Awake

-Are you a God?
- they asked the Buddha.
- No.
- Are you an angel, then?
- No.
- A saint?
- No.
- Then what are you?
-
I am AWAKE.



Einstein

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure of
the universe"-Albert Einstein-


Om Mani Padme Hum

Matthew 25:40

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Matthew 7 1-6


1. Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4. Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5. Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
6. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Ancient Civilizations In India May Be Oldest Yet, But Is It The Oldest Ever???

I think not.... 
This clip states that a lost civilization has been found in India, but I'll let it speak for itself....
The Japan Times
January 17, 2002
'Lost' India civilization may be 9500 years old: minister
NEW DELHI (AFP-Jiji) Indian scientists have discovered a lost river civilization dating back to 7500 B.C. off India's western coast, a senior Indian Cabinet minister said Wednesday.
The discovery would suggest the world's oldest cities were built about 4,000 years earlier than is currently believed.  "The findings buried 40 meters below the sea reveal some sort of human civilization, a courtyard, staircase, a bathroom or a temple or something," said Murli Manohar Joshi, minister for human resources and also ocean development.
The earliest discovered human civilizations in the subcontinent are the sites of the Harrapan and Indus Valley communities, which date back to 2500 B.C. The world's first cities are commonly believed to have appeared around 3500 B.C. in the valley of Sumer, where Iraq stands, a statement issued by the government said.
The marine archaeological findings have been made by a joint exercise conducted by the National Institute of Ocean Technology and other Indian ocean development and archaeology institutes in the Gulf of Cambay region, off the coast of Gujarat state in the Arabian Sea.  Objects such as pieces of construction material, artifacts with rectangular holes, fused objects, pottery, beads, broken pieces of sculpture, a fossilized jaw bone and human teeth and a cut wooden log have all been retrieved from the site. Carbon-dating and other methods have dated the finds to around 7500 B.C.
Acoustic imagery has revealed a river stretch of 9 km along which all the objects have been found, as well as built structures protruding from the seabed.

End....

Previously it was accepted  that the Indian civilization began perhaps as far back as 500,000 years ago, the India we know starting in Neolithic times perhaps as far back as 7000 BC with the Mehrgarh, then into the Harappan civilization, that was invaded by the Aryans around 2500 BC, and countless invaders over the years, with the country developing and evolving, or de-evolving, depending on your point of view, into modern times.
If in fact an unknown and truly advanced civilization has been discovered that's older yet, circa 7500 BC, it pretty much throws a monkey wrench into that.  Of course to many of us, it was never accepted.  Instead we believed that India was in fact home, or one of the homes, of a truely ancient civilization(s).  Not cavemen, Not hunter gatherers who somehow by some miracle became farmers and city dwellers almost overnight. But, instead a civilization equal to or greater than our own. Not the same of course, but on a paralell.
There is a saying, I don't know who said it, or where or when, that China was civilized when Britons were still living in caves painting themselves blue. But, I have read that China was young when India was already old.  Meaning I guess that India was civilized when China was...well you get the idea. 
I personally think that we moderns, who are really little or no different than those who lived in 7500 BC and before, are mutations, (though due to pride and ego we prefer to use the word evolution), of those who lived and populated those advanced, antidiluvian or prehistoric advanced civilizations, (whether they were Homo Sapiens, Neanderthal, Homo Erectus, or whatever), one of which may have finally come to light. 
Actually anatomically modern humans have been around for something like 200,000 years. They say that 50-60,000 years ago, what the anthropologists call behavioral modernity, which is to say music, language, etc. may have just happened one day, due to some sudden event or mutation, (that word again), or possibly as a culteral evolution, a gradual accumulation of knowledge, culture and skills over thousands and thousands of years. Of course that's the anthropologists guessing, unless the've found a time machine, or some other way to verify.
But the point is that if humanity has been around that long, and more or less the same as us, let's face it, the world as we know it has only existed a hundred years or so, when I was a kid in the 50's there was almost no difference from when my parents were kids in the 20's or 30's, and the 20's or 30's were very little different than the 1800's, or even the 1700's. Take away the computers and we'd slide backwards pretty quickly. Anyway as I was saying, if humans have been around that long, 200k, 75k, 10k, 7500 years, who can say how many civilizations have been and gone? Back to where I started, it seems that such an advanced civilization, in India, has been found, that predates what are accepted as the earliest civilizations, the Mesopotamians, Sumerians, and Egyptians. Which are only now, starting to be considered older than previously thought.
So Mote it be...  Or put another way, Later.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Pole Shifting, Magnetic Field Reversal, Library at Alexandria, Time Capules and More

This is a facinating subject. More important it's apparently scientifically valid, at least so I've read. But it's not the same as tectonics, or land moving on tectonic plates, which is also one reason for continents, probably most earthquakes, mountains rising, etc. The popular, and accepted knowledge says that the earth is pretty much now as it's always been. At least for the last few million years. It's taught that at one time long, long ago in a place not that far away, there was but a single continent surrounded by water, that over the millions of years to follow slowly split apart and eventually formed the world as we know it.  The accepted theory is that land moved on tectonic plates over millions of years. But, and it's a BIG but, how do we know that's true, or at the very least the whole truth? 
The last pole reversal was about allegedly 700k years ago. At least that's what a website by Ben Tremblay says, and that it can take 5000 years to take place. Several others say the same thing. Not a serious danger it would seem, unless of course we're in the last couple of the 5000 years, that might be a problem.  As it turns out if you believe the Mayans we are in the last couple of years.
But back to the subject, there is a legend that the Himalayas grew overnight, taking Lhasa in Tibet from being a seaside resort to a town high in the highest mountains.  Accepted theory is that the mountains grew over a million years or so from the collision of the Euroasian and the Indoaustralian plates, slowly pushing the Himalayan mountains in stages ever higher and higher. Which is true? Of course which is easier to believe is much easier to answer.  Mountains growing miles in the air overnight??? Please... But that doesn't mean it couldn't be true, right? 
From what I've read a pole shift or magnrtic field shift, has happened many times. It can cause much damage, and change. Mountains grow out of plains, fertile valley's can become deserts or oceans, islands can rise, or sink, civilizations are destroyed to rise again. Where's the proof? 
What we think we know, or believe to be true today, about the past, even the relatively recent past of 4-5000 years ago, let alone before, is more what we think, or want to believe, than fact.  In fact, we know almost nothing about the past farther back than even the dark ages. As a matter of fact, most people know virtually nothing about the past that's more than a few years. This country the USA, has only been around a little over two hundred years, how much of it's history is already lost?
At one time the Library at Alexandria supposedly held thousands of books, to use the contemporary term, that allegedly went thousands of years back into history. Telling what had existed from then back to the flood, now pretty much accepted to be the end of the ice age about ten thousand or so years ago, or perhaps even what had been happening pre-flood.  Maybe, make that surely, there were things that happened during the 4-5000 years we admit and consider history of civilization, that we know nothing about now, but that had been recorded in a book that was in the Library.  Imagine if you could hold in your hands that, or better, recorded histories going back further, 10-15 25-50 thousand years, or more?  If the Roman Catholic fanatics who burned and destroyed the Library had been stopped, think of what we'd know, it makes me sick to think about it.
As it stands, yes we're rediscovering a lot. But most is unprovable. Yes we think there were magnetic reversals, it looks like there were, maybe in the Library there were first hand accounts, newspapers, drawings, pictures...PROOF!!!  Maybe... Maybe... At this point God only knows. 
There are supposed to be time capsules, chambers placed by one or more antidiluvian civilizations possibly, probably,  more advanced that we are, containing then existing machinery, ie cars, airplanes, and other stuff  I can't imagine, probably also books, information, possibly in electronic formats, video, audio, whatever, located around the world.  Kind of like us burying the Library of Congress, and throwing in tapes & DVDs of movies, old radio shows, and the Smithsonian as well as current and past examples of all autos, planes, boats, trucks, cranes, farming equipment, manufacturing machinery, computers w/peripherals, cameras, furniture, and a lot of other stuff I'm not thinking of. Must be a BIIIIIG cave. Finally,  proof, if we ever find them of course. Is anybody even looking?  One is supposed to be under or near the Sphinx, another in central America or South America, another in the Himalayas near Lhasa, another on Atlantis. In a book called The Cave of the Ancients, Lobsang T. Rampa, aka Cyril Hoskins, wrote about visiting the one in Tibet with a group of Lamas when was growing up in a Lamasary in Lhasa. 
Also, speaking of Atlantis, has anybody ever considered that the Americas could be Atlantis? Depending on how you look at it, they're an island in the mid Atlantic. At least they would be to an average ancient Egyptian or Greek. The only real difference is it's further outside the Pillars of Hercules, much further. Something to think about though...
Anyway, it seems reasonable that these time capsules, or caves of the ancients, would also contain period geological information, on earthquakes, field reversals, mountains growing overnight, comets, end of the world floods, or pending floods/loong rain storms, melting glacers, prehistoric global warming or cooling, together with the more mundane, storms, floods, etc. that would answer a lot of questions. A LOT of questions. Am I the only one curious? I doubt it, but it seems like it. How hard could they be to find?  I ask again, is anybody even looking? 

Lee Murray

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Moving back to Southern Calif. - How Stupid is That? Earthquakes, Unemployment, High Cost of Living, Crowded Freeways, Too Many People, On and On...

And don't forget that 2012 has replaced the "big one" (which is still out there and probably more likely), as the reason for sliding into the ocean and the new beach to be miles inland any second. When you come right down to it, and friends have pointed it out, it probably is stupid to move back. I mean you've got Las Vegas, Phoenix, and maybe some others that give essentially the same climate, the same benefits more or less, and at the same time fewer of the negatives, as well as being far from sliding into the ocean...yes, I'm kidding. 
But the truth is I still, after being away for almost twenty years, think of Fullerton as my hometown. Yes there were things I didn't like about living in Calif., heat mostly, but overall it was better, based on memory of being a kid in NY, so in theory, than living anywhere else. Now I can say from recent experience with NY winters, NY humidity, mud, fly's, bugs in general, hitting deer, salty winterroads, slippery winter roads, winter again in general, etc. that it is in fact better.  Yes, Fullerton is my real hometown, not Oxford NY where I was born and grew up until we moved after the eighth grade, not Earlville NY where I've lived since '92, Fullerton, where I lived from the ninth grade, to when I moved here in '92. Just once more, Fullerton...
There are things here in NY that are keeping or trying to keep me here. The history all around us, the people are great, the scenery, the old things, and it goes without saying I'll miss family when I leave, but based on the example of my friend Bill, driving back to visit is just a matter of a few days, or flying is a few hours if you don't mind being treated like a potential terrorist.  I do have to admit that I flew to Las Vegas, and back from Ontario, CA in '03 and found the experience relatively easy and painless. Completely unlike the horror stories then. So maybe it's not so bad now.
I tell my friends out there that one big difference is that out there something gets to be 20-30-50 years old, it gets torn down and rebuilt or turned into a parking lot. Back here you can literally drive down Rte 12 between Rte 20 and here for instance, or in the Adirondacs, or any small road really, and get a real feel what it was like in the 17-1800's, but maybe that's just me. The house we live in was built in 1824, as I remember. Yes, it's dark, yes it's drafty and cold, yes it costs a fortune to heat, yes it's small, and crowded, yes it constantly needs work, but it's almost two hundred years old, it has lived through history, through many generations of owners, it is history.  When we did the roof a couple years ago, the first layer, of the five on it, was made of cedar shake. It was the original roof, installed almost 200 years ago. Amazing...
Also I have to stay, or feel I should stay until we get my mother and aunt moved and settled where they'll be happier and taken care of.  I know I'll feel guilty if I don't, everybody says they won't move until I do, and if I'm going to move why take half measures, but I'll still feel bad like I'm letting them down.
Of course another thing that is a concern, is getting back out there and at my age, not that old really, just seems that way, not finding a job, ending up worse off than I am. I already went broke once in Calif, that's how I ended up in NY, and don't want to repeat that experience, thank you.  It took a few years here to land a good deal, making good money, then it peaked, and has slid downhill, but maybe we only get one good deal, and I've had mine... Of course one good thing is that if I do end up living in a box, cadging meals, at least it'll be warmer. Comparatively, a 30 or 40 degree winter night has got to be better than 0, 10 below, or like it was for almost a month in 2004 or '05  35 below. That's cold...
Well that's it for now I guess

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Daydreaming or Living a Different Life???

I remember when I was in the fifth grade. It was in Oxford, NY where I grew up, at least through the 8th grade, after that we moved. My teacher was Mrs. Payne. At the time, if you'd asked, and I'd answered honestly, I'd have said she was a tough old bird, or something less flattering. She was very demanding, very demanding, always telling me that I needed to buckle down and start to live up to my potential. Also the only one that used the French pronuciation, saying my name, putting the accent on second syllable. Looking back a very special lady, who I didn't appreciate at the time.
I had a problem spelling the word mathematics. After the normal techniques failed, she discovered I had a weakness for Heath candy bars. So after that if I spelled it correctly she always gave me a Heath candy bar. Somehow after that I rarely misspelled mathematics.
I remember I sat in the middlle of the first row, right in front of her desk. She'd be at the blackboard teaching, lecturing and writing on the board.  I can't count the times I'd suddenly be in another world, another place, another time. I might be myself, or someone else. I don't remember much it was 45 or 50 years ago after all. The thing was I'd suddenly start, almost jump, awake. I'd realize I'd been dozing, or daydreaming. Guilty, I'd look around, nobody seemed to have noticed. Nobody...amazing. I'd see Mrs. Payne talking, she didn't seem to have noticed either. It was double amazing, because it seemed to me that hours had passed, weeks even. But then I'd glance up at the big clock over the door, and the truth was it hadn't been more than a few second's possibly a couple of minutes, it seemed to have been a long time in my head, days, weeks, months, but only seconds, at most minutes, in real life, by the clock. Even more, that nobody had noticed.
It illustrates that time is deceptive, an illusion.  I still vividly remember the feeling, that I had been living a different life, then was snatched out of it when I started awake, even so long ago.
Too, even now, back living so close to Oxford again, I often think about Mrs. Payne and wonder, she was one of my favorite teachers, one of the couple I even remember.

Lee Murray

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Back in time - The Magnificent Ambersons

Watching a few minutes of the movie "The Magnicent Ambersons" yesterday, again a trip back in time. You could say back to the forties at least when the movie was made, see Joseph Cotten and the rest when they were young, and alive actually, or further back, to the time of the story.
The scene I'm referring to they were out in a Brass Era Motorcar, don't know the make, in the movie it was supposed to be a Morgan, I believe. It was so real it was astounding. The car, new in the movie, was so old it had steel  wheels, in fact the car was basically a carriage.  An open car, they were using lap robes and winter clothes to stay warm, but I felt the cold just watching. They were stuck in the snow, steel rim wheels not only don't give much of a ride, they apparently don't give any traction in the snow. One of the women was talking about her father saying he was soon going to have wheels with rubber tires filled with air. "Filled with air," another exclaims, "what keeps them from exploding?"  Finally one of the men pushes the car until it finally gets a grip in the snow and takes off, as he jumps aboard the back.
A perfect example of movies being a window into the past.