Category Archives: Philosophy

Transforming Into A New You

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Because writing on the wall can be some kind of an affirmation… and if we write our affirmations large enough to believe that they are no longer just affirmations but a standard, then our new standard will raise the bar for us… and suddenly we find our self between A and B… and who knows what B has to offer, but it sure does offer differently than what A had to offer. And maybe if we were comfortable enough in A, why do we leave it? But this is exactly where we find our differences. Human beings are born different. Am different from my own sister and my brother, how can I not be different from you? And wanting to be like you will never be the way to try and be who I can be. And I can be great. Greater than me wanting to be like you. Greater than me wanting to stay in A. And ‘me’ greater than the great ‘me’ I would ever imagine. And the secret here is…. letting the process lead you to transform to great, and being open to what yet comes after great… the transformation is our most difficult challenge. But if we learn to have this under control as well, then we must know that we have succeeded in making our selves feel happy in any state we are put in. Content. Accepting. Open. Transformative. And Trusting the Unknown. 💛 Be you, completely who you are, the strange you, the fun you, the high you and the low. Be all of you, it is what makes you who you are. And it is what will make you great.

A book of faith…

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I was so happy to see the Quran displayed for people to look through at The Sheikh Mohammed Center for Cultural Understanding, not because it is the Quran per say but because of the fact that I believe religions in general have been misunderstood. We make of them what we want, we look at them from different perspectives, and rigidity in such is what brings much complications. But how the Quran were displayed was a welcoming way to retell us what it really is; a book of faith, that its goal is not to divide but to unite, is not to differentiate and separate but to guide us to love and accept. Just because I am Muslim and I choose to read the Quran, it does not make me any less of a Christian or a Buddhist. They all call for one God and for one Love. If I choose to go with one it should not mean I have abandoned the other, I instead chose to respect them all and accept them all. I am not deviant if I choose to read the Bible or visit the Synagogue. I believe they are all books of faiths and homes to connect with the higher power. All temples that are respected and that we feel we can spiritually connect with should not be or seen otherwise. Or thats just me. But thats how I feel when I see books that call for faith. I see love. And when we try to facilitate them to encourage us to love, then they suddenly shine upon the world.

We choose to use the language that we want people to understand

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Book Review.

“Culture is interpretation. Facts are made, and the facts we interpret are made and remade. They cannot be collected as if they were rocks, picked up and put into cartons and shipped home to be analyzed in the laboratory.” Refelections on Fieldwork in Morocco by Paul Rabinow was my book choice for February.

It is a great book for people who wish to get a little deeper insight on anthropology and the work anthropologists can do. It is also insightful to how interpretations can take place between different cultures, how perspectives and situations matter, where our eyes are set to be seen from and how the person seen chooses to present his subjects. It is quiet mind moving, and gets us thinking about the way we view new cultures when we first get introduced to them, and since today we live in a cosmopolitan world through the internet if not through the cities we live in, the way we perceive new cultures lies on the hands of both the viewer and the viewed. And I personally think, it is becoming more important today, to open up the spaces between our understanding to the tool of communication.

Bourdieu in his afterword in Reflection on Fieldwork in Morocco said, “But, as is usual with these matters involving much more cognitive understanding, we must not believe too quickly in our own comprehension.’ And I believe this does not only go to Anthropologists per se, maybe Anthropologists should just be more aware of their comprehension since they tend to later communicate their comprehension of their study, but at least we need to highlight to ourselves and to others, that our comprehension is according to the situation we were in, and different comprehension is always possible.

Bourdieu also compares our communication relationship with what Jean Piaget once said, “it is not so much that children don’t know how to talk: they try out many languages until they find the one their parents can understand”, and this opens up a wide spectrum to our reflection on what we encounter, for truly, I for one, would communicate differently depending on the person who is of my opposite. How I predict their level of understanding of my world will affect my choice to how I wish to communicate it to them.

I forgot to title this

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As if I have the space or time or air to think about enrolling into anything, yet every time I read, sense or think, I am seeking to enroll in something. I am not quiet sure what has happened to me after my MA year of submission. I feel like I have been slapped into a coma and I can not manage to find a way out of it. I keep saying I have a priority but yet so much of my time is going off from it, and yet at the very same time, I am in search of something, I am absolutely unfamiliar with. Deep down, there is a sound, that tells me it is coming after me, and I will one way or another, find the crossing road with it, but for now keep going, keep seeking. Seeking for what? I am so unfamiliar with it, that every time I see the word enroll, I feel like it might be it, honestly I am loosing it, I barely have the time to blog, and if you ask me what am I so busy with, I have a hard time putting my words together to give you an accurate answer.

Figuring out my shit. Which I have been trying to figure out for God knows how long, but today it is a different kind of figure out, and as much as I am obsessed to enrolling into something new, the same much I am terrified by the idea of having to yet accomplish one more thing. I no longer want to accomplish anything, I now want to sustain. I want to focus, I want to stablize; my senses, my ground, my movement, my hand, literally, I want stability. Maybe, I might be able to say, that this is the first time in my life, that I search for longterm stability. I want to be stable, to stand up tall, sharp, certain, I want to be forever smiling, to feel advanced, satisfied, in the sense of acceptance, I want to dig down and not up, I want to feel rooted, building layers of wonders within the same wonder. An approach to internal being, like the rhizomatic roots of the grandest tree, so huge in its shape, in its weight, but actually I don’t want to care how it looks over the ground, I want with what it looks under the ground, it is so rooted, inside, so deep, in different shapes, in multiple ways, it is all so connected to the soil, to many soil, it looks like a Godfather, it is protection, knowledge, it is security, it is warmth, approval, it is infinite presence. Yes, I want to work my way down, not up, and I do not mean by down, down under, but down, down genuine, down real, down worthy. I do not care who sees it or who understands it, what I care about is the core of it, the truth of it, the clarity of it, the base of it, the light on it, it is the root self, the true self, the one self, the only self. This is where I am today in my life, where are you?

Enroll budged me into this piece.

Tree, spiritual, strength, creative

Just being Anthropologically Tangled

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I started loosing my mind, but it is that sense of loosing that you know and you have experienced before, it is that moment when your brains are vomiting out ideas like a volcano explosion, I am certainly uncertain about how good or bad that is to say… Ideas, can they ever be bad? Pressuring, time consumption, possibility, vulnerability behind intentions, have I really come up with this idea for the sake of the before and after ideas, or is it a really good idea. You leave it, sleeping in your notes on your phone, or you stick it on a post it in front of your every day wall, or you scratch it down in one of your note books, I tried several times to organize that habit of mine that includes notes scattered everywhere, I have even started this blog just because of that, I think I have it written somewhere in my introduction or past introduction identifying the reason behind starting a blog: “to have one place for all my stars in my sky”. Sky, but there is a sky everywhere, isn’t there. I mean you go to Africa and there you have a sky, the same sky that you see in South East Asia, and then you have stars, but they are not always the very same stars, and this is my life with my notes, only a little overwhelming when I come to think about adding one more. But I add it, just in case you never know, one day, some day I might need it or find it or get back on it, does this happen to you at all? And this again goes back to my reason behind choosing to get into Anthropology, I just want to study people, my ideas are around understanding people, understanding situations, knowing the “unclear” a better word chosen to “unknown”, I just want to study things that happen that we can not utter in words, and so there is a complication in verbalizing, and so I suddenly am attracted to them like gravity calling me to make meaning of things.

Just a note on this post: I have been readings and thinking non stop about anthropological approach to anthropological topics for the past 24 hours “Dissertation Topic Matters”, maybe it will make better sense to my explicit post.

Added to the daily prompt on: Vanish

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Opposites can Attract

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A photograph of a Church built-in 1889 next to a Mosque built-in 1824 in Tripoli, Lebanon.

We have been segregated and divided from one another, when we were actually made for each other. We have been made opposites when we are nothing but truly very similar. We have the perception of Opposition built into each one of us and we have interpreted our spiritual beliefs into differences. Once we know we have different religions we automatically check the different box and mark ourselves different from one another. And why is that? because we pray in a different temples, we pray in a different form, or because we might dress differently, and because we might eat and drink differently? But did we forget to look at our similarities, that seem to be much bigger than our opposites? Our similarity in believing in a bigger meaning to our existence, our similarity in believing in the existence of the Divine God (whichever you wish to Call It), our similarity in the stories recited to us, our similarity in our values, our similarity in the use of our temples, our similarity in practicing a ritual to connect us to spirituality, our similarity in giving to our community, our similarity in our pure existence. Our temples have been built one next to the another since centuries ago, people lived together in harmony, people still live in harmony, we still share the same food on the table, we celebrate and congratulate one another, we seek peace and love upon our lives and upon each other. It does not matter if there is a minority out there who believe we are opposites, who dislike our opposites, as long as we no longer do see it as a fraction, but instead we see our opposites as our attraction; the beauty in our diversity, the beauty of our natural differences, being attracted to love one another for our differences, the true beauty of accepting and loving our differences, to look into our differences as a possible continuation of our own misinterpretation. We live with opposites, our lives are incomplete without opposites, puzzles only fit when opposite. Opposites are beautiful.

In response to the Opposites Photo Challenge by wordpress.- Read more about Tripoli, Lebanon. 
Mosque, Church, Opposites, temple

Spiritual Writings & Leopards

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Ramadan’s Lesson Number One: 

We never know what we are looking at, until we look deeper.

And we can only look deeper when we will and are welcomed to look deeper.

The door is opened, might be slightly opened, or even when it is locked and closed, it still is a view to look into and understand what it really is we are looking at.

First impressions never last, and they can mean something but are never accurate. We miss, most of the time.

But then, we get closer and closer to the true meaning of the picture we are looking into.

It can appear so dark, but once inside, it is so light and peaceful, and it can appear so light and once inside it is the darkest place on earth.

Nonetheless, we can never know just by looking at the cover.

The cover is a form. And our eyes can only have better first impression judgments when one’s vision is pure, and clean.

Other than that, our vision is blurred, mischievous, and malicious.

It is not a vision to count on, until it has been washed out from all vanity and desires. It must be like water, crystal clear.

Stereotypes are conducts of blurred vision. It is a cover that has been poorly interpreted over and over again. Most people tend to be followers, and so they follow the false meaning of the appearance.

Versus in the Quran are all forms, they can be easily misunderstood and misinterpreted over and over again, they can give you a clue to what they might mean, but they are rarely understood within full meaning. The meaning of each verse has a deep story within, and only those who attain high spiritual connection can find it is easy to find true meaning behind each verse.

Life is also a form. It is a misinterpretation. Most things are poorly visible. Most things are apparent more than true wisdom, like flares, they can be easily put off or put aside. Most things in life are easily misunderstood. Because to meaning, it is more than what we just look at, meanings are mostly always hiding inside and behind, only those who are well experienced, and well explored, those who truly understand that behind each one of us, there is something a little something more than what we just put on and walk around with.

So listen more than look, for appearances are only appearances, what truly matters is what lies within.

Love at First Sight

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No filter… Just like the transformation of your heart… All you got to do is sit and watch it take transformation, let it take its full shape, lightness, softness, let it become flawless, clean, crystal clear, transparent, let it glow, be serenely powerful, let your heart be arousing, beaming, radiant and very magical. It is just like “love at first sight” you know it as soon as you see it, you look into it and you only see your better self through it. 

It is just like your taste buds, you can tell by the very first drip of it, the sweetness & sourness of it. And here I am just watching one of the most beautiful sunsets that transformed a sun’s reflection into the most sheer candle light. 

It was a dusty horizon and because of that it managed to be miraculous. Dead Sea 

  

An inspiring short story on Wisdom

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One upon a time, there was an anthropologist who discovered a lost tribe living far from civilization. The people of this tribe were friendly and kind and seemed very wise. In spite of the fact that the man’s inner confusion and unhappiness was disturbing to their harmony, they accepted and made him feel welcome.

He befriended one of the inhabitants of a small village. One day this friend took him to the top of a high cliff overlooking a fast-moving and tumultuous river with a small island in the middle of it. There was a calm, mysterious beauty about the island, but it seemed impossible to reach. Dangerous currents and whirlpools swirled around the island, and there was no bridge from either shore. The water looked too dangerous even for boats. The man gazed for a long time at the island and was curiously moved; he felt that it was his destiny to visit this island.

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After a time, another man climbed down the cliff over a barely visible path and stood quietly on the edge of the shore. Eventually a rainbow appeared and seemed to make a beautiful bridge from the shore to the island. The anthropologist was amazed when the man on the shore put his foot on the rainbow and crossed over to the island!

“How did he do that?” he asked his friend. “It is very simple. You just need to know your color. Put your feet exactly on that color, and you will be able to cross over.” The anthropologist was very excited because he thought he had found the answer to fulfilling his destiny and visiting the island. He said to his friend, “You are a very wise man and surely you can tell me: what is my color?” His friend said that that was not possible. “The color is inside you, and only you can discover it. However, I can help you to find the way.”

The anthropologist was impatient and kept asking “How? What must I do?” His friend explained that he must study, read, and meditate and that he would bring him to other wise people who could guide him, but he said, “Only you can find your color.”

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And so the anthropologist worked with the wise people of the village, studied and meditated, and after many, many months, he felt he was ready to try to reach the island. With his friend, they climbed down the cliff path to the edge of the shore, looked across to the special, magical island, and waited patiently. Soon a rainbow appeared and made a bridge to the island. He put his foot on the color that he recognized as his and, yes, he crossed the river on that rainbow to the island of his destiny. He spent many days exploring the island, finding it full of marvelous colors, the colors of all the wise people who have visited before him. He finally understood that he had to leave his color here on the island, that very special and personal color it took him so long to find. But when he left, he knew that he would take away with him a little bit of the color of each wise person who had come before him.

Now he is truly finding harmony for himself and learning what wisdom is.

Adapted from a story by Patrick Condamin

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From my Readings – On Embracing What’s Important, the Real Joy of Living

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We spend so much time on unimportant things – things with no ultimate meaning – yet for reasons no one seems to fully understand, such nonessential stand at the center of our worldly existence. They have no connection to our souls whatsoever, yet they have attached themselves to our material functioning. Like spiritual parasites, these things eat away our life force and deny us our joy. The only way to rid ourselves of their pernicious effects is to walk away… not from things that need to get done, but from thoughts that need to die.

Crossing the bridge to a better world begins with crossing a bridge inside our minds, from the addictive mental patterns of fear and separation, to enlightened perceptions of unity and love. We’re in the habit of thinking fearfully, and it takes spiritual discipline to turn that around in a world where love is more suspect than fear. To achieve a miraculous experience of life, we must embrace a more spiritual perspective. Otherwise, we will leave this earth one day without ever having known the real joy of living.

From the book a Year of Miracles – Marianne Williamson

24 hours in Zurich Switzerland