off Surpankha's ear lobes and nose. Feeling humiliated, Surpankha leaves the forest and goes to the abode of her brothers Khara, Dusana and Trisira. They are angry at the treatment of their sister and leave with the intention of killing Lord Ram. All three brothers are vanquished by Lord Ram.
Surpanakha is greatly upset and visits Ravana at his residence in Lanka. She explains all that has happened, after which Ravana calls for his old friend Marica. Ravana hatches a plot and asks Marica to disguise himself as a golden deer, so that Ravana may then kidnap Sita. Marica has already felt the power of Lord Ram (as mentioned in Baal Kaand) and is apprehensive, however, he thinks that he is going to die either way since Ravana will kill him through rage for refusing him. Ravana and Marica immediately leave for Lord Ram's forest abode. Marica takes his position and instantly Sita is attracted by his deer form. She asks Lord Ram time and time again to mane the deer and bring it too her. Lord Ram runs after the deer and is soon quite a far distance away from the ashram. Lord Ram releases an arrow and hits the deer. Using Lord Ram's voice, Marica shouts out to Laksman to help him. Sita hears the cry and orders Laksman to go help his brother. Ravana, while posing as a begging minstrel, uses this opportunity to forcibly kidnap Sita from the ashram. Jatayu, the eagle, sees Ravana's sinful act and attempts to fight with him, but Ravana has too much power and cuts off Jatayu's wings and leaves him for dead. Lord Ram and Laksman return to find the ashram empty. They anxiously set out to find Sita and find the severely wounded eagle. Jatayu dies in Lord Ram's lap and receives liberation. As the brothers continue to look for Sita they come across the hermitage of Shabari. Tulsidas says that Shabari washes the feet of Lord Ram with tears from her eyes. She is given liberation by Lord Ram.
The brothers then head towards the Pampasarovar lake. [17]
[edit] Kishkindha Kaand
The Kishkindha Region Episode
Laksman meets with Tara, Sugriva, and Hanuman in the Palace of Kishkandha
High up in the Rishyamuk mountains, Sugriva sees Lord Ram and Laksman at the foothills. He consults Hanuman as to whether he thinks they have been sent by his brother Bali. Hanuman disguises himself as a brahmin and approaches the brothers. Hanumanji recognises the true nature of Lord Ram and surrenders himself to his holy feet. He tells the brothers that his king, Sugriva, wishes to extend his friendship to Them and will help Them to find Sita. Lord Ram asks Sugriva why he resides in the mountains instead of Kishkindha, where Sugriva tells of his fued with his brother Bali. Lord Ram sympathises with Sugriva and decides to help Sugriva in return for the latters help in finding Sita. Lord Ram kills Bali and installs Sugriva as king of Kishkindha and Angada, Bali's son, as prince regent. Sugriva becomes too attached to his new regal lifestyle and forgets about his agreement with Lord Ram which fills Lord Ram with great anger. Lord Ram asks Laksman to bring Sugriva to him. Laksman enters the royal court and threatens to burn the entire city to ashes. Sugriva is gravely worried and asks Hanuman to pacify him. Laksman escourts Sugriva to Lord Ram and upon seeing Him, Sugriva falls as His feet and begs forgiveness.
Sugriva immediately orders the gathering of the regions bears and monkey community. Armies of bears and monkeys are dispatched north, south east and west to search for Sita. Lord Ram knew that only Hanuman was really capable of finding Sita. He asks Hanumanji to narrate the agony of separation from her and then hands over his ring. Hanumanji is joined by Angad, Nala, Kesari and Jambavan as well as many others as they head to the south. As the army approach the coast, Jambavan and Angad see a cave by the shore of the ocean. The cave is occupied by Sampati (who is actually Jatayu's older brother). There is a conversation during which Angad explains that Jatayu died serving Lord Ram and thereafter Sampati narates his biography. He tells the monkeys that he is sure that Sita is sat in Ashok vatika in Lanka. The island is 400 hundred miles away and requires someone who is able to jump the distance. Jambavan deduces that Hanuman is the only one capable of the task.
[18]
[edit] Sunder Kaand
The Pleasant Episode
Hanuman approves and likes the superb suggestion of Jambavan. He immediately takes off for Lanka by climbing onto the mountain and using it as a pivot, launches himself into the air. He meets Surasa, the mother of serpents and passes her test. The ocean she-demon tries to capture Hanuman, thinking of him as a bird. He quickly kills her and then lands on the shore of the ocean in Lanka. He sees beautiful lush gardens, groves, lakes and reserviors. Hanumanji takes a minute form and, remembering Lord Ram, enters Lanka. He is accosted by the she demon Lankini whom he hits with his fist and causes her to fall to the ground.
Hanuman flies through the various palaces and gardens for his search of Sita, and amongst all the demoniac activities going on in Lanka, Hanuman sees a palace where Sri Hari's name is being chanted. He is drawn towards the palace and decides to visit the inhabitant. The palace belongs to Ravana's brother, Vibhishan. Hanumanji narrates Ram katha and then introduces himself. Hanuman proceeds to Ashok vatika where he finally sees Sita. He takes position on a branch of a tree, above Sita, and contemplates his next move. He sees Ravana walk towards Sita and beg her to glance at least once toward him. She simply looks at a blade of grass as insults him. Ravana threatens to behead Sita but is calmed down by his wife, Mandodari. Hanumanji has to use all his powers of calm not to react to Ravana's threats. When all is quiet again, Hanuman begins to sing Ram katha in sweet tones. He then approaches Sita and explains who he is. He presents the ring Lord Ram had given him and Sita is overjoyed. She blesses Hanumanji with many kind words and boons.
Hanuman tells Sita that he is hungry and asks for her permission to eat fruits from the grove. He not only eats but manages to destroy large parts of it. He easily kills one of Ravana's sons, prince Aksaya. Indrajit arrives in the grove and Hanuman allows himself to be captured. He is brought in front of the king of Lanka, Ravana. Ravana orders his death, however, Vibhishan reminds him that Hanuman is an envoy and cannot be killed according to religious principle. Ravana decides to humiliate Hanuman be setting his tail on fire. Large amounts of cloth are tied to him tail and oil is used. Hanumanji chants the name of Lord Ram and his tail gets longer, and more cloth and oil is used. He changes from his small form into a gigantic form and decides to torch alight the whole of Lanka.
He returns to the ocean to extinguish is tail and the goes to Sita to reassure her that the next time she sees him, it will be with Lord Ram. He bades farewell to Sita and leaps back towards Angad and Jambavan. The monkey army then venture back to where Sugriva, Lord Ram and Laksman are waiting. On arrival Hanumanji explains all that happened and immediately an army is prepared to go south towards Lanka.
Meanwhile in Lanka, both Mandodari and Vibhishan ask Ravana to hand Sita back to Lord Ram. Ravana takes great expection to this suggestion and begins to insult Vibhishan particularly. He tells him he has no need for a weakling like him and that he was no longer needed. Vibhishan decides to join Lord Ram at Kishkindha. Vibhishan falls at Lord Ram's feet and asks him for protection. The army deliberate over how to cross the ocean to Lanka. The deity of the seas tells Lord Ram of the boon obtained by the monkey brothers Nila and Nala, and that they have the power to build a bridge to link the seashore to Lanka. [19]
[edit] Lanka Kaand
The Lanka Episode
Jambavan asks the monkeys Nala and Nila to begin work on building the bridge across the sea. The Manas states that entire mountain ranges were used by Nala and Nila to complete their objective. Lord Ram remembers his great devotee, Lord Shiva and decides to install a shrine for Lord Rameswaram. Upon completion, the army of Lord Ram begins to cross the bridge and arrives at Lanka, taking camp on Mount Suvela. Ravana hears of the the advance of Lord Ram's army and feels greatly agitated. Mandodari asks Ravana to return Sita to Lord Ram as she fears for her husband's life. Ravana is dismissive of Lord Ram's power and pacifies his wife. Next, Ravana's son Prahasta attempts to reinforce his mothers sentiments, but all to no avail.
Lord Ram fires a warning shot from his retreat in Suvela. The arrow strikes Ravana's crown and royal umbrella. Mandodari once again attempts to convince Ravana of handing Sita back to Lord Ram. Meanwhile Lord Ram asks Jambavan what should be done. Jambavan suggests that they send Angada, as messenger, to give Ravana a chnace to return Sita. On reaching Ravana's court, Angada explains he is the ambassador of Lord Ram, and tells Ravana that he still has time to save himself from destruction. Ravana insults Angada and his refusal to comply makes war inevitable.
The war begins with great ferocity as Ravana loses half of his army on the first day. Indraji, Ravana's son, is required to enter the battle far earlier than he expected. He severely wounds Laksman with his special weapon, the Saang. Hanumanji is order to fetch the doctor of Lanka called Sushena. Sushena tells Lord Ram that there exists a herb called Sanjivani which can only be found in the Himalayan mountains. It is the only hope to save Laksman. Hanuman immediately reassures Lord Ram that he shall find this herb. As Hanuman is about to leave, Ravana orders the demon Kalanemi to impede him however, Hanuman kills Kalanemi with ease. Hanuman reaches the mountain and can't find the herb. In his frustration he decides to take the entire mountain to Lanka.
Hanuman searching for the Sanjivani herb.
Hanuman makes good speed towards Lanka when suddenly he is shot by an arrow as he approaches Nandigram. Hanuman is mistaken to be a demon by Bharat. Hanuman falls to the ground together with the great hill. Hanuman regains conciousness and recognises that Bharat is Lord Ram's brother. He continues on to Lanka where he delivers the Sanjivani herb and Sushena treats Laksman. Lord Ram embraces Hanuman with great pride and affection. Ravana takes the news of Laksman's recovery very badly and decides to awaken his brother Kumbhakarna. Kumbhakarna kills indiscriminantly and wreaks much havoc. Lord Ram releases an arrow which kills him instantly. The death of his brother scares Ravana greatly. Indrajit hastily tries to arrange a ceremony to receive great boons and powers but is interupted by Hanuman and Angada. Laksman takes up arms against Indrajit and kills him. Lord Ram throws numerous arrows at Ravana nut is unable to kill him. He asks Vibhishan on how to kill his brother after which Lord Ram finally kills Ravana. The war is over.
Ravana's funeral takes place and Vibhishan is crowned the king of Lanka. Hanuman carries the happy news to Sita in Ashok vatika. Finally Lord Ram and Sita are reunited. Lord Ram and the army prepare to depart Lanka and return back towards Ayodhya. Lord Ram, Sita, Laksman and the senior monkeys travel back in Ravana's flying vehicle. [20]
[edit] Uttar Kaand
The Epilogue
It is now the day before Lord Ram is to return to Ayodhya after serving his exhile. Bharat is anxious that his brother still hadn't arrived. The Manas mentions that Bharat passed his days shedding tears for fourteen years in Nandigram. Hanumanji meets Bharat telling him of the arrival of Lord Ram, Sita and Laksman. Bharat rushes to Ayodhya to tell the citizens of the great news. As the flying vehicle landed in Ayodhya the citizens shouted chants of 'Glory be to Lord Ramchandra'. Lord Ram, Sita and Laksman collectively touch the feet of the sage Vasishta on arriving in Ayodhya and thereafter greet all that have gathered in the assembly. Lastly Lord Ram meets Bharat with great affection and love. Lord Ram's coronation takes place and he is finally crowned king of Ayodhya. Lord Shiva arrives to glorify the festivities further and asks Lord Ram of the boon that he may have firm and undeviating devotion of Lord Ram's feet.
In conclusion to the tale, Lord Ram has twin sons named Luva and Kusha. The other brothers each have two sons as well. It is mentioned that great sages like Narada and Sanaka visit Ayodhya to meet with Lord Ram and to see his great city.
In the subsequent passages of Uttar Kaand the biography of Saint Kakbhushundi is given, followed by a description of what is to be expected in the current vedic age of Kaliyuga. Lord Shiva ends his narration of the Ram Katha to Parvati as does Kakbhushundi to Garuda. It is not mentioned whether Yagnavalka finishes his recitation to Bharadwaj. Finally Goswami Tulsidas concludes his retelling of the Sriramcharitamanas.
[21]
[edit] Kaand Endings
Every Kaand is formally concluded by Goswami Tulsidas. The example below is an example of the ending of Kishkindha kaand.
Iti Srimad ramacharitamanase sakala kali kalusavi dhvamsane caturthah sopanah samaptah.
Translation: Thus ends the fourth descent into the Manas lake of Sri Rama's exploits, that eradicates all the impurities of the kali age.
All the other kaands are concluded in the same way where the word caturthah is substituted, according to the kaand being concluded.
[edit] Lord Ramachandra's Incarnation
During the Baal Kaand it is mentioned that Lord Shiva is retelling the story of Lord Ram (Ram Katha) to his spouse Parvati. During this retelling, Lord Shiva explains as many as five reasons as to why Lord Ram incarnated on earth.
[edit] Balance of Creation
Lord Shiva explains to Parvati that whenever virtue declines and vile and haughty demons multiply, and whenever Brahmanas, cows, demigods and the earth herself are in distress, the gracious Lord assumes various transcendent forms and relieves the distress of the virtuous. Killing the demons, He reinstates the demigods and diffuses His great glory throughout the universe. This is the primary motive for Lord Ram's decent.
[edit] Jay and Vijay
The brothers Jay and Vijay are the two favoured gate keepers of Lord Hari. Due to a curse, by the Brahman Sanaka and his three brothers, Jay and Vijay were born in the species of the demons. One took the birth of Hiranyakashipu and the other was born as Hiranyaksha. The Supreme Lord incarnated Himself as Varaha in order to kill Hiranyaksha, while incarnating as Narasimha to kill Hiranyakashipu. Even though these brothers are killed by Lord Hari Himself, they do not attain liberation as the Brahman's had cursed them to three births and so were reborn as the powerful demons Ravana and Kumbhakarna. Lord Hari took a human incarnation, as Lord Ram, to kill Ravana and Kumbhakarna. [22] [23]
[edit] The curse of Narada Muni
Narada Muni is wondering the Himalayan mountains and begins to think about Lord Vishnu. He instantly falls into a deep meditative trance. Seeing the sage's state, Indra becomes apprehensive as he sees Narada's trance as a threat to his own position as the chief of demigods in heaven. Indra asks Kamadeva to disturb Narada's trance. He creates an illusion of frangrant flowers, delightful breezes and such. Heavenly damsels are called but all this has no affect on the sage. Kamadeva accepts defeat and falls at Narada's feet addressing him with deep humility. He recalls all that happened to Lord Shiva and becomes puffed up with pride of his defeating of Kamadeva. Lord Shiva admonishes him and begs him not to repeat the story to Lord Hari.
Narada visits Lord Vishnu at His abode, and unable to control his pride, retells his episode with Kamadeva, ignoring all that Lord Shiva had advised. Lord Vishnu further fans Narada's pride by telling him that his steadfast vow of celebacy is so strong that he can never be smitten. Narada then departs Lord Vishnu's abode. Lord Hari tells Laksmi that he has a plan and sets his illusionary powers (Maya) into operation. As Narada departs Vaikuntha, Lord Vishnu creates a beautiful illusionary city with illusionary inhabitants. The city is ruled by king Silanidhi who has a beautiful daughter called Visvamohini. Narada is intrigued with the city and decides to visit the king. Narada sees the kings daughter and falls in love with her. The king explains that he wishes to marry his daughter off to a suitable man. Narada devises a plot to get the princess to choose him.
Narada approaches Lord Hari and asks him for the gift of great beauty. Lord Vishnu says that he will do only that which is benefitial to Narada. The sgae is glad at heart and thinks that with Lord Vishnu's favour, the princess will surely choose him. In reality the Lord had made Narada look hideous. The entire royal court is aware of Narada's appearance, but says nothing. The princess is filled with rage as soon as she sees Narada's ugly form and completely ignores him. He sees a reflection of his face and is consumed with rage. He instantly goes back to Vaikuntha and begins to speak to Lord Hari in ugly tones. He curses Lord Hari, "You made me look like a monkey; therefore You shall have monkeys for Your mates. And as You have greviously wronged me, so shall You suffer the pangs of separation from Your wife". Lord Hari accepts Narada's curse and instantly withdraws his illusionary spell.
Narada realises that there is no city and there is no Visvamohini, and is dismayed at what he has done. He begs the Lord to invalidate his curse. Lord hari explains that it was His will and advises Narada to chant his name to absolve himself of any sin. Narada returns to his abode chanting the praises of Lord Ram. [24]
[edit] Svayambhuva Manu and Satarupa
Svayambhuva Manu had Satarupa as his wife. Manu ruled the earth for many years and carried out the Lord's commandments. He longed to devotion to Lord Hari and decides to give up rulership to his son so that he can retire to the forest and meditate upon Lord Vishnu. Manu and Satarupa settle at the banks of the Gomati river and devoutly repeat the mantra, "Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya" and begin to live a simple life. They first sacrifice food and then water and are finally willing to sacrifice air. Lord Brahma, Hari and Shiva call on Manu but Manu and Satarupa are resolute and do not swerve on their sacrifices. A great voice from the heavens tells Manu, in sweet tones, to ask for a boon. Lord Vishnu approaches Manu in a beautiful form, which leaves Manu overcome with emotion. Manu explains now that he and Satarupa have seen Lord Hari's lotus feet, all their desires have been met. Manu has one longing but doesn't know how to ask the Lord. Finally he asks, "O gracious lord, I tell You my sincere wish: I would have a son like You. I have nothing to conceal from You."
Lord Hari announces that it shall be, however, where would he find a son like Himself? Lord Vishnu tells Manu that He Himself would be a son to him. Lord Hari then asks Satarupa of her wish. She says that she greatly likes the boon received by her husband and wants the same. Bowing at the Lord's feet, Manu then asks one more favour. He asks that he be dependent on Lord Hari which is granted. The Lord then commands the couple to dwell in Indra's capital in heaven.
Lord Vishnu explains that after some time Manu would be born as the king of Ayodhya, Dasarath and Satarupa as Kausalya. He would then manifest Himself in the royal household as their son. He reassured the couple that their desire would be accomplished. [25]
[edit] Tale of King Pratapbhanu
Prior to the birth of Lord Ram, Muni Bharadvaja is told the story of King Pratapbhanu by Sant Yajnavalkya. There is a kingdom called Kaikay where Satyaketu is king. He has two sons, Pratapbhanu and Arimardana and rules his kingdom with his prime minister Dharamaruchi. Satyaketu abdicates and hands the reign to Pratapbhanu, who becomes conquerer of the world.
Once Pratapbhanu goes into the forest to hunt and sees a wild boar. The boar is actually the demon Kalaketu in disguise who runs away from the king. Pratapbhanu gives chase deeper into the forest. Pratapbhanu chases for many miles and becomes thirsty. He approaches a fake saints ashram, where the resident fake saint wants to hurt and insult Pratapbhanu due to a previous incident. Pratapbhanu doesn't recognise the saint, who begins to sweet talk the king and says that by pure love, he wishes to impart boons onto the king. The king asks to be invicible and never ageing, which the fake saint grants, but with the condition that he needs to win favour of all brahmans. The fake saint advises that the king arrange the cooking of holy food (prasadam) to feed the bramanas, who would surely be in his favour for such an act of kindness. The fake saint's real intention is to trap the king and repay him for his old greviances.
The fake saint asks the King to go rest, and that he would arrange the feast for the bramanas using his mystic powers. Pratapbhanu waits for three days for the fake saint. Kalaketu, now disguised as a priest, approaches the King in his court and says that he has been sent to cook the holy food. The entire brahmana community is invited. A heavenly voice from above warns the brahmanas that the food is unpure and they should run away immediately. They curse the king that he, his kingdom and entire family are wiped from the face of earth. They also curse that he be born a demon in his next life. The heveanly voice says that the brahmana's curse is ill thought, as Pratapbhanu is not to blame. Since their curse cannot be taken back, the voice says that it is the brahmana community that will bare the brunt of the evil of his next life.
Pratapbhanu is distraught and quickly goes to his kitchen to find Kalaketu. The king is pained and cries as he realises Kalaketu has vanished. The brahmanas feel sorry for Pratapbhanu and tell him that his evil next life will be ended by Lord Supreme Vishnu himself. As per the curse, Pratapbhanu, Arimardam and Dharmaruchi are all killed as other neighbouring kings invade Kaikay.
Pratapbhanu is reborn as Ravana, Arimardam is reborn as Kumbhkarna and Dharmaruchi as Vibhishan. All three take great penances and are approached by Lord Brahma and Lord Shiva and are asked for any boon. Ravana asks that no one should be able to kill me except the tribes of man and monkeys. Kumbhkarna asks for uninterupted sleep for periods of six months. Vibhishan asks for unshakeable love for the feet of Lord Vishnu. [26]
[edit] The Abrupt Ending
Many scholars have commented on the sudden ending to the Manas. Valmiki's Uttar Kaand goes into great detail about Sita going into the forest, as a result of disapproving gossip of the citizens of Ayodhya, during the rule of Lord Ram over Ayodhya. Sitaji asks mother Earth to receive her and Lord Ram leaves His human form and returns to His celestial abode. Tulsidas decides not to mention these at all. The great Katha Kar, Pujya Morari Bapu has mentioned, in many of his retellings of Ram Katha, that Tulsidasji didn't want to end the Manas in heartache for Sita. Tulsidas refers to Sita as his mother (as well as the mother of the entire universe) many times in the poem and so, on an emotional level, this becomes very understandable. She has endured enough pain throughout the Manas and so ends his retelling at a relatively happy moment. It is said that there are some Vaishnav devotees who will only recite the Baal Kaand of the Manas, as this is seen as the happiest period of Lord Ram and Sita's lila on earth. [27]
[edit] English Translation
An unpublished English poetic translation of Ramacaritamanas is provided by (Late) Binda Prasad Khattri of New Market, Banda, Uttar Pradesh. Apparently, the translation can be sung essentially in the same way and with the same rhythm as the original Hindi work.
Frederick Growse translated the Ramacaritamanas into English under the title, "The Ramayan of Tulasidasa," during the nineteenth century. His translation remains in print.
The English commentary by Pujya Morari Bapu, called Mangal Ramayan is an english composition of one of his orrated Ram Katha commentaries. The book contains all the translations of prayers, Dohavalis, Chaupais and Chandan sung by Bapu as well as an indepth disccusion behind the meanings of the poetry.
Continued: A Love Non-Distracting
“The advice from Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) to Hazrat Ali (ratu) that every man seeks closeness to Allah through some form of obedience. And that he should seek His Closeness through the company of the wise and special friend of His so that he reaches his goal quickly and leave all others behind.
یا علی از جملهی طاعات راه
بر گزین تو سایهی خاص اله
O Ali, above all devotional acts in the Way (of God) do choose the shadow of protection of the chosen Favourite of God.
هر کسی در طاعتی بگریختند
خویشتن را مخلصی انگیختند
Every one took refuge in some act of devotion and discovered for themselves some means of deliverance.
تر برو در سایهی عاقل گریز
تا رهی ز آن دشمن پنهان ستیز
Go ahead, take refuge in the shadow of the Sage, that thou may escape from the Enemy that opposes you in secret.
از همه طاعات اینت بهتر است
سبق یابی بر هر آن سابق که هست
Of all acts of devotion this is the best for you and you will gain precedence over every one that has outrun others.
چون گرفتت پیر هین تسلیم شو
همچو موسی زیر حکم خضر رو
When you give yourself to a Spiritual Master, surrender yourself to him like the Prophet Moses (as) walked with Khizr (as).
صبر کن بر کار خضـری بی نفاق
تـا نـگـویـد خـضـر رو هـذا فـراق
O sincere one! Be patient with Khizr then so he does not say, “Leave. Now we separate.”
گرچه کـشتی بشکـند تو دم مزن
گرچه طفلی را کُشَد تو مو مَکَن
If he breaks the boat, do not protest. If he kills the child, do not be sad.
دست او را حق چو دستِ خویش خواند
تـا یَــــدُ الله فــــوقَ اَیْـــــدِیـهـم بــــرانـد
Now that God has named his hand to be His Own by even saying, “The Hand of God is upon theirs.”
دستِ حق میـراندش زندهش کند
زنده چـه بود جـانِ پـایندهش کند
You are in need of a guide in this jungle, don’t go alone. In this jungle don’t go alone.
هـرکـه تـنها نادِرا این ره بُـرید
هـم بـعونِ هـمّت پــیران رسـید
It is unlikely that this place is successfully traversed alone.
The one who reached their goal did so only by the inner attention of the Friends of God.
دستِ پیر از غایبان کوتاه نـیست
دست او جـز قَــبـضـهٔ الله نـیست
The hand of the Spiritual Master is even attentive to those absent.
His hand is undoubtedly the Hand of God.
غـایبان را چون نواله میدهند
پیش مهمان تا چه نـعمتها نهند
When the inattentive can receive such blessings extraordinary,
imagine what you will receive as the one present willingly.
Subhan Allah!
I went back to Uzair’s lecture: “In the 18 verses, the background is quite spectacular. Maulana Rum is the scholar of his time. And all scholars have an element of pride in them because of the effect their words have on others which is evident before them. He is also a teacher, he is the “mufti,” the Islamic jurist, of the city. Konya is a city of wealth and he is known and respected throughout it. In those days a faqeer enters the city and takes up residence in an inn in the bazaar where sugar is sold. And this is Maulana Shams Tabrez (ra).
Now the incident of the “bay’at” of Maulana Rum (ra) on the hands of Shams Tabrez is very well known and has 6-7 variations. I will share with you the one that drew me to the Masnavi:
A class on hadith is taking place in the courtyard. Before Maulana Rum (ra) sit 50-100 students. Nearby is a fountain on the edge of which lie a few books on the subject. In the time the books were hand written since there were no printing presses. It took several years for a single one to be completed so they were of immense value and extremely precious.
Maulana (ra) is instructing the class while Maulana Shams Tabrez (ra) scales the wall and sneaks into the courtyard. He comes close to where Maulana (ra) is sitting who turns to look at him wondering from his appearance who this man was. He certainly didn’t look like one of his students with his tattered clothes and torn shoes, matted hair and disheveled look.
Having caught his attention, Maulana Shams(ra) asked him, “Een che kardi?” What are you doing?
Maulana Rum (ra) turned his face dismissively and replied condescendingly, “Aan che to nami dani.” You don’t know (anything) about it.
Maulana Shams (ra) retreated and went to sit by the edge of the fountain and one by one starting to push the ancient texts into the water. Upon hearing the splash, Maulana Rum (ra) noticed that the books had disappeared. He leapt up and shouted for him to stop.
Walking over to where Maulana Shams (ra) was sitting, now he asked him, ““Een che kardi?” What are you doing?
And received the reply, “Aan che to nami dani.” You don’t know (anything) about it.
The story goes that Maulana Rum (ra) starts hitting him and his students rush to join him. Maulana Shams (ra) held up his hands in protest asking why they were beating him. Maulana Rum (ra) answered, “Because these books are books of the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) ahadith and you have destroyed them all.”
Maulana Shams (ra) said in response, “Oh the books! Wait then for a moment” and saying that he jumped into the water. One by one he started to take the books out. Once the book was out of the water, he slapped it as if to clean it and dust blew off it. He placed it on the edge and said, “Take a look.”
Maulana Rum (ra) picked up the book and found it to be dry as a bone. Then Maulana Shams (ra) took out another book and did the same. Bewildered, Maulana Rum (ra) looked at Shams and asked, “Will they come out dry by my hand as well or only yours?”
Maulana Shams (ra) answered, “While I am in the water, they will come out dry by your hand as well.”
Subhan Allah! It was my favourite line of the story.
Maulana Rum (ra) picked up a book from the water and dusted it. It was completely dry. He called his students over. They started picking out books too. Now Maulana Shams (ra) had thrown in 10-12 books sitting on the side of the fountain but 300 or so emerged from the water.
Maulana Rum (ra) was elated. He pointed towards the piles and said to his students, “Take these into the library and place them there carefully.”
Maulana Shams (ra) stopped him. “What are you doing?”
Maulana Rum (ra) explained he wanted to keep the books in the library for they were precious.
On hearing that Maulana Shams (ra) admonished him, “This is the hadith you are teaching your students? 10 of the books were yours. 300 plus have come out from the water that don’t belong to you and you are taking them all? This is the morality they are learning from you? This is the knowledge you are imparting to them?”
In that moment Maulana Rum (ra) fell to his feet and exclaimed, “Then give me the “ilm,” the knowledge, you have that you have been bestowed by The Divine.” And this is the start.”
Then Uzair went back to the first couplet of the Masnavi and explained the instrument that Maulana references in it; the ney.
“The ney is different from the flute. It is held by the teeth not the lips. It is breathed out from not in to. As the fingers press on some notes and leave others, so the placement and movement of the fingers create the melodies. So what Maulana is saying this; the ney, the instrument itself, has nothing to it. It is a piece of dead wood. The sound is coming from the player of the instrument, his hands are creating the melody. And Allah is The Breather.”
Then he cited the verse.
فَإِذَا سَوَّيْتُهُۥ وَنَفَخْتُ فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِى فَقَعُوا۟ لَهُۥ سَـٰجِدِينَ
And when I have formed him fully and breathed into him of My Spirit,
fall down before him in prostration!”
Surah Sad, Verse 72
“And the fingers are the training of the guide.
The ney was nothing until it was separated from the tree, from the forest. If it had remained there, as a piece of bark it would have eventually fallen to the ground and become dust. Now though it is a conveyer of notes.
What Maulana is saying here is that the suffering in the world, the guide is the one who makes you go through different stages and trials, he plays you like the flautist, so that the melodic sounds you emit reverberate in the entire world. The blower is Allah, the player is the Spiritual Master. The separation from the jungle is what has rendered the wood an instrument. It is what it is only because it is separated.
Remember, two people have had the deepest impact and influence on Maulana Rum; Hazrat Abdul Qadir Jilani (ra), Ghaus ul Azam and Hazrat Muhuyddin Ibn e Arabi (ra). He has restated their philosophies in the Masnavi. And where do these philosophies in turn come from? Maula Ali (ratu).
Ghaus ul Azam (ra) was asked by Allah Almighty, “Do you want My Closeness?”
He answered, “I do.”
So Allah said, “Come near. And then He said to him,
إنقطع ثم اتصل واتصل ثم أوصل
Disconnect (from all others)
then connect (to Me)
and keep connecting
then communicate (with all others through Me).”
I was not expecting Uzair to say these lines. Since I had heard them in one of his lectures years ago, I had written the words in so many pieces, spoken the words in so many gatherings, whispered them to myself and my loved ones. But Uzair bringing it up in this context of the ney and its separation from its source was something else altogether.
“Maulana is taking the concept of the ney from here actually. From what Ghaus ul Azam is saying as told by Allah. ‘Separate from all others. And connect to Me. And I will connect with you, And then you will rejoin the others. But before you were joined to them through your own self. This time around, you will join with them through Me.’”
I let out a deep sigh.
I am a sigher by nature. I didn’t notice it till those around me commented on it. “You sigh a lot,” someone first said to me in college. I was surprised to hear the words. Then I forgot about them. Over the years when I was alone I noticed them myself, those long-winded sighs. Then I started noticing them in others, especially children.
It was such an unexpected sound from a child. It seems to hold such a deep sadness. A sadness that a soul holds within it, that the “batin” possesses and the overt self, the “zahir,” is totally unaware of. Maybe the sigh is the first sound of the ney awaiting the fingers of the Master. So that the Hand of God will one day will transform the sound of that sigh into melodious notes that intoxicate another soul.
On an afternoon in Karachi while sitting with my friend’s friends from Karachi a topic came up I knew nothing about; the vagus nerve. I wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation. It was some important nerve in the body blah blah and the ways that the nerve was activated that they were discussing were not of interest to me; cold showers, a lot of exercise, deep breathing, meditation.
Then one of them said, “And humming.”
“Humming?” I echoed. I hummed and sang the words of the kalam for my videos all day long when I was working on them.
“Yup,” she said.
When I went home I looked it up.
“What is the vagus nerve? The ”wandering” or vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve in the body. Leaving the brain stem, the vagus nerve branches off in different directions and extends as far down as the abdomen. It connects the brain and the gut, lungs, and heart. And it plays a critical role in helping us “rest and digest.” Increasing the tone of the vagus nerve enables our body to relax faster after experiencing stress.
Traveling down past the neck and into the body, the vagus nerve performs some of its most vital tasks. Its main function is to regulate the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), a special part of the nervous system that maintains the homeostasis of body functions, such as heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and digestion.
When homeostasis is disrupted through exercise, illness, or stress, a subsystem of the ANS, the Sympathetic Nervous System, kicks in and prepares the body to move, respond, or adapt to the change. This state of readiness is also known as the Fight or Flight System. When the stress is over, the Parasympathetic Nervous System down-regulates the body, bringing its functions back to baseline. Working in opposition to the Fight or Flight System, the Parasympathetic Nervous System is known as the Rest and Digest System.
We can thank the vagus nerve for keeping the heart rate from elevating too high for too long, maintaining blood vessel constriction (which regulates blood pressure) during activity, reactivating the digestive system after being shut down, and stabilizing the respiration rate and making sure it coordinates with the heart.
Because of its communication between the viscera and the brain, the vagus nerve plays an important role in body/brain interactions. Recently, neuroscientists have found a link between the presence of good gut bacteria (probiotics) and elevated mood and improved cognition. Apparently, good bacteria produce approximately 95 percent of the body’s serotonin, a neurotransmitter responsible for improved mood.
The vagus nerve appears to also assist in regulation of inflammatory responses from the body. Vagal communication between inflammatory responses and the brain can also allow the brain to regulate this inflammation and promote adaptations to acute injury and chronic irritation. The vagus nerve passes through by the vocal cords and the inner ear and the vibrations of humming is a free and easy way to influence your nervous system states.”
Unreal!
From my classes on “tajweed” in Fes, the rules of recitation of the Quran, I had learnt that the sound of the “shadda” on a letter, which means it is said with a double emphasis, gave it a longer stretch of two beats. Of the different levels of recitation, when it is “in a slow-paced manner with clarity, clearly distinguished letter by letter and with tranquility,” it is called “tarteela.”
وَقَالَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ لَوْلَا نُزِّلَ عَلَيْهِ ٱلْقُرْءَانُ جُمْلَةًۭ وَٰحِدَةًۭ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ لِنُثَبِّتَ بِهِۦ
فُؤَادَكَ ۖ
وَرَتَّلْنَـٰهُ تَرْتِيلًۭا
And said those who disbelieve ask, "Why not was revealed to him the Quran all at once?"
(It is so) in this manner that We may strengthen thereby your heart.
And We have recited it ‘tarteela,’ with a distinct recitation.
Surah Al-Furqan, Verse 32
The name of the Prophet (peace be upon him) has two “meem.” There is one in the beginning and the one in the middle has a “shadda” on it. The application of the rule then to it creates a natural hum. Muhammmmmmad! When I learnt about humming activating the vagas nerve that day, I could not help but think, all I was doing when I hummed was saying the “meem” of his name endlessly. No matter the song. The thought was having such swooning effect on my overt being, I could only imagine what it was doing to my nervous system.
In the same days I came upon Maulana’s (ra) words about musicality in the Universe. The essence of sound as its form, any form, our own included, was known me to when I discovered from Sheikh Nurjan, the Naqshbandi Master, that we are energy beings first that then gain form through sound.
But Maulana’s (ra) revelations about it opened another dimension altogether. How music was heard differently by the extraordinary and therefore the effect it had upon them of “wajd,” a state of spiritual ecstasy.
The Masnavi: “The sound of the rubaab played in the court of the King. But for the lovers of God, the “ushaaq,” the rubaab’s sound is a reminder of the promise they made in the Realm of the Souls to God, the Ahd e Alast (when He asked, ‘Am I not your Lord?’ and we answered, ‘Indeed You are.’
The sound of the dhol, the drum, for the lovers of God holds similarity to the sound of the Nufikha As-Saur, the trumpet of Israfeel. (Even though for the rest of humanity it is the sound of the Day of Judgement, which invokes fear. But for those whose nafs is “mutmainna,” content with God, even that sound is the sound of happiness for it will bring reunion).
The scholars say that the different raag, with their particular combination of notes, have been taken from the movement of the orbits of the skies. And the 12 notes of the chromatic scales of music draw a parallel with the 12 constellations.
وَلَقَدْ جَعَلْنَا فِى ٱلسَّمَآءِ بُرُوجًۭا وَزَيَّنَّـٰهَا لِلنَّـٰظِرِينَ
And indeed in the Heavens we have set up great constellations and beautified it for the observers.
Surah Al-Hijr, Verse 16
The seven notes of music, the major scale, are taken from seven of the planets. The air that is between the Earth and the sky creates all the sounds in the world. These sounds are then imitated by the voice and the Tanbura.
The believers, the Momin, know that all these raag, these songs, they come from the singing of the heavenly “Hoors”, the heavenly maidens, and from the running waters of the rivers of Jannat, and the movement of the trees of Heaven. The melodies of the raag create the thought of reunion with The Creator for those who are His Lovers. When the listener holds within them these feelings, the music intensifies this burning love for the Divine.”
In my readings, in particular of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya (ra) and in general the Chisti silsila, that I myself belong to, I had heard of the effect of the “sama’a,” in their case the qawali, upon their souls. In his case for he is “Mehboob e Ilahi,” “The one who Allah holds a beloved,” I had read of instance after instance where the effect of music transported his soul in a moment from the world to an audience before His Lord during a sama’a.
Since I had heard Uzair’s lecture on Maulana, I was fixated on the stations of the spiritual path. I thought the be all and end all was love. Yet it was the third station of seven. “Ikhlaas” had come next. I had been praying for sincerity in my prayer but I had not known what I was even asking for. I had heard so many lectures in which Uzair and others cited the words of Auliya Karaam who stressed feeling the presence of Allah, focusing on the nearness of Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) during the saying of the namaz.
I had tried different ways to do that. Mostly the images of the Ka’aba and the Green Dome were as far as I got. My speed of recitation had slowed considerably over the years. I took my time. The verse I connected with most often was “As Salam o Alayka Ayyuha Nabiyyu wa Rahmutallah e wa Barakatahu.” That was because of the hadith that when one sent a “salam” upon his blessed person, he always returned it. Mostly, I was just happy I wasn’t blazing through it anymore.
Then while writing this piece, Maulana blew my heart wide open. I was perusing my book on the stories in the Masnavi when a title caught my eye; “Ibadat ka haqeeqi mafhoom,” the original meaning of worship.
The prayer of the people behind Daqooqi (ra)
One day a wali Allah, (a Friend of God), Hazrat Daqooqi (ra) stood as the Imam to lead the prayer. A few of his contemporaries, whose hearts were soft as silk, stood behind him to say it. As soon as the “takbeer” was uttered (Allah u Akbar – Allah is The Greatest), they departed from this transient world like the sacrificed animal.
The meaning of that “takbeer” became this; “We sacrifice ourselves for you, O Lord, in the way that the “takbeer” is said before the slaughter of animals for food.” So they said Allah u Akbar and sacrificed their nafs, the ego, cutting its head off so that the soul is saved from its evil deeds.
Be like the body of Hazrat Ismail (as) when he surrendered to his father after he told him about his dream. Like his body, become free, liberated from desire and greed. Through the utterance of Bismillah, (In the Name of Allah), the contemporaries starting shivering in remembrance of their God.
After that moment, they stood before God shedding tears as if on the Day of Judgment where Allah, Exalted is He, will ask; “What have you brought for Me in this time that I gave you? I granted you an age of living, I gave you livelihood, you were given strength and power. So what did you do with them? The ability to see, the ability to hear, what did you use it for? I bestowed you the blessings of the other senses. What did you do with them? You had hands and feet, the means and tools given to work, what work did you perform with them?”
Qari Sahib had told me that Nabi Pak (ra) had described this scene to the Sahaba;
قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ: لَا تَزُولُ قَدَمَا عَبْدٍ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ حَتَّى يُسْأَلَ عَنْ عُمُرِهِ فِيمَا أَفْنَاهُ،
وَعَنْ عِلْمِهِ فِيمَ فَعَلَ،
وَعَنْ مَالِهِ مِنْ أَيْنَ اكْتَسَبَهُ وَفِيمَ أَنْفَقَهُ،
وَعَنْ جِسْمِهِ فِيمَ أَبْلَاهُ
The Prophet of God (peace be upon him) said, “The feet of no person will move until he has been asked (by God) about what works did he do in his life,
about his knowledge and his deeds as a result of it,
and his livelihood and how he earned it and how he spent it,
and about his body and how he sinned with it.”
The Masnavi: “Standing before God, in “qayam,” these questions were asked of Mankind from God. But because they are in a state of awe and ashamed because of the inability to answer, they immediately went into “ruku’” (the act of touching the hands on the knees), a state of humility.
Feeling ashamed they uttered the words for the greatness of God in that position (Subhan a Rabbi Al-Azeem). Allah commanded them, “Rise from your ‘ruku’’ and answer Me.” They raised their heads and stood up for a moment. Then losing strength again, they fell into prostration. Then they was ordered again to raise their heads.
They raise themselves only for a second to fall back into prostration a second time. Then again Allah says “Raise your head.”
After the second “raka’t,” they cannot bring himself to stand again, so they sit and Allah says to them again, “I bestowed you countless blessings, how were you grateful for them? I gave you wealth, where is the profit of that?”
Since they have nothing to offer, Mankind is unable to answer. Now they want an intercessor so they can be excused from this accountability. They turn to their right shoulder and says “salam” and call upon the Prophets and the Friends of God to come to their help, to aid them knowing they are stuck in a place from which there is no escape. The Prophets will say, “There is no help for you today from us. The time given to you has passed.”
Then they turn to their left shoulder and says “salam” and ask for their family and friends to come to their side. They too will say, “We cannot help you today.” Disappointed by all of them, their hearts will be shattered into a thousand pieces.
Finally they will raise their hands before their Merciful Lord and shed tears of repentance saying He is the First One and He is the Last One, so that they save themselves from their punishment. Learn from the actions of namaz that this is what will happen to you one day. Say to Him that He is The One who guides and we are the one who wish to be guided.”
بچه بیرون آر از بیضه نماز
سر مزن چون مرغ بی تعظیم و ساز
So you come out of your namaz like a chick leaves the egg, new born, pure.
And not like the chicken who wanders everywhere aimlessly.
The first time I read the story it was late at night. I went to sleep thinking nothing of it. The next morning when I woke it was for Fajr. I started my prayer and out of nowhere, burst into tears. Then I cried non-stop through it. For the first time in my life I pictured myself standing before God, Him asking me questions and I felt scared. Never before had I thought of myself in any moment with God that had held in it fear.
I wanted the namaz to end so badly the thought only made me cry more. The whole thing was so unexpected. How could Maulana Rum (ra) of all of Allah’s Friends, the one whose words are so full of love, so deeply romantic with the most exquisite expression that only softened the heart undeniably, how could he be the one who instills fear in my heart that never before existed? I had previously only concentrated on the Softness, the Mercy, the Forgiveness of Allah, because it was all I experienced. Even in the hardest of times.
In that morning prayer, for the first time in my life, I uttered verses in parallel. In my overt being, the verses of the namaz, and in my heart, my “qalb” whispered “Astaghfiruallah,” “I seek the forgiveness of Allah.” By the time I finished just the first two “raka’t” I was drained. But lifting the hands for a prayer was a must. It was how the story ended. My dua that day was only one and it was not to God. It was to His Beloved (peace be upon him). “Please ya Rasool Allah,” I begged, “ask Allah not to ask me anything.”
I went to bed weeping with a tasbeeh in my hand that I couldn’t even bring myself to read upon. I only clutched it close to my heart as I cried. I woke up the next morning fearing the hours to Zuhr. For three days the experience repeated itself in every prayer. Then like all things of beauty, it tapered off and when it did, what I had been anxious about, I wished and longed for.
A day or so later I went to the beach by myself. I tried to read my New Yorker but I was distracted and couldn’t focus on anything. Different thoughts interrupted me. I kept pondering about what had happened and one hadith kept coming to my mind. I have used it so many times in my writing in a particular context, it surprised me that it was the one I was reminded of.
إِنَّ هَذِهِ الْقُلُوبَ تَصْدَأُ كَمَا يَصْدَأُ الْحَدِيدُ
قِيلَ يَارَسُولَ اللَّهِ فَمَا جَلاؤُهَا
وذِكرُ الموت تِلاوَةُ الْقُرْآنِ كثرةُ ذِكرِ اللَّهِ قَالَ
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “Indeed, the hearts rust like iron rusts.”
They said, “So what will polish them?”
He said, “The abundance of remembrance of Allah, recitation of the Quran and remembering death.”
Remembering death!
I had never feared death. It wasn’t unusual. Many people who have close family, especially a parent, die when they are young, become oblivious to it. At first they become indifferent to life and when it keeps going, death, more and more, becomes the reason there will be union.
As Hazrat Khwaja Moineenuddin Chisti Ajmer (ra) says most beautifully:
الموت جسرا يوصل الحبيب الى الحبيب
Death is the bridge that joins the beloved with the beloved.
But I realized that in my lovey dovey relationship with God, I had never really thought of the Afterlife. I always knew someone would save me. I had imagined our meeting, even written about it but my thought had always been child-like, if not outright childish. It was all about me of course. What I would ask Him. I never once thought about what God might ask me.
Uzair says the role of the Prophets, all of them was the same. They asked for belief in Tauheed (the One-ness of God), Risalat (prophethood), Aakhirat (the Day of Judgment). I believed in the Day of Judgment but I never considered it. Until now. The hadith about the Last Day when people would go from Prophet to Prophet asking them to intercede for them, until they were eventually sent by them all to Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) held a new meaning for me.
Each Prophet had declined the ask to appear before God for a single sin they had committed over their entire lives. Just one! That one sin made them feel so deeply ashamed, they declined to go before their Lord and ask something of Him. My list of sins was exhaustive and it was still in play, yet I had never thought of it as anything.
Over the next few days I realized the story was a gift from Maulana to me. He didn’t want me to be of the “ghafileen,” by not thinking of the Day of Judgment the way God wanted me to think of it. And it was not lost on me that the prayer had the effect it had because a Friend of God was leading it.
قُلْ مَن يَرْزُقُكُم مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ أَمَّن يَمْلِكُ ٱلسَّمْعَ وَٱلْأَبْصَـٰرَ
وَمَن يُخْرِجُ ٱلْحَىَّ مِنَ ٱلْمَيِّتِ وَيُخْرِجُ ٱلْمَيِّتَ مِنَ ٱلْحَىِّ وَمَن يُدَبِّرُ ٱلْأَمْرَ ۚ
فَسَيَقُولُونَ ٱللَّهُ ۚ
فَقُلْ أَفَلَا تَتَّقُونَ
Say O Prophet, “Who provides you with sustenance out of Heaven and Earth, or who has full power over hearing and sight? Who brings forward the living and the dead, and the dead from the living? Who administers all matters?
They will say, “Allah.”
Then say, “Will you not then be mindful of Him?”
Surah Yunus, Verse 31
I wanted to know what Ghaus Pak (ra) said about the last word of the verse, “tattaqoon,” as in O you who practice taqwa: “They are the ones try to prepare with precaution to avoid the fallout from Allah’s Grip and His Reckoning. You associate others with Him who give you no benefit and can bring upon you no harm and you will not spared from Him because of them at all.”
I was meant to read the story to feel fear for once, which I did intensely in the beginning. But more than that it was so I could continue to mindfully polish my heart. A heart whose rust never wanes. Like the dust in Karachi that is wiped one day and appears as the same the next! It was so I could understand why Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) is asked to say in the Quran by his Lord:
قُلْ إِنَّ صَلَاتِى وَنُسُكِى وَمَحْيَاىَ وَمَمَاتِى لِلَّهِ رَبِّ ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ
Say (O Blessed Prophet (peace be upon you)), “Indeed my prayer, my acts of worship, my living and my dying, are for Allah alone, the Lord of the worlds.
Surah Al-Anam, Verse 162
I had to look up the verse in the Tafseer e Jilani by Ghaus Pak (ra) because of the word “salat-i,” my prayer:
“Say, you who is the most perfect of all Prophets, who is the reflection of the One-ness of the Allah Almighty’s Essence, whilst surrendering all your affairs and that which has happened to you as well as that have emanated from you to your Lord!
Say, “The heart-felt inclinations of my body and my soul, and my worship, which is the means for closeness and connection with my Lord, and the necessities for my living and dying, all, are sincerely for Allah alone, The One who does as He wills in the overt and inward existence of the Universe forever and by His Choice alone.”
Over time, slowly, prayer by prayer, I realized my tears were of repentance. The same note in the stories in this piece, in the story for my video, had entered my life, piercing my heart. It was like I had invited them. Because I had not even chosen the story for the video except by reading the Fateha and opening the book blindly to a page.
The Masnavi has hundreds of stories. It was impossible for me to choose one arbitrarily. To make sure it was the right story, I had opened it a second time to see what else appeared and then try to to decide between them but it had opened to the same story, settling the matter.
I thought of my weeping in my namaz for those days. I had shed my tears in silence thinking about when He would ask what I brought for Him. I had nothing. I had shed them in regret imagining if He asked what had I done with that which He bestowed me. It was nothing. And for the first time in my life, I realized the heart wrenching emotion that tears of repentance actually express: “Why did it take me so long to get here?”
After every Quran class that I have been going to for years now, a prayer is said by Dannu at the end. I had always uttered it fleetingly. Now I understood why she shed such heartfelt tears every single time. Finally I understood her ask. I didn’t want to be asked anything, whether we were front of others and even if we were all alone.
It was unsurprising of course that my Prophet (peace be upon him), who taught me about the Afterlife, is the one who I invoked before my heart began to feel calm again. He would be the only reason Allah might spare me in that moment I had experienced only in my imagination in the last few days with such intensity, it had ripped my soul apart.
He would be the one who would save me and everyone else that day. When everybody else would decline, he would invoke the intercession he was promised on the night he was brought to the Heavens, on the Night of Ascension.
فَيَأْتُونِي، فَأَنْطَلِقُ حَتَّى أَسْتَأْذِنَ عَلَى رَبِّي، فَيُؤْذَنَ لِي، فَإِذَا رَأَيْتُ رَبِّي وَقَعْتُ سَاجِدًا، فَيَدَعُنِي مَا شَاءَ اللَّهُ،
ثُمَّ يُقَالُ: ارْفَعْ رَأْسَكَ وَسَلْ تُعْطَهْ، وَقُلْ يُسْمَعْ، وَاشْفَعْ تُشَفَّعْ،
فَأَرْفَعُ رَأْسِي فَأَحْمَدُهُ بِتَحْمِيدٍ يُعَلِّمُنِيهِ،
ثُمَّ أَشْفَعُ فَيَحُدُّ لِي حَدًّا، فَأُدْخِلُهُمُ الْجَنَّةَ، ثُمَّ أَعُودُ إِلَيْهِ فَإِذَا رَأَيْتُ رَبِّي مِثْلَهُ،
ثُمَّ أَشْفَعُ فَيَحُدُّ لِي حَدًّا، فَأُدْخِلُهُمُ الْجَنَّةَ، ثُمَّ أَعُودُ الرَّابِعَةَ،
فَأَقُولُ: مَا بَقِيَ فِي النَّارِ إِلَّا مَنْ حَبَسَهُ الْقُرْآنُ وَوَجَبَ عَلَيْهِ الْخُلُودُ،
Then people will come to me and I will go with them and ask to see God. Then I will be granted audience and as soon I will see Him, I will go into prostration and until He calls me, I will remain in prostration.
Then He will say, “Raise your head O Muhammad! Intercede and your intercession will be granted.”
I will raise my head and speak in His praise that which God Almighty Himself taught me. Then I will begin my intercession and there will be a limit set for me and I will make them enter Heaven.
When I will come back for the fourth time, then I will say “There are no more people left in Hell except those who are destined to remain in it forever (by You).”
And it was him who had made the point of Maulana’s (ra) story crystal clear. A single namaz said with sincerity, would render a person pure of all sin, like a new born, like the Haj did. The incident, like all of his life, had a different meaning for me every time I cited it. This time it was simply in his reason for God’s forgiveness towards a man who was literally hounding him for punishment for a sin that was making him guilty and distressed.
Hazrat Abu Umama (ratu) narrates:
We were sitting in the mosque in the company of Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him).
A person came there and said, “O Messenger of God (peace be upon you)! I have committed an offence which deserves the imposition of Hadd (punishment for a transgression) upon me, so impose it upon me.”
Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) kept silent.
He repeated it and said, “O Messenger of God (peace be upon you), I have committed an offence which deserves the imposition of Hadd upon me, so impose it upon me.”
He (the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him)) kept silent, and it was at this time that Iqama was pronounced for prayer (and the prayer was observed).
And when Allah's Apostle (peace be upon him) had concluded the prayer, the person followed Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him). Hazrat Abu Umama continues:
I too followed Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) after he had concluded the prayer, so that I should know what answer he would give to that person.
That person remained attached to Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) and said, “O Messenger of God (peace be upon you), I have committed an offence which deserves imposition of Hadd upon me so impose it upon me.”
Hazrat Abu Umama (ratu) reported that Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said to him, “Didn't you see that as you got out of the house, you performed ablution perfectly well.”
He said, “O Messenger of God (peace be upon you)! of course. I did it.”
He again said to him, “Then you observed prayer along with us.”
He said, “O Messenger of God (peace be upon you)! Yes, it is so.”
Thereupon the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said to him, “Verily, Allah has exempted you from the imposition of Hadd or he said, ‘From your sin.’”
“You performed ablution well, you observed prayer along with us.” The blessings of a prayer behind the Master of of the Universe!
Another hadith came to my mind, one that I had never previously understood. In fact, I could never relate to the lectures in which I had heard that the “haqq,” the right of uttering the prayer is fulfilled, when one can see God or at least when God sees them.
“Use imagery,” I heard the scholars say but I didn’t know how to apply that. The thought itself did bring focus on the act for me more so than before but my mind still constantly wandered. Sadly I confess, I had spent so much time in that endless wandering, I actually had been able to identify where it was languishing.
It was always one of two things; either I was thinking about my to-dos, immediately or otherwise pending or I was broiling over something someone had done to upset me and I had held on to it instead of letting it go.
The hadith that I was thinking of now with a new zeal was the one in which Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) defines “ehsaan” when Hazrat Gibrael once appears before him to ask him some questions.
As narrated by Hazrat Omar Farouq (ratu):
One day while we were sitting with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) there appeared before us a man whose clothes were exceedingly white and whose hair was exceedingly black; no signs of journeying were to be seen on him and none of us knew him. He walked up and sat down by the Prophet (peace be upon him).
Resting his knees against his and placing the palms of his hands on his thighs, he said: "O Muhammed, tell me about islam."
The messenger of Allah said: "Islam is to testify that there is no god but Allah and Muhammed is the messenger of Allah, to perform the prayers, to pay the zakat, to fast in Ramadhan, and to make the pilgrimage to the House, if you are able to do so." `
He said:"You have spoken rightly," and we were amazed at him asking him and saying that he had spoken rightly.
He said: "Then tell me about imaan."
He said:"It is to believe in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day, and to believe in divine destiny, both the good and the evil thereof."
He said:"You have spoken rightly."
He said, " Then tell me about ehsaan."
The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: "It is to worship Allah as though you are seeing Him, and while you see Him not yet truly He sees you".
He said: "Then tell me about the Hour". He said: "The one questioned about it knows no better than the questioner."
He said: "Then tell me about its signs."
The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: "That the slave-girl will give birth to her mistress and that you will see the barefooted, naked, destitute herdsman competing in constructing lofty buildings."
Then he took himself off and I stayed for a time. Then he said: "O Omar, do you know who the questioner was?" I said: "Allah and His messenger know best". He said: "He was Jebreel (Gabriel), who came to you to teach you your religion."
گفت پيغامبر که حق فرموده است
قصد من از خلق احسان بوده است
The Prophet (peace be upon him) of God said that Allah says, “The purpose of My creating you was to bestow you with ehsaan (My Bounty).”
I called Qari Sahib to ask him one question only. In the story of those who followed Daqooqi (ra) in prayer, the Prophets had all turned away, the friends and family had turned away. Yet everything Maulana Rum (ra) says is about the need of the guide, a “murshid,” is that it is beyond essential. That the way to gain knowledge of God, closeness with him is not only accelerated through connection to His Favourites, it is impossible without them. He was the savior in the world and the Hereafter, so wasn’t there a mixed message?
Qari Sahib smiled. “The beauty of the Masnavi is that it is a reflection of the Quran. Maulana himself calls it "the marrow of the Quran." So everything that is said in it is in fact inspired by Allah and His Verses and then of course the ahadith.
In this story, or that matter any story in it, anyone who has knowledge of the Quran can connect every single thought Maulana (ra) expresses to a verse from The Book.”
Then he gave me the example:
“We will all be standing before God.”
يَوْمَ يَقُومُ ٱلنَّاسُ لِرَبِّ ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ
The Day that Humankind will stand before God, The Lord of the Worlds.
Surah Al-Mutaffifeen, Surah 6
“Everyone will be asked about the blessing they received.”
ثُمَّ لَتُسْـَٔلُنَّ يَوْمَئِذٍ عَنِ ٱلنَّعِيمِ
Then surely you will be asked that Day about what you did with the pleasures of life.
Surah At-Takathur, Verse 9
“No one will ask about another Maulana (ra) says.”
فَإِذَا نُفِخَ فِى ٱلصُّورِ فَلَآ أَنسَابَ بَيْنَهُمْ يَوْمَئِذٍۢ وَلَا يَتَسَآءَلُونَ
Then when the trumpet of Ressurection is blown, no ties of kinship will bind them on that Day, neither will they ask about one another.
Surah Al-Mumineen, Verse 101
“No one will be able to say a single word on their part.”
يَوْمَئِذٍۢ يَتَّبِعُونَ ٱلدَّاعِىَ لَا عِوَجَ لَهُۥ ۖ وَخَشَعَتِ ٱلْأَصْوَاتُ لِلرَّحْمَـٰنِ فَلَا تَسْمَعُ إِلَّا هَمْسًۭا
And on that Day everyone will follow the summoning Voice from which there will be no escape.
Then all voices will be hushed before the Most Gracious and only faint whispers will be heard.
Surah Taha, Verse 108
“But then there is also the exception. Because there is always an exception.
ٱلْأَخِلَّآءُ يَوْمَئِذٍۭ بَعْضُهُمْ لِبَعْضٍ عَدُوٌّ إِلَّا ٱلْمُتَّقِينَ
On that Day, close friends will be enemies to each other, except for those who are mindful of God.
Surah Al-Zukhruf, Verse 67”
“So you see,” Qari Sahib ended on this note, “the Quran itself says that the “Muttaqeen” will be friends and they will also be intercessors. Maulana (ra) is talking to the ordinary to warn them and to encourage them to prepare for that meeting with their Lord. To not be oblivious to it and disregard it. That is why he ends the way he does. And yet it is uplifting because he also says that the prayer, each and every prayer holds in it, for the reader, the possibility of absolute renewal.”
The journey of the seeker is “ma’rifat,” knowing God. Ghaus Pak (ra) says that without surrender (islam), there is no “imaan” (faith) and without “imaan,” there is no “iqaan” (certainty) and without “iqaan,” there is no “ma’rifat.” And each time I learn the same thing. The acts of my own life never reveal anything to me about my God.
As Hazrat Shahabuddin Suhrawardi (ra) says, Allah is not found by those who search for Him. He’s a non-material Being. But the ‘bay’at,’ a pledge of allegiance to a Spiritual Master, is a thing that if you take it, you can find the Hand of God.”
The first hand Allah called His Own was the hand of His Beloved, Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him). Then those who pledged their allegiance to him, in deep devotion and perfect emulation, placing their hand in his, also received the same blessing; through their hand could also be found the Hand of God. The “hand” is figurative but it was clear from Ghaus Pak’s (ra) tafseer of the pledge at Hudaibiah that Allah promises His Own Power and Authority to them.
It’s funny how one learns in life. When the “influencers” who actually cause change, in thought and in action, are no longer around, two possibilities remain. Traversing the path alone and going around in circles or turning to someone else, someone in the know.
My interests, some intensely passionate when they were shared with my loved ones, simply died when they died. It was then that I made Allah my Rabbi, my Lord who raises me, and my journey resumed. From being someone with intense attachment issues, I learnt to become detached.
My feelings became engaged with the Realm of the Unseen and its “makeen,” the ones who live there. In the world I gained a Spiritual Master at 16. Stage two! But I didn’t know then I had the Hand of God so close to my own. I wish I had.
Maulana Rum (ra) says that when Allah takes an oath countless times in different ayaat in the Quran, no object of an oath taken by God can be temporary or transient. In their “zahir,” the overt, they range from the skies that have been lifted and the Earth that has been laid, to the first star that appears in the dawn of the night, to the oceans and their waves that break into each other.
The specificity of the choices are spell-binding. Allah swears by the sun but not by the sun that is out all day. The Knower of Subtleties swears by the sun when it is at its peak. By the moon but not any moon. The moon that trails the sun and is revealed in its presence so both can be seen. He swears by the day when all is visible, and the night when nothing can be seen and the things we see and the things we are unable to see. He even swears by colours: the light of the dawn, the glow of the sunset, the blackness of the night and what it shrouds, the moon when it is full. The list goes on and on.
Maulana (ra) says that anything that is fleeting is not worthy of being sworn upon by Allah who is Al-Baaqi, The Everlasting. Therefore, according to him, almost always the oath taken is upon a facet of His Beloved (peace be upon him) for everything reflects the light of his heart.
عکس راز مرد حق دانيدروز
عکس ستاريش شام چشم دوذ
Think of the light of the day as the inner being of The Truthful One (Nabi Kareem (saw)),
the evening that closes the eyes is the reflection of his concealing (the flaws of others).
زاں سببفرمويزداں و الضحی
و الضحی نور ضمير مصطفی
This is the reason that Allah swears upon Ad-Duha (the dawnlight),
for Ad-Duha is the light of the heart of Mustafa (peace be upon him).
The meaning of the word, qalb, is also that which forever changes.
Hence the invocation by Nabi Kareem, “Ya Muqallib ul Qaloob, thabit qalbi ala deenik,” “O Changer of hearts forever changing, make my heart steadfast, unchanging, upon the state of being pious/conscious/consistent/obedient/fearful in Your Faith.”
When entrenched in the world, no doubt, the heart lands on one person and one thing, then another and another. It is certainly the opposite of “thabit,” steadfast. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to find a love that intensifies focus on anything, much less God.
But one day it tires of the endless change. One vision becomes longed for which can take up the heart’s entire space forever. Filling it with the love of The Divine is the ask of all asks. For then it is a love that is in its manner God-like, that is infinite, that allows for increased giving, widening its embrace to everyone, a Universe, while all other expressions and reasons for loving ultimately exhaust and even become exhausting.
Qari Sahib said to me years ago, “Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) takes us towards Allah and Allah sends us back to him. Thus our soul’s journey proceeds back and forth between the two and we find our way forward.”
Never did his words resonate with my heart as they do now. In those days of fear filled prayers before God, I only called out to the Prophet (peace be upon him). And now in my prayers full of yearning, I plead before God to make my heart a space worthy for His Beloved to occupy.
I want to grovel before God and find the apples of Heaven falling in my lap in the name of His Favoured. Like the man who one day awoke and found the cow strolling in his front door, I pray for my “nafs” to die, my “aql” to be free after a lifelong of captivity. I found it at long last, my love non-distracting. Now I await it entering my heart and making it still forever.
وَلِكُلٍّ وِجْهَةٌ هُوَ مُوَلِّيهَا
And for everyone is a direction - he turns towards it.
Surah Al-Baqarah, Verse 128
It was said (by the Mufassiroon) for the verse:
قِیْلَ اَلْمُرَادُ بِھَا لِکُلِّ اَحَدٍ قِبْلَةٌ
فَقِبْلَةُ الْمُقَرَّبِيْنَ الْعَرْشُ وَالرُّوْحَانِيِّيْنَ الْكُرْسِيُّ وَالْكَرُّوْبِیْنَ الْبَیْتُ الْمَعْمُوْرُ وَالْاَنْبِیَاءُ قَبْلَکَ بَیْتُ المُقَدَّسِ
وَ قِبْلَتُكَ الْکَعْبَةُ وَ ھِیَ قِبْلَةُ جَسَدِکَ،
وَ أَمَّا قِبْلَةُ رُوْحِکَ فَأَنَا
وَ قِبْلَتِیْ أَنْتَ
“There is a Qibla, direction, for everyone.
For those brought nearer to Allah (Muqarabeen), their Qibla is Al-Arsh, The Throne.
For the Spirits it is the Kursi, The Chair (of Knowledge).
For the Karrubeen, the angels, it is Beit ul Ma’moor (a mosque in Heaven).
And for the Prophets before you (O Muhammad (peace be upon you), it is Beit ul Muqaddas.
And for you O Beloved, your Qibla is the Ka’aba and it is the Qibla of your physical being, whereas the Qibla of your soul is Me.
And My Qibla (Focus) is you.”
وَاصْبِرْ لِحُكْمِ رَبِّكَ فَإِنَّكَ بِأَعْيُنِنَا
So be patient with your Lord’s Judgment, for indeed, you are in Our Eyes.
Surah At-Tur, Verse 48
Taken on December 11 at IIT Italian Institute of Technology, Genoa - Italy, During the Family Day 2015
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The iCub is the humanoid robot child designed to support researchers interested in the themes of learning, control, cognition, and interaction, both at IIT and worldwide. The goal of the iCub Facility is to foster the development of the iCub, arrange the construction of new versions, supervise the incorporation of new technologies.
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iCub è un robot androide costruito dall'Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) di Genova. Alto 104 cm e pesante 22 kg, la sua estetica e funzionalità ricordano quelle di un bambino di circa tre anni.
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Sito ufficiale IIT:
www.iit.it/en/research/departments/icub-facility.html
Official website IIT:
www.iit.it/en/research/departments/icub-facility.html
Wikipedia italiano:
Wikipedia english:
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You can see my images on fluidr: click here
You can see my most interesting photo's on flickr: click here
You can see my web site as Nikon Photographer Advanced: click here
2011 .. Spider Monkey demonstrating it's acrobatic skills .. this endangered species has been bred in the Auckland Zoo at Western Springs since 1950 and is exported to other zoos around the world ..
Spider monkey From Wikipedia
Spider monkeys of the genus Ateles are New World monkeys in the subfamily Atelinae, family Atelidae. Like other atelines, they are found in tropical forests of Central and South America, from southern Mexico to Brazil. The genus contains seven species including the critically endangered Black-headed Spider Monkey and Brown Spider Monkey.
The disproportionately long limbs and long prehensile tail makes them one of the largest New World monkeys and gives rise to their common name. Spider monkeys live in the upper layers of the rainforest and forage in the high canopy, from 25 to 30 m (82 to 98 ft). They primarily eat fruits, but will also occasionally consume leaves, flowers, and insects. Due to their large size, spider monkeys require large tracts of moist evergreen forests and prefer undisturbed primary rainforest. They are social animals and live in bands of up to 35 individuals but will split up to forage during the day.
Recent meta-analyses on primate cognition studies indicated that spider monkeys were the most intelligent New World monkeys. They can produce a wide range of sounds and will 'bark' when threatened, other vocalisations include a whinny similar to a horse and prolonged screams.
They are an important food source due to their large size and are widely hunted by local human populations; they are also threatened by habitat destruction due to logging and land clearing. Spider monkeys are susceptible to malaria and are used in laboratory studies of the disease. The population trend for spider monkeys is decreasing; the IUCN Red List lists one species as vulnerable, four species as endangered and two species as critically endangered.
The monkeys may live 20 years or more, and females give birth once every 3 to 4 years.
People litter more in messy environments than in clean ones. Litter begets litter.
(Krauss, Freedman & Whitcup, 1978; Cialdini et al., 1990)
treatments work to get a little more words and cognition back.
getting back cognition works to get pains back .
aches live in the living.
A cigarette to deal with stress lights up. Now an interdisciplinary staff of Yale experts has shown that guanfacine, a medicine authorized for treating hypertension that promotes cognition and reduces anxiety, shows assurance as being a smoking cessation assistance.However it's not easy-to give
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meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
A hypnopompic state (or hypnopomp) is the state of consciousness leading out of sleep, a term coined by the psychical researcher Frederic Myers. Its twin is the hypnagogic state at sleep onset; though often conflated, the two states are not identical. The hypnagogic state is rational waking cognition trying to make sense of non-linear images and associations; the hypnopompic state is emotional and credulous dreaming cognition trying to make sense of real world stolidity. They have a different phenomenological character. Depressed frontal lobe function in the first few minutes after waking – known as "sleep inertia" – causes slowed reaction time and impaired short-term memory. Sleepers often wake confused, or speak without making sense, a phenomenon the psychologist Peter McKeller calls "hypnopompic speech". When the awakening occurs out of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, in which most dreams occur, the hypnopompic state is sometimes accompanied by lingering vivid imagery. Some of the creative insights attributed to dreams actually happen in this moment of awakening from REM.
Books I bought at Half Price Books at Crossroad Mall.
Neurology and Clinical Neuroscience Edited by: Anthony H.V. Schapira, MD, DSc
SECTION I: CONSCIOUSNESS, COGNITION, AND SPECIAL SENSES
OpenSECTION III: NEUROPSYCHIATRY
OpenSECTION IV: NEURO-OPHTHALMOLOGY
OpenSECTION V: NEURO-OTOLOGY
OpenSECTION VI: AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM DISEASES
OpenSECTION VII: MOTOR SYSTEM AND MOTOR DISEASES
OpenSECTION VIII: SPINE AND SPINAL DISEASE
OpenSECTION IX: CEREBROVASCULAR DISEASE
OpenSECTION X: EPILEPSY
OpenSECTION XI: HEADACHE
OpenSECTION XII: NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASE
OpenSECTION XIII: MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS AND DEMYELINATING DISORDERS
OpenSECTION XIV: NEUROMUSCULAR DISEASE: NERVE
OpenSECTION XV: NEUROMUSCULAR DISEASE: MUSCLE
OpenSECTION XVI: INFECTIONS AND GRANULOMATOUS DISEASES
OpenSECTION XVII: NEURO-ONCOLOGY
OpenSECTION XVIII: TRAUMA
OpenSECTION XIX: METABOLIC DISEASES
OpenSECTION XX: NEUROLOGY IN GENERAL MEDICINE