The Necessity for Paradise on Earth By John Michell   Obsessed by artificial theories and prejudices, the civilized mind censors the plain evidence of the sensed and falls prey to delusions.  To the primeval eye, and to that of the true mystic and clear-sighted philosopher, nothing is more apparent than that we inhabit an organic universe and that out parent earth is a divine, living creature.   Only the deepest enchantment could hide from us that fact, and we are indeed under enchantment.  Fascinated by the miracles of modern technology, and thus made receptive to the single-visioned, materialistic world-view of its promoters, we have forced ourselves into a wilderness of bizarre doctrines.  Beliefs which in any other age would seem almost incredible are freely accepted: that the earth is an inert lump of matter, that out relationship to it is merely utilitarian, even that we might find a paradise outside it in space colonies.  Such monstrous aberrations of thought are symptoms of the enchantment which blinds us to reality.   Faced with the obvious fact that the earth is our natural paradise, yet conditioned by education to reject such a concept, we become uneasy and turn away from the real thing to contemplate it as second hand through art and photography.  These are mere compensation for normal experience, but they serve a valuable purpose as icons, images of the sacred.  Through them we are led to remember something precious, something which is now threatened.  In times of supreme crisis, as when a person is drowning, there is said to come a moment of utter clarity, when life’s true values are suddenly revealed.  So it is today as earthly life hovers on the rim of extinction.  To avert catastrophe only one course is possible: to restore the traditional world-view, to de- and re-condition the mind and eye, to recapture the primeval vision of a living earth in whose spirit we also partake.  This task is not for politicians, but for artists, philosophers and their like: to work through vision to invoke a new, ideal image of terrestrial paradise. more beautiful wisdom

some rumi for your day.. A man was breaking up the soil, when another man came by, “Why are you ruining this land?”  “Don’t be a fool! Nothing can grow until the ground is turned over and crumbled.  There can be no roses and no orchard without first this that looks devastating.  You must lance an ulcer to heal it. You must tear down parts of an old building to restore it, and so it is with a sensual life that has no spirit in it.  To change, A person must face the dragon of his appetites with another dragon, the life-energy of the soul.”  When that’s not strong, the world seems to be full of people who have your own fears and wantings.  As one thinks the room is spinning when he’s whirling around.  When your love contracts in anger, the atmosphere itself feels threatening.  But when you’re expansive, no matter what the weather, you’re in an open, windy field with friends.  Many people travel to Syria and Iraq and meet only hypocrites. Others go all the way to INdia and see just merchants buying and sellling. Others go to Tukestan and CHina and fins those countries filled with sneak-theives and cheats. We always see the qualities that are living in us.  A cow may walk from one side of the amazing city of Baghdad to the other and notice only a watermelon rind and a tuft of hay that fell off a wagon.  Don’t keep repeatedly doing what your animal-soul wants to do.   That is like deciding to be a strip of meat nailed and drying on a board in the sun.  Your spirit needs to follow the changes happening in the spacious place it knows about.  There, the scene is always new, A clairvoyant river of picturing, More beautiful than any on earth.  This is where the Sufis wash. Purify your eyes and see the pure world. Your life will fill with radiant forms. It’s a question of cleaning Then developing Spiritual senses! See beyond Phenomena -Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks) more beautiful wisdom