Life on earth like watching a movie [UNDERSTANDING], [WISDOM], [CARE], [SERVICE]

From Elika Mahony's insightful blog http://www.elikamahony.com/. Source is here.

The World is but a Show

Thank you for your responses on my last blog post: 'The Purpose of Tests'. Many of you shared your thoughts privately and sent them to my personal email account - totally understandable as this can be a sensitive and personal subject. I asked a couple of my friends if I could share their insights on this blog and they kindly agreed… One friend shared a powerful dream they had had about learning to be a 'hollow reed' after being severely tested and having been stripped from one of their most prized possessions - their musical instrument.

Another friend shared that tests and difficulties really make you become detached from your ego…they humble you and bring you down to your knees…. Thank you to my friends who shared their responses on the blog too - I really enjoyed reading your insightful comments.

One of the reasons I wanted to make the CD, Fire and Gold, is precisely because it is on the theme of tests and difficulties and is a subject we all experience. Because it's a common thread in all our lives, everyone can identify with it.

Below is one of the quotations that I chose to set to music for the CD on a similar theme of how this world is just a show. It is the title song from the CD, Fire and Gold. You can hear it by clicking on the 2nd song on the playlist entitled 'Fire and Gold.' Click here to go to the Fire and Gold music page to listen.

"The world is but a show, vain and empty, a mere nothing, bearing the semblance of reality. Set not your affections upon it… The world is like a vapor in a desert, which the thirsty dreameth to be water and striveth after it with all his might, until when he cometh unto it, he findeth it to be mere illusion".

-Bahá'u'lláh

This quote has such depth in meaning and when I reflect on it I understand that the world is not real. It's just an illusion and it's passing. Anything that passes ultimately cannot be real. To give you an example, it's like watching a movie - it has a reality in that moment when we're watching it, but then it's over. Thinking of it in symbolic terms, it's as though we are the actors in the movie. We're here in this world observing a movie but when the movie's over, we leave the theatre. What we do in the movie dictates who we are when we leave the movie. What we've done in this world and what we've developed are who we are. I believe that when we leave this world we take two things - our good deeds (what we've done) and our virtues (who we are). The only things we get to keep eternally are things that we give away, ie. our service to others. When we are of service there is an element of sacrifice. We give up that time to help someone else. That act of service is ours forever and that's what we take with us when we leave this world. The reason we take it with us is because we gave it away. I believe, however, that one has to be of service with a pure motive and with true sincerity otherwise I don't think it translates as true service. Of course those we aid will benefit but I don't think our soul could fully benefit unless it's done with the purest of motives.

The phrase that echoes in my mind from the above quotation is: "Set not your affections upon it…" - a warning sign not to get attached to this world. I would love to hear your thoughts or any inspirational stories you would like to share…

Airways plane crash-landing in Hudson ends HAPPILY! [HELPFULNESS], [CONSIDERATION], [COOPERATION]

An optimistic and happy posting by Savvybeliever on her perceptive blog Savvybeliever's Weblog. Enjoy!

January 16, 2009

Airplane crash-landing in Hudson River cause for celebration

Posted by savvybeliever under Doing the Right Thing

Since hubby Dave is a longtime air traffic controller, he brings home aviation-related news.  When he told me about the US Airways plane crash-landing in the Hudson River near Manhattan on Jan. 16, I was really encouraged.  I just love how everyone pitched in to come to the rescue.  The ferries going right over and picking up the passengers–how neat is that?  I just wish there was a way for us to fly the flag in celebration of a national victory.  All we have is how to fly it in mourning for a national tragedy.  Suggestions on how we could show that something really good has happened in this nation?  Leave a comment!

Link to article about crash: http://www.wnct.com/nct/news/national/article/plane_lands_on_hudson_river_survivors_thankful_for_pilot_and_crews/29048/

Seeing POSITIVE - Earth Hour 2.0 a success [OPTIMISM], [HOPE], [CARE], [COOPERATION], [COORDINATION], [REVERENCE]

Source from here.

Earth Hour 2.0 a success

TARA WALTON /TORONTO STAR

St. Cuthbert's Anglican Church in Toronto during their candlelight meditation to mark Earth Hour on March 28, 2009.

City smashes last year's record low power usage as lights dim across the GTA and as far away as Beijing

Mar 28, 2009 10:58 PM

Daniel Dale
Staff reporter

And the environmentalists said let there be darkness. And – for an hour, at least – there was darkness: in downtown office towers and suburban homes, in stores big-box and mom-and-pop, at gatherings long-planned and impromptu.

Not a solution, no, but a statement. At 9:30 p.m., the conclusion of the second global Earth Hour, the meter at Toronto Hydro's control centre that measures city-wide electricity demand hit 2,545 megawatts – 15 per cent below typical demand at that time and 7 per cent below the lowest demand during Earth Hour in 2008.

Toronto's reduction of 455 megawatts was larger than the cumulative savings of the entire GTA during last year's event.

"Torontonians want to do what's right for the environment because they get it," Mayor David Miller told a cheering crowd at Nathan Phillips Square. "It's a privilege to be mayor of a city that gets it."

The increasing local popularity of Earth Hour, for which people worldwide were asked to turn off their lights between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., reflected its rapid growth internationally. Launched in Sydney by the World Wildlife Fund in 2007 to raise awareness of the perils of climate change, it spread to more than 35 countries, including Canada, in 2008.

More than 80 countries and 3,000 cities participated today. Organizers claimed about 1 billion people spent the hour in the dark, an exponential increase from perhaps 50 million last year.

In Paris, the Eiffel Tower went noir. In Toronto, the CN Tower became as inconspicuous as a 553-metre building can ever be. In Athens, officials switched off the floodlights illuminating the Acropolis, an icon of western civilization. In Toronto, Honest Ed's iconically garish 23,000-bulb marquee temporarily ceased beckoning.

GTA hotels and stores welcomed guests by candlelight. Community groups hosted flashlight-lit walks. Amateur astronomers, savouring a rare approximation of light conditions in less dense locales, set up their telescopes in parks.

And tens of thousands congregated in private homes and public squares to both demonstrate their concern for the planet's fate and to share in the low-wattage spectacle.

At Nathan Phillips Square, thousands gathered for the city's official Earth Hour event, which featured a free concert. Many waved colourful glow sticks, loudly counting down the seconds until the beginning of the hour and cheering as City Hall went dark at the stroke of 8:30.

Many lights, of course, remained on. During the hour, Katie Szeto, 17, sat on a bench facing Queen St. W., looking dejectedly at the sky. "I'm a little disappointed, because I can't see the stars," said Szeto.

"And I'm sad that some buildings aren't dimmed," she said, pointing to several well-lit apartment buildings overlooking City Hall.

Organizers attempted to depict Earth Hour as a "global election," pitting people who "vote Earth" by turning their lights off versus people who "vote global warming" by leaving their lights on.

Some 250 Canadian cities participated. Yet some Canadians remained skeptical, arguing the event was little more than an exercise in feel-good tokenism.

At Dundas Square, hundreds lined up for free water filters Brita distributed to mark Earth Hour.

Olesya Kolisnyk, an environmentally conscious 29-year-old near the front of the line, said she had "very low expectations" about the event's long-term impact, though she supported the concept. "Something is better than nothing. Maybe we can do it quarterly."

WWF organizers said they acknowledged the limitations of a one-hour annual event. But they argued the event's worldwide popularity could influence governments to sign a new international accord on carbon emissions at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December. The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

"This is a critical year for climate," WWF Canada president and chief executive officer Gerald Butts has said. "We need to come out of Copenhagen with a workable deal, based on science, that is going to lower carbon emissions globally. We think this is a turning point."

China, whose support environmental groups consider essential to the success of any worldwide climate plan, participated in Earth Hour for the first time, turning off the lights at prominent Olympic venues and office towers.

During last year's Earth Hour, Milton, Newmarket, Aurora and Halton Hills cut their electricity use by a greater percentage than Toronto. Milton led by the GTA with a 15 per cent reduction.

Before last night, Hydro officials cautiously predicted a Toronto decrease of 10 per cent. At the control centre, supervisors smiled as the reduction far surpassed expectations. "Torontonians have come through big time," said grid operations supervisor John Fletcher.

And then the city powered up. By 9:40 p.m., consumption had increased by 30 megawatts.

-With files from Paola Loriggio and Jason Miller

Passing of Country Singer Dan Seals [UNITY], [CARE], [CREATIVITY], [LOVE]

A most touching video, "We Are One", sung by Dan Seals, who passed away March 25, 2009:

Honor his blessed memory!

O my God, Thy Trust hath been returned unto Thee. It behooveth Thy grace and Thy bounty that have compassed Thy dominions on earth and in heaven, to vouchsafe unto Thy newly welcomed one Thy gifts and Thy bestowals, and the fruits of the tree of Thy grace! Powerful art Thou to do as Thou willest, there is none other God but Thee, the Gracious, the Most Bountiful, the Compassionate, the Bestower, the Pardoner, the Precious, the All-Knowing. I testify, O my Lord, that Thou hast enjoined upon men to honor their guest, and he that hath ascended unto Thee hath verily reached Thee and attained Thy Presence. Deal with him then according to Thy grace and bounty! By Thy glory, I know of a certainty that Thou wilt not withhold Thyself from that which Thou hast commanded Thy servants, nor wilt Thou deprive him that hath clung to the cord of Thy bounty and hath ascended to the Dayspring of Thy wealth. There is none other God but Thee, the One, the Single, the Powerful, the Omniscient, the Bountiful.

—Bahá’u’lláh

http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/c/BP/bp-37.html

Song text

We Are One

(Dan Seals)

In a bombed out room in Belfast
A young boy is crying
He’s alone and he don’t understand
How the teachings of one book
Built on love and understanding
Could cause the hurt and killing in his land

In an old part of Jerusalem
Two children are playing
They run and laugh
The way it’s meant to be
But one will wear the star and one will wear the crescent
And they’ll grow up and change from friends to enemies

Chorus

But we are one
Flowers of one garden
We’re one the leaves of one tree
Let the walls come down
And stand here together
We are one family

In a Pakistani village
A young boy on crutches
Takes a fall
And lies helplessly there
And he holds out his hand
But no one will take it
They won’t touch him
Or the clothes that he wears

On a side street in Selma
A black child is sitting
In a squad car
Protected from the whites
‘Cause they’re burning a cross
To send her a message
And you can see
The fear in her eyes

Chorus

But we are one
Flowers of one garden
We’re one the leaves of one tree
Let the walls come down
And stand here together
We are one family

Ponder in our hearts
How we were all created
From the same dust
And searching we will find
That spirit of the age
Has come to find us
To find us

Chorus

But we are one
Flowers of one garden
We’re one the leaves of one tree
Let the walls come down
And stand here together
We are one family

EARTH HOUR unites the world! [UNITY], [COOPERATION], [MODERATION], [CONSULTATION]

Will Earth Hour have been the biggest collective act in the history of mankind to date? Presaging that glorious day when the human race will have become as "one soul and one body"?

Focus quotation:

No power can exist except through unity. No welfare and no well-being can be attained except through consultation.

- Bahá'u'lláh, http://info.bahai.org/article-1-3-6-6.html

Excerpt from AP article:

"Earth Hour has always been a positive campaign; it's always around street parties, not street protests, it's the idea of hope, not despair. And I think that's something that's been incredibly important this year because there is so much despair around," said Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley.

 

Photo: Russian students stand with candles in the city centre of VLADIVOSTOK as they mark WWF's Earth Hour

Source: news.yahoo.com

Antarctica to Pyramids — lights dim for Earth Hour

By VANESSA GERA, Associated Press Writer Vanessa Gera, Associated Press Writer 28 March

BONN, Germany – From an Antarctic research base to the Great Pyramids of Egypt and beyond, the world switched off the lights on Saturday for the second Earth Hour, dimming skyscrapers, city streets and some of the world's most recognizable monuments for 60 minutes to highlight the threat of climate change.

Time zone by time zone, nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries joined the event sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund to dim nonessential lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

An agreement to replace Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, is supposed to be reached in Copenhagen, Denmark, this December, and environmentalists' sense of urgency has spurred interest in this year's Earth Hour. Last year, only 400 cities participated; Sydney held a solo event in 2007.

Organizers initially worried enthusiasm this year would wane with the world focused on the global economic crisis, Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley told The Associated Press. But he said it apparently had the opposite effect.

"Earth Hour has always been a positive campaign; it's always around street parties, not street protests, it's the idea of hope, not despair. And I think that's something that's been incredibly important this year because there is so much despair around," he said. "On the other side of it, there's savings in cutting your power usage and being more sustainable and more efficient."

The Chatham Islands, a small chain about 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of New Zealand, switched off its diesel generators to officially begin Earth Hour. Soon after, the lights of Auckland's Sky Tower, the tallest man-made structure in New Zealand, blinked off.

At Scott Base in Antarctica, New Zealand's 26-member winter team resorted to minimum safety lighting and switched off appliances and computers.

In Australia, people attended candlelit speed-dating events and gathered at outdoor concerts as the hour of darkness rolled through. Sydney's glittering harbor was bathed in shadows as lights dimmed on the steel arch of the city's iconic Harbour Bridge and the nearby Opera House.

And in Egypt, the Great Pyramids darkened, as did the Sphinx.

In Bonn, WWF activists planned a candlelit cocktail party on the eve of a U.N. climate change meeting, the first in a series of talks this year seeking a new deal to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases that scientists say are dangerously warming the planet.

As nightfall approached in Europe, Paris planned to darken more than 200 monuments and buildings, including the Louvre and Notre Dame Cathedral.

The Eiffel Tower will extinguish its lights for only five minutes for security reasons because visitors will be on the tower, said WWF France spokesman Pierre Chasseray. But a nightly 9 p.m. sparkling lights feature will not run.

"Above all in the current economic crisis, we should send a signal for climate protection," said Klaus Wowereit, the mayor of Berlin, one in a handful of German cities switching off lights for Earth Day for the first time.

In Switzerland, the city of Geneva plans to switch off the lights on its theaters, churches and monuments. Among these are the Reformation Wall, where floodlights normally illuminate 10-foot (three-meter) statues of John Calvin and other leaders of Protestantism. The city's motto engraved on either side of the statues is: "After darkness, light."

Romania planned to turn off lights at the massive palace built in Bucharest by the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Still, a key 2010 football World Cup qualifier against Serbia posed a dilemma for Romanians. "Shall we watch the match or turn off the lights?," the 7plus daily asked in its main front-page headline.

The U.N. headquarters in New York and other facilities were dimming their lights to signal the need for global support for a new climate treaty.

U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon called Earth Hour "a way for the citizens of the world to send a clear message: They want action on climate change."

China participated for the first time, cutting the lights at Beijing's Bird's Nest Stadium and Water Cube, the most prominent 2008 Olympic venues. Shanghai cut lights at all government buildings and other structures on its waterfront, while Hong Kong, Baoding, Changchun, Dalian, Nanjing and Guangzhou also took part.

In Bangkok, the prime minister switched off the lights on Khao San Road, a haven for budget travelers packed with bars and outdoor cafes. On Bangkok's bustling Silom Road, street vendors hawking pirated DVDs and T-shirts chipped in by turning off the bulbs that light their stalls.

Earth Hour organizers say there's no uniform way to measure how much energy is saved worldwide.

Earth Hour 2009 has garnered support from global corporations, nonprofit groups, schools, scientists and celebrities — including Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and retired Cape Town Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

McDonald's Corp. planned to dim its arches at 500 locations around the U.S. Midwest. The Marriott, Ritz-Carlton and Fairmont hotel chains and Coca-Cola Co. also planned to participate.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090328/ap_on_re_as/earth_hour

Artistic performance: Thousand-Hand Guan Yin [BEAUTY], [COOPERATION], [ORDERLINESS], [GRACE]

 

A YouTube video of a remarkable artistic performance troupe.

 

Thousand-Hand Guan Yin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgHmSdpjEIk

 

As long as you are kind and there is love in your heart
A thousand hands will naturally come to your aid
As long as you are kind and there is love in your heart
You will reach out with a thousand hands to help others

Guan Yin is the bodhisattva of compassion, revered by Buddhists as the Goddess of Mercy. Her name is short for Guan Shi Yin. Guan means to observe, watch, or monitor; Shi means the world; Yin means sounds, specifically sounds of those who suffer. Thus, Guan Yin is a compassionate being who watches for, and responds to, the people in the world who cry out for help.

The multi-coloured parade of humanity in all its diversity, moving together as one soul in many bodies [UNITY], [REVERENCE], [SACRIFICE]

Excerpts from an enlightening and inspiring blogpost by Robert Weinberg on his eloquent blog Where the World's Going, on the historical event that transpired at Naw-Ruz this year. Highlighting added.

Circles of adoration

On the day of the first Naw-Rúz He celebrated after His release from captivity - 21 March 1909 - 'Abdu'l-Bahá had a marble sarcophagus transported to the vault He had prepared for it. In the evening, "by the light of a single lamp, He laid within it, with His own hands—in the presence of believers from the East and from the West and in circumstances at once solemn and moving—the wooden casket containing the sacred remains of the Báb and His companion," wrote Shoghi Effendi.

"When all was finished, and the earthly remains of the Martyr-Prophet of Shíráz were, at long last, safely deposited for their everlasting rest in the bosom of God's holy mountain, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Who had cast aside His turban, removed His shoes and thrown off His cloak, bent low over the still open sarcophagus, His silver hair waving about His head and His face transfigured and luminous, rested His forehead on the border of the wooden casket, and, sobbing aloud, wept with such a weeping that all those who were present wept with Him. That night He could not sleep, so overwhelmed was He with emotion."

Last Saturday, I was privileged to join some 1000 Bahá'ís – pilgrims, visitors, guests and staff of the Bahá'í World Centre - gathered on that same mountainside and, in an act of solemn reflection, circumambulate the Shrine of the Báb, 100 years to the day since 'Abdu'l-Bahá had completed that singular act which, wrote Shoghi Effendi, "indeed deserves to rank as one of the outstanding events in the first Bahá'í century." 

How transformed is this rocky mountainside since the night when 'Abdu'l-Bahá brought the Báb's remains to their final resting place, close to that circle of cypresses, in a mausoleum befitting a Messenger from God Who had declared His mission on the very night of the very same year that 'Abdu'l-Bahá Himself was born.

Last year alone, the Terraces of the Shrine of the Báb attracted some 640,000 visitors and their beauty is being universally acclaimed. Last Monday, in Jerusalem, a special reception was held to celebrate the addition of the Bahá'í shrines and gardens to the UNESCO World Heritage list. Commenting on the achievement, Israel's Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, said that the shrines reflect peace, beauty and tolerance. He said it was not only an honour for Israel to have the Bahá'í Holy Places within its borders, but it was an honour for UNESCO to have them on its list of the world's most culturally significant places.

"The sacrifices of the Báb and the dawn-breakers of the Cause are yielding abundant fruit," wrote the Universal House of Justice at Naw-Ruz, the exact centenary of the interment of the Báb's remains on Mount Carmel, "The magnificent progress achieved over the past century demonstrates the invincible power with which the Cause is endowed."   

As we processed from the Seat of the Universal House of Justice, along the semi-circular arc path to the Shrine of the Báb, I turned back and glimpsed the multi-coloured parade of humanity in all its diversity, moving together as one soul in many bodies. I remembered the dramatic circumstances surrounding the Báb's own execution and the vain hope of the clergy and rulers of His land that, with His swift demise and the brutal massacre of some 20,000 followers, the fire He had ignited would be quenched. The vision of humanity I glimpsed on Saturday demonstrated to me the futility of such attempts to snuff out this inextinguishable light - efforts which persist in Iran to this day. "He doeth as He doeth and what recourse have we? He carrieth out His will, He ordaineth what He pleaseth."

'Abdu'l-Bahá's depositing of the remains of the Báb in the bosom of Mount Carmel marked the beginning of the World Centre of the Bahá'í Faith. It was an act of love and obedience carried out by a son on the instructions of His Father. A seed, still bursting with life and potential, had been salvaged from a savagely felled tree and planted in new soil where it could take root. The circle of cypress trees, silent witnesses to momentous events, are now overshadowed by the efflorescence of Carmel, both in the magnificence of the gardens that now adorn its slopes and the vibrant variety of human hues that gather there in their thousands to pay homage to the martyred herald of their Faith. Today, these are the fruits of that seed, of that act of obedience. 

As the Universal House of Justice noted, "It is but a portent of the ultimate realization of the oneness of humankind."

Read the whole post here.