A [person] should surrender the personal selfishness which binds him to this world. Giving up the false self is the true renunciation. 
-Ramana Maharshi


God has put you in the world. What can you do about it? Resign everything to Him. Surrender yourself at His feet. Then there will be no more confusion. Then you will realize that it is God who does everything. 
-Ramakrishna Paramhansa


The essential surrender happens within you, it has nothing to do with anybody outside you. The basic surrender is a relaxation, a trust — so don’t be misguided by the word. Linguistically, surrender means to surrender to somebody, but religiously, surrender simply means trust, relaxing. It is an attitude rather than an act: you live through trust. 
-Osho


Drop the mind and the divine. God is not an object, it is a merger. The mind resists a merger, the mind is against surrender; the mind is very cunning and calculating. 
-Osho


Complete surrender does require that you have no desire of your own. You must be satisfied with whatever God gives you and that means having no desires of your own. 
-Ramana Maharshi


Surrender appears easy because people imagine that, once they say with their lips `I surrender' and put their burdens on their Lord, they can be free and do what they like. But the fact is that you can have no likes or dislikes after your surrender; your will should become completely non-existent, the Lord's will taking its place. The death of the ego in this way brings about a state which is not different from jnana. So by whatever path you may go, you must come to jnana or oneness. 
-Ramana Maharshi


The Christian teaches surrender to God; God is just an excuse to surrender. It is a help, because it will be difficult for you to surrender without any object. The object is just an excuse so that in the name of God you can surrender. Buddhism says simply surrender — there is no God. You relax. It is not a question of some object, it is a question of your own subjectivity. Relax, don’t fight. Accept. 
-Osho


Leave it to God. Surrender unreservedly. One of two things must be done. Either surrender because you admit your inability and require a higher power to help you, or investigate the cause of misery by going to the source and merging into the Self. Either way you will be free from misery. God never forsakes one who has surrendered. 
-Ramana Maharshi


The name "Islam" simply means "Self-surrender to the Will of God." It is the way of life that all Prophets through out history have taught, from those known in the Western world such as Abraham, Moses and Jesus to those sent to other parts of the earth like Salih, Shu'ayb and Luqman, the African. 
-Islam101.com

Like the time I was listening to the Phil Anselmo interview.  Today, I saw a book at the library while studying called "Great Moments in Rock 'n' Roll" -- how could I resist that?  Turns out it was full of stories from the Twin Cities, and I came across the name of this band that 8md been trying to remember for the better part of a decade.  My newly-freed brain-space thanks u, o procrastination!  Now, back to real studying.

It took the OWS folks a couple weeks to come up with anything to tell people about why they are doing a permanent sit-in.  I'm attaching the entirety of the text here as a mirror.

This was unanimously voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street last night, around 8pm, Sept 29. It is our first official document for release. We have three more underway, that will likely be released in the upcoming days: 1) A declaration of demands. 2) Principles of Solidarity 3) Documentation on how to form your own Direct Democracy Occupation Group. This is a living document. you can receive an official press copy of the latest version by emailing c2anycga@gmail.com.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York CityAs we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

I SUPPORT these statements.  They do not pre-empt the opportunity for inclusive action, while leveling their truth against the system that has done so much harm against humanity and our planet.

. . lyrics: colors: mood: chant/prayer/mantra: pax hominibus, agape to all, joel

Too darn busy to comment, just bookmarking this for myself for later, and for any friends.


pax hominibus, agape to all, joel

. .

This white paper written by the CMA, representing 35,000 doctors in California is clear as a bell about what needs to be done.  I could not have said it better, and agree with their assessment wholeheartedly.

pax hominibus, agape to all, joel

I haven't gotten to watch this yet, but a friend recommended it and it looks informative.

pax hominibus, agape to all, joel

1. Government giving away licensing of public airwaves FM frequency bands  to private corporations, while not providing sufficient bandwidth to public discourse.
2. Two party system forces people to vote for the lesser of two evils, and not their real choice.  Switch to Instant Runoff Voting
3. Electoral College and gerrymandering when redistricting disenfranchise certain voters and candidates.
4. Marijuana laws, including federal-level obstinacy with continued status as a Schedule 1 drug despite preponderance of evidence
5. Private banks of Wall Street controlling money supply, overleveraging, and being massively bailed out
6. Unfair tax structure allows richest to pay lower percentage than regular people, and dramatically less than rich had to pay during other periods
7. Campaign finance reform
8. The right to bear arms
9. Wars of empire
10. For-profit healthcare -- single payer now!
11. Disparities in public education
12. Privatization of the commonwealth
13. Immigration rights
14. US aid to Israel
15. End fossil fuel subsidies, invest in sustainable energy R&D
16. Against GMO foods and bogus organic standards for food
17. Equal marriage rights for all, regardless of gender.
18. Guarantee accessible clean water for all
19. ....

. . lyrics: colors: mood: chant/prayer/mantra: pax hominibus, agape to all, joel

These homes look kind of like what I am planning.  I want our house to be two-stories, and perhaps a bit less organic.  Then again, I could be sold on the organic element as well.  I noted in the comments that it may be difficult to get a home like this to pass the US housing code inspections.  

pax hominibus, agape to all, joel

from http://www.sodahead.com/living/what-is-civilization-by-aric-mcbay/blog-282673/ 

In contradiction to the idea that the dominant culture's way of living is "natural", human beings lived as small, ecological, participatory, equitable groups for more than 99% of human history. There are a number of excellent books and articles comparing indigenous societies to civilization:

Chellis Glendinning's My name is Chellis and I'm in recovery from western civilization is an amazing and readable book, and it's one of my favourites. You can also read an excerpt of the chapter "A Lesson in Earth Civics" online. Seehttp://www. eco-action. org/dt/civics. html. She has also written several related books, includingWhen Technology Wounds: The Human Consequences of Progress..

John Zerzan's Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections composed of excerpts from the works of a wide range of authors..

The Culture of Make Believe by Derrick Jensen chronicles the violent hatreds that have been overwhelming our planet, tracing them back through their sources in imperialism, slavery, the rise of global capitalism, and the ideologies of possessiveness and consumerism..

Marshall Sahlin's Stone Age Economics is a detailed classic in that same vein. You can read his essay "The Original Affluent Society" online at numerous places, including: http://www. primitivism. com/original-affluent. htm

Anthropologist Stanley Diamond's book In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization

Richard Heinberg's essay "The Primitivist Critique of Civilization" is also highly readable, and available online in many places including http://www. eco-action. org/dt/critique. html. Other good reading is at http://www.primitivism.com and http://eco-action.org/

What these sources show is there were healthy, equitable and ecological communities in the past, and that they were the norm for countless generations. It is civilization that is monstrous and aberrant..

. . lyrics: colors: mood: chant/prayer/mantra: pax hominibus, agape to all, joel